Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Talia
Two Weeks Later
Suki snort-laughs as she looks inside the box of the gift she just opened. “Oh my gosh. This is amazing.”
The baby shower Mara is hosting for her is so big it’s being held at Harry’s restaurant.
Harry closed it for the day and transformed it into a dreamy space with a “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” theme.
I helped Dex figure out how to attach our fake clouds to the ceiling without ruining it.
Alcohol was involved, but I stopped myself at one drink.
When Suki pulls out a giant gray T-shirt and shows us all what it says, the whole room bursts into laughter. It says “Big Brother,” and it’s for Darling.
The team’s gift to Suki and Carter is thirty thousand dollars in stocks for their baby, a designer stroller, a sweater for the baby with Carter’s name and number, and matching shirts they had made for the girls and Darling.
It won’t be easy to get a good photo of everyone since the girls’ shirts say “Big Sister” on the front and Darling’s wording is on his back, but I have a feeling Suki will figure something out.
She’s the creative maven who hosts parties and chooses milestone gifts for everyone else, so she deserves a lavish shower for her family.
“Need another one?” Lucien asks from next to me, taking my empty glass.
“Sure.”
“Dr Pepper?”
I nod. Lainey has really turned me on to drinking Dr Pepper. Since I started my new job with the team, I’ve been bringing cans of it with me on the team plane, and the attendants told me to stop because it’s their job to make sure we have everything we could want or need when traveling.
That’s a hard thing to adjust to. Being an official staff member of the team means details are taken care of, so I can focus on my job.
It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve had several video meetings with Hunter Beck, the billionaire team captain who’s funding the new program. He’s letting me take the lead, and so far has been willing to fund it at a level that’s a dream come true.
Between my work with the team and creating the new program, I’m spread thin, so I’m staying at Lucien’s instead of my dad’s. I went from thinking I might have to move several states away to being his live-in girlfriend pretty much overnight.
It’s good, though. Really good. We have a routine when we’re home: he makes the coffee and does all the dishes, I order the groceries and do all the laundry. Both of us stay in motion until seven p.m. when we’re home. That’s the cutoff time for any kind of work.
We spend a lot of our evenings alone together, still in that blissful new-relationship cocoon. But we also spend time with our friends, who feel more like family.
Suki opens the next gift, which is a card. She reads it, her eyes widening as she looks up, scanning the faces in the room.
“This is ... wow, I don’t even know what to say,” she says, tears shining in her eyes.
Her eyes lock with Carter’s and he walks over to read the card. His lips part with surprise and he starts scanning the room, too.
“Coach? Are you here?”
“I’m here.”
My dad calls out from the back of the room, and I do a double take when I see the woman at the table next to his. They’re both sitting at tables with one side chairs and the other side a booth, and she’s scooted over so far she’s practically in his lap.
When everyone turns to look, she scoots a few inches away. I exchange a look with Lucien because she looks my fucking age, and she was clearly cozying up to my dad.
Lucien purses his lips and looks away, wanting nothing to do with my questioning look. He’s going to hear about her later, though. Bet.
“Coach is giving us a trip,” Suki says. “An incredibly generous one. Thank you, Noel.”
She sets the card down and gets up, her belly making her a little slower. Making her way through the tables filled with people, she reaches my father, who is standing up by then. Carter follows her.
When she hugs my dad, she’s clearly emotional, and Carter is, too. My heart swells. I would’ve missed things like this if I’d moved. Though I would’ve missed Lucien most of all, being part of my dad’s Crush family is very important to me now.
Here, I’m not the woman whose sister stole her fiancé. I’m not the depressed woman who could hardly get off her couch for months. I’m not the drunken girl from the viral video.
I’m a team trainer. Lucien’s girlfriend. Suki, Mara and Lainey’s friend. The head coach’s daughter. But none of the other things are because I’m his daughter. I have my own place here, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been.
Lucien returns to his seat, hands me my drink, and then leans over and whispers in my ear. I turn to whisper back.
“A week at an Italian villa with a yacht. But don’t repeat that. If they tell people, it’s fine, but we’re not going to.”
He nods, looking impressed, and mutters, “Damn, Coach.”
Angie got a lot of my dad’s money in the divorce, but he still has more than enough.
He invested a lot when he was a player, and those investments have paid off many times over.
He invited me and Lucien on a two-week summer trip to the South of France, and my younger siblings, Chance and Chloe, are also going.
I’ve been on those trips before, and they’re unforgettable. We’ll mostly be on a yacht, hosting parties and going to parties on other yachts. And we’ll also explore on land and do some shopping.
Audra and Kyle weren’t invited, even though I told my dad I didn’t mind if he invited them. He said being trapped on a boat with Kyle and Lucien at the same time isn’t really a vacation for him.
Which, fair. After all the wedding antics, I’m sure one or both of them would end up being thrown overboard at least once.
Dad’s not a Kyle fan, for obvious reasons, but he likes Lucien.
He just doesn’t want to be seen as giving him preferential treatment, so he treats him like all his other players.
Suki is back to opening gifts, and I turn to look at my dad again. The woman is sitting close to him again, laughing. Dad’s lips are quirking with a smile. I furrow my brow with disapproval.
She’s way too young for him. He’s still newly divorced—it hasn’t even been a year yet. But she’s gazing adoringly at him, like she wants him to put a baby in her immediately.
I lean closer to Lucien. “Look at the fetus flirting with my dad.”
“I saw.”
That makes me smile. He refuses to look again, because he doesn’t want me to think he’s gawking at another woman.
“How old do you think she is?”
He gives me a neutral look, keeping his voice soft. “I think we should talk about that later.”
Suki finishes opening all the gifts, and Harry’s servers start to bring out dessert plates.
He made a delicious lunch of cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, smoked salmon sandwiches, and salad.
He’s also serving individual lemon tarts, in keeping with the yellow color scheme, since Suki and Carter decided not to find out their baby’s gender until it’s born.
The tarts even have powdered sugar stars dusted on top. Lucien only has two bites of his before pushing the plate aside.
“It’s amazing,” he says, setting his fork down. “I wasn’t going to have any, but then I saw it and I had to.”
He’s on a no-sugar diet in the home stretch of the hockey season. The team is in a tight race for a playoff spot, so the players have all tightened up their diets and training routines.
I get to be on the team bench during games now, and it’s my favorite part of the job. Melina and I go out on the ice to assess injuries, and we bandage cuts and check injuries for players who are on the bench.
Even though I’m not a player, I feel like part of the game now. A Nashville player came tumbling over the wall onto our bench last week, and even though Silas blocked him from landing right on top of me, a bead of his sweat still splashed onto my arm.
I get to be front and center for the chirping between players now, and I see why Lucien’s teammates sometimes call him Loki. He’s an instigator, throwing opponents off their game as often as he can.
The shower is wrapping up, people starting to leave, when Lainey approaches me.
“Hey, are you free for some shopping sometime? I have to get a swimsuit for our trip and I’d rather do literally anything else. Maybe we could make it fun somehow. Like not shop for swimsuits and go out to eat instead.”
She and Bash are taking a trip to Fiji in the offseason, and she’s pretending she’s excited about it to him, but secretly she’s freaking out about wearing a swimsuit the entire time, her very fair skin getting crisped in the sun, and the possibility that the water there will give her an IBS flare.
“I’d love that,” I say. “I need to buy a couple suits myself for our trip.”
“Sunday?”
“I can’t do it that day. Lucien’s sister and brother-in-law are coming to visit.” I mentally consider my schedule. “What about Wednesday afternoon?”
“I might be working. I’ll check my schedule and send you some options for dates.”
“Perfect.”
Lucien recently told me the full extent of his sister’s battle with cancer.
She’d just found out she was pregnant when she was diagnosed with the same kind of breast cancer that killed their mother.
After many conversations with her husband and medical team, she and her husband made the agonizing decision to end the pregnancy.
I’m excited about meeting her. She’s been cancer-free for eight months. Their visit will just be for the weekend, but we’re going to make the most of it. We have a dinner reservation at Harry’s restaurant Friday night and a home game Saturday night.
Suki hugs me when Lucien and I tell her we’re leaving.
“This was so beautiful,” she says. “Thank you for everything you did.”
“You deserve it. And it was mostly Mara and Harry.”
She stands back and cups my face in her hands. “I haven’t gotten a chance to say welcome to the family. You already felt like part of it, but officially. Carter says you’re a huge asset to the team.”
Before, I would have made that into a quip about having a huge ass. But Lucien has taught me—through endless compliments—not to put myself down anymore.
“Thank you. I love everyone I work with.”
“I’ll need a few weeks after the baby is born, but then the girls and I want to be part of the new thing you’re doing to help the team connect with people who have disabilities. Whatever you need.”
“Really? Because I’m looking for team ambassadors. One of the things we’re doing is giving away seats at every home game to people with disabilities and their caregivers, and I want them to have someone to show them around the arena and make sure they’re taken care of.”
She smiles brightly. “We would love that.”
“Great. Let’s talk more about it at the next foundation meeting.”
Lucien hugs her and says, “Keep that bun in the oven for another few weeks, okay?”
She laughs. “I’m going to try. If you guys make it to the championship, it might get a little dicey.”
Of course, Carter wants to be there for the birth of their child, but it would be hard for the team to lose him during a championship run. Family first, though. Everyone on the team, including my dad, believes in that.
“Are we going home?” Lucien asks as we walk out of the restaurant.
“Yes, it’s going to be an early night for me.”
I love traveling with the team, but it’s exhausting. Flying out in the middle of the night. Getting to hotels before sunrise. And a boyfriend who’s still running on game adrenaline after games and loves to fuck his way to sleepiness.
Not that I’m complaining. I’ve never had so many orgasms, and he always puts me before himself in bed.
“Anything you need me to do before we leave tomorrow?” he asks.
“Will you get me some Sour Patch Kids?”
“Yep. Is that it?”
“Oh crap, I’m going to need tampons.”
“I got you. Just send me a picture of the box.”
We’re leaving early tomorrow for Vancouver—the first game against Kyle’s team since the wedding. I’m not stressed about it, though. The entire internet is talking about this matchup and planning to watch with popcorn, and I’m sure Lucien will make it worth their while.
And even though I don’t care what happens to Kyle anymore, I won’t complain about having a front-row seat while my man beats his ass.