He had a day off, and as soon as the meeting finished and I checked my phone I saw a text asking me to meet him at a bar nearby. The images I’d avoided since the miscarriage resurfaced: our guest room decorated all in white as a nursery, Ryke cradling our child in his large arms, me giving a smiling infant a bath. I drove to the bar as fast as my car would allow, groaning loudly when I couldn’t find a decent parking place.
I threw the car into park a block from the bar and ran, the rush of cool air into my lungs making me even more invigorated. When I walked into the bar, I was breathless. Ryke, Luke and two other players from their team sat at a table near the bar, and I rushed to it.
Two more than willing women stood next to the table, one of them looking at my husband and biting her lower lip. I blew past them into Ryke.
“Hey, baby,” he said, grinning.
“I’m so happy to see you.” I couldn’t stop smiling. His expression softened; he hadn’t seen me so happy in a while.
“Back at ya.” He pulled me into his lap in one quick motion and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Did you run here?”
I nodded and looked around. The lip biter had turned to Luke, and we had relative privacy. I leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“Can we adopt a baby? Please?”
He pulled back and met my eyes. “Now?”
I nodded, apprehension hitting for the first time. I’d been so up and down emotionally lately that he might not think I was in any condition to make such a huge decision.
“Yeah. Absolutely,” he said.
“Really?” My heart hammered with excitement.
He grinned and brushed the hair away from my face. “I’m all in if you are.”
I swung a leg over his lap so I was straddling him and pressed my chest against his, hugging him with all my strength. “Thank you,” I said in his ear. “I love you.”
His arms covered my entire back as he held me to him. I could hardly stand my excitement. Whether or not it was biologically ours, I knew I’d be hopelessly in love with our baby the moment I saw it. Now I just had to figure out how to make it happen.
Chapter 5
Practice was over, and now we were just having fun. We were launching pucks rapid-fire at our goalie Matt Tomlin, giving him a hell of a workout. He dove, reached, slid and did anything else in his power to keep the pucks from shooting past him. But with so many coming, it was a losing battle.
“Horseshit!” Vic yelled when Tomlin deflected his shot with the tip of his skate. We made bets on shit like this, and none of us liked to lose. Luke nailed a puck into the goalie’s face mask that knocked him off course for a couple seconds, allowing the rest of us to shoot pucks straight into the net.
“Fuck you,” Tomlin muttered, raising a hand and pulling off his mask. Sweat dripped off his chin and his cheeks were dark red with exertion. He skated toward the ledge of the rink wall, where the last water bottle sat waiting to be claimed. Steve Mayweather flew past it right before Tomlin could get there and tipped it to his mouth. He squirted the rest of the water on his sweat-soaked hair and tossed the empty bottle aside.
“Asshole,” Tomlin said, shaking his head.
“Least I don’t fuck minors,” Mayweather mumbled in a low voice.
“She was 19! Quit saying that, you prick. You’re just jealous.”
“Jealous? Have you seen my wife? Holly used to be a model.”
I fucking hated Mayweather’s cocky attitude. We all did. “Yeah, for Juggs, maybe,” I said.
Mayweather’s face was incredulous when he looked at me. “What the fuck?”
I shrugged. “The only thing bigger than her fake tits is her obnoxious mouth. And none of us are jealous of you, man. I appreciate you banging that trash so none of us ever have to.”
He threw down his mask and launched himself at me, just like I’d hoped he would. I’d been simmering over his wife telling everyone about Kate’s miscarriage, just waiting for an opportunity to pound him.
The coaches had left the ice and most of the players had, too. It was just me and Steve, trading punches. I landed one to his gut that made him double over and followed it up with two more to his face.
“You like that? I could kick your lily ass all day,” I growled in his face, shoving him to the ice. I had to give him credit for jumping right back up even though he was outmatched.
One to the jaw and another to the gut left him bent at the waist. I leaned down to speak in his ear.
“Tell that wife of yours if she ever says a word about Kate again, I’ll break your fucking nose. I swear I will.” I shoved a knee up into his nose while pressing on the back of his head, hitting it hard enough to hurt like fuck and draw a lot of blood, but not break.