Chapter 24 Minns
twenty-four
Minns
The flight back to San Diego had dragged.
I’d been loopy from the painkillers the doctor insisted I take.
He’d said it would be six hours of agony if I didn’t.
I should have gone with my gut and not taken anything.
I’d had broken ribs before. Games could be brutal, and injuries happened.
I’d dealt with those using icepacks and a shot or two of whiskey.
We’d laid low since getting home, and the rest had done me a world of good.
I looked at my cell phone on the coffee table and thought about the irate message Coach had left in response to my text message.
He was pissed that I missed the games and ordered me into his office the moment they flew in after the San Francisco trip.
I was expecting a fine for missing the games, but I’d wear it without argument.
I should have been there for the team, and my injuries meant I would miss a few more weeks yet.
“When should we leave for the training rink?” Kam asked as Locke ran his fingers through my hair, gently massaging my scalp.
We were watching the press wrap-up while the journalists waited for the team reps to come into the interview room.
I wasn’t driving yet, and I needed to see the team physio before I did any kind of exercise, so I was stuck being a couch potato until then.
It was no hardship tonight—Locke had sat with me for the entire game, caressing me gently until I was a puddle of relaxed goo under his fingertips.
“The game’s just finished,” Locke supplied. “It’ll be late when they get back.”
“Yeah, at least a few hours.”
“Your Coach seriously wants you to meet him there tonight?” Locke asked, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, the nerves sitting like lead in my gut. I’d asked Keeley Fisher, the Seals’ PR manager, to be there too. At least if any negative press came of this clusterfuck, she’d have a heads-up.
“I can take you if you’d like,” Locke offered.
Kam’s cell phone vibrated, and she checked the message. “Oh my God,” she murmured, excitement permeating her voice. “We’re going to the hospital, not the rink.”
“Huh?” I asked, unsure I’d heard her correctly. I shifted, suddenly preoccupied by the television. Gauthier had jogged into the room, his tie crooked and the buttons on his shirt not lined up properly.
He bent over, leaning close to the microphone so everyone could hear him. “Sorry folks, we won’t be answering questions tonight. My wife is in labor, and I’m needed at home for my baby’s birth.”
I choked out a laugh and gripped my ribs. They were already healing, but it still hurt to laugh and cough as well as twist. Gauthier’s statement had shocked the reporters silent for a moment, but he’d also given them a scoop, and I watched as an excited ripple spread through those present.
“I want to be there for Carina in case Jacques doesn’t get back in time,” Kam stated. “She’s got Rusty and Travis, and Cara, too, but I need to be there.”
“Should I take Chris, and you go to the hospital?” Locke asked.
“Nah, Coach will order the bus driver to go straight to the hospital,” I said.
He was a family man. There was no way he’d risk Gauthier missing his baby’s birth if he could just redirect the bus to the hospital, and not one of the guys on the team would have a problem with it, road trip or not. “We can all go to the hospital.”
Locke hesitated. “I think I should probably stay here. Tonight isn’t about me. I don’t want to take any attention away from Gauthier’s family.”
I sat up slowly and dragged his lips to mine. “As long as you stay here while we’re gone so we can come home to you.”
“I will.” He smiled and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
We went straight to the hospital and headed to the maternity waiting room. Gauthier made it back—barely—and the whole team crashed out in the waiting room while he rushed inside the delivery room.
I stood out like a sore thumb, but I somehow managed to sink into the background.
Everyone was too damn exhausted after a few days on the road and back-to-back games in the thick of the season that they hadn’t been paying Kam and me much attention.
I leaned against the wall, my hoodie up over my face, and tried to delay the inevitable twenty questions I knew would follow if they saw my black eye.
Coach spotted us and nodded in our direction.
I needed to speak with him first, and then I’d tell the boys on the team, but now wasn’t the time or the place.
Travis and Rusty walked out into the waiting room only a few minutes after Gauthier and the team arrived, and Cara rushed over to them. “How’s Mum?”
Rusty said something I couldn’t make out, and Cara squealed, then threw herself at them, hugging them tight and whispering something back.
When she let them go, Travis announced, “Jacques and Carina had a baby girl a couple of minutes ago. He made it just in time, so thank you for rushing home. Peanut is healthy and is just beautiful.”
Kam laughed happily, cheers rose up, and the guys congratulated them with slaps on the back and fist bumps. I held back on the sidelines, not willing to get into the fray and Kam slipped her hand into mine, squeezing it gently. She was ecstatic for her friend, as was I.
“Who won?” Rusty asked when the noise level died down, and Travis snorted out a laugh.
“We did,” Hux scoffed.
Rusty’s question was ridiculous. The Seals had dominated on the ice.
“Carina going into labor lit a fire under Gauthier’s ass. I’ve never seen him skate faster. He got the W, then pushed us to get on the plane as quickly as we could.”
Coach added, “His post-game interview consisted of Gauthier walking in and announcing he couldn’t answer questions because his wife was in labor and that he needed to get home for his baby’s birth.”
I huffed out a quiet laugh. Coach wasn’t kidding. That was exactly what he’d done. There were news crews pulling up when we’d arrived, and we’d had to enter the hospital from the back entrance.
“All right, y’all,” Coach said. “Let’s leave these good people in peace.” He shook Travis’s and Rusty’s hands and nodded. “Pass on my congratulations to Gauthier.”
“Thanks, sir,” Travis answered. “We will.”
“Coach, I’ll stay,” Hux said. “Cara will want to see her mom before we go.”
“Y’all be safe,” he responded. He turned to me and added, “My office, first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered with a nod, studiously ignoring the glances my teammates were casting my way as they filed out after him.
Cara, Monroe, and Hux were joking with Rusty and Travis. When there was a break in the conversation, Rusty said, “Carina’s about to move to her room. We can go and wait there if you like.”
We followed them up the corridor, Kam and I hanging back far enough that she looped her arm though mine and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just don’t want this to be about us.”
She squeezed my arm, and we walked in to see Carina sitting on the bed, holding a sleeping baby while Jacques was drying her hair with a towel.
Travis was looking at the baby with a love that squeezed my heart so tight, it was difficult to breathe.
Had my parents loved me like that once? Travis was gazing at her with so much unconditional and heartfelt love that it was as if the baby had hung the moon and he had laid his heart at her adorable little feet.
Kamirah handed Jacques the gift basket of every different-colored pastel terrycloth jumpsuit that we’d been able to find.
“Different-sized rompers all the way to fitting a two-year-old,” she explained. “I’ll take it home with me so you don’t have to carry it around, and I’ll bring it over with the other gifts I have once you’re settled in at home.”
Without missing a beat, she then prompted, “Now let me see this little bundle of joy.” Kam sat down on the edge of the bed and peered over the swaddling to get a look at the baby. “She’s so precious,” she breathed.
While everyone was focused on Kamirah, Carina, and the baby, I shifted to the corner of the room and leaned against the wall.
I moved slowly, a mixture of wanting to be quiet and trying to avoid the searing pain if I twisted the wrong way.
I’d come off the painkillers already—I hated taking them—but without them, I did have to be more careful.
It was probably a good thing for my healing anyway.
They were all oohing and aahing over the baby, talking as if the baby daddy could be any three of the men in front of me.
Kamirah shifted away and gestured for Cara to get closer.
While Cara was climbing onto the bed, I curled into Kam, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind and leaning my cheek against her hair.
Cara was holding a battered old teddy bear, one that looked like she’d recovered it from the trash. Its pale green-and-grey fur was patchy, rubbed down to bare material in a few places. There were rough stitch marks in faded multicolored wool along a few joins, and it was missing a glass eye too.
When Cara held it up, she said, “I bought Rupert.”
Carina choked out a laugh and brought the teddy to her chest, hugging it with her free hand. “How did you get him?” she asked softly, her voice filled with wonder.
“Dad pulled him out of storage for me and shipped him over.” She turned to us and explained, “Rupert was Mum’s teddy when she was a baby. Oh, my goodness gracious.” She gasped. “What happened to your face?”
I froze, instantly knowing my hoodie had moved.
“What the fuck?” Hux asked, shoving past Rusty to get to me. He pushed my hood back and growled. “Who did this to you?”
“It’s nothing,” I mumbled. “Just leave it, Hux.”
“No.”
“Hey,” Monroe said gently to Hux, wrapping an arm around his waist. “This is about the new family. Perhaps we should take it outside.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Hux said, flicking his gaze around the room and letting it linger on the trio on the bed.