Chapter Ten #2
But as the puck drops and Trey takes his first shift, I can't help wondering what this life would look like.
Hockey season, owner's boxes, jersey and cotton candy with Adeline, little league, ballet and drama school.
Being a part of this tight-knit group of WAGs that Isla has been a part of for so long.
Having Trey and Adeline to come home to every night after a long day.
Something exactly like the man who just laid out an opposing player to protect his teammate, then glanced up at the owner's box like he was checking to make sure I was watching.
The game moves fast, a blur of bodies and flashing skates. But I can't take my eyes off number fourteen. Every time Trey hits the ice, the energy in the owner's box shifts. These people have watched him play dozens of times, but there's something different about him tonight.
"He's showing off," Cammy whispers, nudging me with her elbow.
"What? No, he's not."
But even as I say it, Trey dekes past two defenders like they're standing still, his movements fluid and controlled. The crowd rises to their feet as he breaks away, nothing between him and the goal but sixty feet of ice and a goalie who suddenly looks very nervous.
"Go Uncle Trey!" Adeline screams, pressed against the glass. Blue cotton candy stains mark her fingers where they leave prints on the window.
The shot comes fast—top shelf—and the announcer’s voice cracks with excitement. “Hartley with the bottle rocket!”
The crowd roars as the goalie’s water bottle flips off the top of the net and skitters across the ice.
I’ve heard the term enough times to know what it means, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it happen in a game.
A bottle rocket isn’t just a goal—it’s hockey slang for the kind that hits so clean, so hard, and so perfectly placed that it sends the goalie’s water bottle flying off the net. It’s skill, speed, and just enough flair to make everyone’s jaw drop.
Trey raises his stick, gliding past our glass. His eyes find mine, and for a moment, everything else disappears—the roar of the crowd, the flashing lights, even Adeline jumping up and down beside me. All I can feel is the heat in that look.
"Did you see that?" Adeline tugs on my jersey. "Did you see what he did?"
"I saw." My voice comes out breathier than intended.
The final horn sounds.
Hawkeyes win 4-1.
"Can we wait for him?" Adeline asks as the crowd starts to clear out.
"Of course." I help her gather her things, wondering if I’ll ever be back here again, but that seems unlikely. "He said to wait until after media."
We head down and wait, watching as the players all file in nicely fitted suits, all of them waving to their families as they walk past. The moment Trey walks by us, his eyes sparkle when he sees Adeline waving with her entire body.
And then he looks up at me, the same heat from the owner's box floods my system, and then he’s gone again.
Headed in for interviews that I’m sure he hates, but he has a lot to celebrate tonight. He had a great game.
Finally, as player after player returns out of media and leaves with their family, Trey is the next to emerge.
"Uncle Trey." Adeline launches herself at him. "You were amazing. Did you see me watching? Did you see your jersey? We made them ourselves!"
He catches her easily, swinging her up onto his hip like she weighs nothing. "I saw." His gaze drifts to my matching jersey. I turn around so that he can see Adeline’s rhinestone work on mine too. His eyes linger on his name stretched across my back. "You both look great."
I swear I don't blush, but the look in his eyes says he sees the way those words affect me.
"Ready to go home, squirt?" Trey asks, setting Adeline down.
"We can drop you off if you want to head to Oakley's to celebrate with the team," I say.
"Or you could come home with us and we could have movie night," Adeline says.
"Movie night? This late?" I say back.
He looks at her and then at me. "Actually, a movie night sounds good. How about we stop for ice cream first?"
I don't bother to tell him all the junk food she already ate today and how I'm worried she is going to be sick tonight, because these two are in their own world, and the bonding between them is more important than anything else.
"Yes!" Adeline squeals.
We follow him through the player's exit, but the moment we step outside, camera flashes explode around us.
"Ms. Newport!"
"Over here!"
"Where's Jameson?"
"Are you and Hartley—"
Trey's arm comes around me, pulling me against his side, and he yanks Adeline back onto his hip as he guides us through the crowd quickly. The solid wall of his body shields me from the worst of it, but I catch snippets of questions:
"Is this why you left Jameson?"
"What does the Holiday family think?"
"How long have you two been together?"
Adeline’s arms tighten around Trey’s neck, and I wrap my hand around her leg in front of Trey to try to comfort her in any way that I can. I have no idea how she’s going to react to all of this. The paparazzi can come for me all they want, but they’d better stay away from her.
"Why are they yelling at you?" she asks, voice trembling.
"Because they don't know how to mind their own business," Trey growls, the sound vibrating through his chest where I'm pressed against him.
Hawkeyes' security steps in quickly, forcing the reporters back. But their cameras keep clicking, capturing every moment—Trey's protective stance, Adeline clutching my hand, the way we move as a unit through the chaos.
"Almost there," Trey murmurs, his breath warm against my ear.
We reach his SUV, and he helps Adeline into the back seat before opening my door. The reporters are too far away at this point to get any good photos, but it doesn't change the fact that they were there, taking photos of us.
I close my door, and Trey walks to his side, getting in next.
"Maybe I should just take her home and you can—"
Trey cuts me off. "No, they're not ruining our plans—right, squirt?" he asks Adeline though I can tell he's trying to gauge how affected she is after that. I doubt something like that's ever happened to her before. "And I'm right where I want to be." His voice drops lower, meant just for me.
I look over my shoulder from the front seat as Trey watches her from the review mirror.
She nods. “That was crazy. I’ve never seen them go nuts like that,” she says.
Frankly, neither have I. I’ve never had the press after me, except for the night after Jameson and I got engaged. They all wanted to get a photo of the ring after Jameson and I stepped out of a high-end restaurant.
Optics, as Genevieve would tell me after. No doubt she planted the paparazzi.
"But are you okay?" I ask Adeline once we're moving.
She nods, though her usual bounce is subdued. "I didn't like how they yelled at you."
"Sometimes people forget their manners when they're trying to get a story," I explain, reaching back to squeeze her knee. "But we don't let them stop us from having fun, right?"
"Right." A small smile returns. "Ice cream helps too."
Trey's laugh fills the car. "That's my girl. Always thinking with her stomach."
The convenience store's fluorescent lights buzz overhead as we crowd around the ice cream freezer, debating flavors like it's a matter of national security. None of us is in agreement.
"Look," Trey says, pointing at the rows of pints, "they even have cookie dough in the front. Clearly the superior choice."
"Only because basic people keep buying it," I tease, reaching past him for Rocky Road. The smell of his deodorant and something uniquely him fills my nostrils, and I take in a deeper inhale. "You probably order vanilla lattes too."
He gasps in mock offense. "I'll have you know I take my coffee black. Like my soul."
"Your soul isn't black," Adeline pipes up from where she's pressed against the glass, breath fogging up the door and then she draws a heart shape into it. "It's probably mint chocolate chip colored."
"Betrayed by my own niece," he says, reaching in for a pint of cookie dough.
"Face it, Hartley. You've easily picked the most boring flavor."
"Yeah, well, at least I don't put rocks in my ice cream."
"They're not rocks," I protest. "They're almonds. And marshmallows. And chocolate chunks."
"Sounds like trail mix had an identity crisis."
"Says the man who thinks elevating a boring flavor like vanilla is by adding chunks of tasteless raw cookie dough."
Adeline grabs mint chocolate chip and then heads to the register. Trey pays for it all, and then we're back on the road, heading home.
Adeline talks movie options the entire way to their house.
The minute we step through the door, Trey tells Adeline to change into pajamas first and shower off quickly.
She groans but does as she's told while Trey heads for the kitchen, grabbing spoons.
I head for the couch to get the Disney movie we all agreed to in the car queued up, and then I walk to the downstairs bathroom to grab a hairbrush and a hair tie.
As I walk out, I still hear Trey rifling through the kitchen as if he doesn't know where the utensils are.
"Need help in there?" I call out.
"I think I can handle spoons," he replies, and I can hear the smile in his voice. "Though according to Adeline, I can't be trusted with anything more complicated than cereal."
"She's teasing you. For a guy who's known for shit talking on the ice, you sure take a nine-year-old’s chirping pretty hard."
Before he can respond, Adeline bounds down the stairs in penguin pajamas that I recognize from my first day here and wet hair from the shower. Has it really only been two weeks since my first day? It feels like I've been a part of this family forever.
"Ready!"
“Here. Let’s braid your hair so it doesn’t get tangled tonight,” I call her over and point to the floor in front of me.
She skips over and plops down, grabbing her ice cream and squeezes her shoulders between my thighs as I brush out her hair and give it a quick French braid.
Trey comes in, handing out spoons to all of us.
“Done,” I say as I add the hair tie to the end of her braid.
She feels it and turns around, her eyes wide. “It feels so cool. No one’s ever French braided my hair since mom.”
I instantly worry she’s going to burst into tears, but she doesn’t. It almost seems like nostalgia, and the memory of her mom is more calming than anything.
She wedges herself between Trey and me on the couch as I start the movie.
Ten minutes in, Adeline's head starts to droop.
Twenty minutes in, she's completely out, mint chocolate chip melting in its container.
"I should probably get her to bed," Trey whispers.
I nod, gathering the half-eaten pints while he scoops her up. She doesn't even stir, just burrows into his chest like she belongs there. The sight makes my throat tight.
In the kitchen, I hear his footsteps on the stairs, then the soft click of her door. Every sound is familiar now. I know which step creaks, which cabinet hinges need WD-40, how the dishwasher makes that weird clicking noise when it's almost done.
I'm putting the ice cream away when he returns, filling the kitchen doorway with his presence.
"It's getting late. You can stay here tonight if you want. You can have the bed upstairs," he offers.
Though the offer is tempting, I don't have anything to wear in the morning, and staying here with him under the same roof feels like a bad idea if we're trying not to complicate things more than we already have.
"I should head home. Check on my plants," I say, though we both know that's not the reason. Besides…I don’t have any plants, and if I did, with my work schedule, they’d be dead already.
"Right," he says, understanding in his eyes. "I'll walk you out."
I grab my purse and slip on my shoes before we walk to my car in silence.
He opens my door, and I step around him. "Thank you."
"About tonight…those photographers…" he starts before I slide into the car he bought me. "Is that going to cause problems for you? What they assumed about us? The photos?"
"I don't think so." I fidget with my key fob.
To be honest, I'm not sure. The media has been trying to get information on Jameson's whereabouts and our wedding plans since I ran away.
I just didn't think that the finance world and the sports world would have overlapping media coverage, but I should have considered it.
The Hawkeyes are on the main stage, and so is the Holiday/Newport wedding.
"At least I was wearing his ring like Genevieve wanted.
A bare finger would have caused more problems."
His eyes drop to my left hand, and something dark passes across his features. "Right. The ring."
"Though I was wearing the wrong last name on my back, so we'll have to wait and see what the press decides to do with that."
"I don't think that's true," he says.
"What's not true?"
"That you were wearing the wrong last name." His voice drops lower as he steps closer. "Hartley looks damn good on you. And unlike Holiday… My last name comes with a jersey, season tickets, and free cotton candy."
I smile, my heart thumps against my chest. He's close enough now that I can see the flecks of gold in his green eyes.
"How could a girl pass up an offer like free cotton candy?" I tease.
He steps closer again, his finger brushing a strand behind my ear. His thumb brushes over my jaw line, feather soft. I take a deep swallow, knowing this is the moment Trey kisses me again.
Instead, his touch lingers just long enough to make me ache.
“Careful, Vivi,” he murmurs, a slow, knowing smile tugging at his mouth. “I get my hopes up easily. Don’t tempt me to make that jersey permanent." He lets the words hang there, then adds, low and rough, “But if that ever interests you…you know where to find me.”
Then his gaze drops to the ring again, and he steps back.
My stomach drops, disappointment instant.
He stares into my eyes, but we both know I have no control over this any more than I can control when Jameson is coming back or how the board decides to handle the CEO position.
I suck in my lower lip and glance away for a moment, not wanting to show the hurt in my eyes, because it's not fair to him.
"Goodnight, Trey," I say.
"Goodnight, Vivi. Drive safe."
Then he closes my door, and I watch in my rearview mirror as he stands in the driveway, his hands buried in his front pockets, his eyes watching me go until my taillights disappear around the corner.