Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
JACKO
Lila falls asleep on the coach ride before we even hit the main road.
She’s curled up against me, still wearing that oversized Raptors hoodie Dylan and Mia gave her, with the pom-pom hat tugged low over her brow. Every so often, she twitches in her sleep, nose scrunching like she’s dreaming of chasing unicorns across centre ice.
Maya catches my eye as I glance over. She gives me a soft, tired smile as I hold her hand. Hell, I want to hold both of them, wrap my arms them and keep them safe and never let anything or anyone hurt either of them again. But it’s not just about wanting anymore. It’s need. Bone-deep and aching.
After the brutality of the game, after fists and bruises and blood smeared across my knuckles, the quiet is jarring.
The contrast always gets me. One minute I’m throwing a guy into the boards because he took a cheap shot at Murphy, and the next I’m watching a sleeping three-year-old dream of unicorns and pancakes.
I’d rip the world apart for these girls.
We pull up outside the hotel just past eleven. A cold wind cuts off the parking lot, slicing through my hoodie and sweat-damp shirt. Ollie steps off first, then turns and grabs my kit bag from the undercarriage. He slings it over his shoulder without a word and nods at me.
“I got it,” he says, quietly. “Go.”
I reach down and lift Lila into my arms. She’s heavy with sleep, arms flopping like noodles, her face tucked into my neck. She smells like candy floss and child shampoo, and something inside me, something old and bruised, aches with how much I want this to last forever.
Maya walks beside me into the lobby. Her hand brushes my lower back, featherlight. “You okay?” she asks.
I nod, but I’m not really. I’m rattled. The game was vicious. The win hard-earned. I gave more than I should’ve, left it all on the ice, because I knew she was watching. Because I wanted her to see me protect what’s mine.
And now I’m walking through a quiet hotel hallway with Lila asleep in my arms and Maya at my side, and the only thing I’m thinking is, how do I not fuck this up?
Our suite is at the end of the corridor. Lila’s door is already cracked open from earlier. I ease her down into the kid-sized bed the hotel arranged, gently pulling the Raptors hoodie over her head so she doesn’t overheat, and tucking her in with her unicorn plushie.
Maya watches from the doorway, arms wrapped tight around her middle.
“She’s getting used to this,” she murmurs. “Travelling. New beds. You.”
Her voice breaks a little on the last word.
I straighten and step into the space beside her. “She’s a rock star.”
“She loves you,” Maya says, voice thick.
I swallow. “I love her back.”
And then, quietly I add, “And you.” It’s not the first time I’ve said it but tonight it somehow feels different. Deeper.
Maya blinks. For a moment, she doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t move. Then she steps into my arms and presses her forehead against my chest.
She stays like that for a long time. Silent. Still.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispers.
I curl my arms around her. “Okay.”
“It’s not just what I’ve hinted at,” she says, voice low and rough. “About Jamie. About… the past. You deserve the full picture. Not just the pieces I’ve been brave enough to hand you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“No. I do. Because you keep giving me safety. Trust. And I want to be able to give you that back.”
She leads me to the couch in the living room. We sit close and she holds one of my hands in both of hers, fingers cold and tight.
“I thought I loved him,” she begins, staring at the floor.
“At first, it felt like something out of a book. He was charming. Intense. Said all the right things. But it turned so fast. He started isolating me, little by little. Friends stopped calling. My phone would disappear. He’d tell me I was imagining things.
That I was too sensitive. Too emotional. ”
I squeeze her hand. She keeps going.
“The first time he hit me, I’d just told him I was pregnant. He said I did it on purpose. That I was trying to trap him.”
“Jesus,” I whisper.
She nods. “He cried after. Said he was scared. Said it wouldn’t happen again.
But it did. It got worse. He never hit Lila, not once.
But he’d scream around her. Slam things.
Threaten. I started leaving the lights on at night so I could see him coming.
I stopped sleeping. Started hiding cash in her room, amongst her toys. ”
Tears slip down her cheeks. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“I waited until he left for a work trip. Took what I could fit in the car and left. Lila wasn’t two. I know I’ve already told you some of this but I’ve never told anyone he was physically violent.” Her fingertips rub over the cigarette burn I saw weeks ago and then she breaks.
I pull her into my chest. She sobs. Quiet, gasping sobs that shake through both of us. I rock her gently, kissing the crown of her head.
“You’re safe now,” I say. “You’re not alone anymore.”
She clings to me like she’s drowning.
“I still feel it,” she whispers. “Some days I look at the door and expect him to walk through it. The alarm faults triggered me again. I don’t want to be afraid anymore, Owen.”
“You won’t be,” I say. “Not with me here.”
It’s silent for a long time. Just her breath against my chest, the occasional honk of a car on the street below, the muted creak of the heating system.
Eventually, she lifts her head.
“Make me feel something else,” she says. “Please.”
I hesitate. “Maya,”
“Not because I need a distraction,” she says. “Because I trust you. Because I feel safe with you. Because I want this to be about us from now on, not what came before.”
I take her face in my hands. Her cheeks are wet. Her eyes full of emotion and fire and something close to devastation. I kiss her softly. Slowly.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper.
She kisses me back, trembling.
We move to our bedroom. She undresses slowly, carefully, as if shedding something more than fabric. I let her set the pace. Let her touch me first. Her fingers trail over the bruises on my ribs, the scabs on my knuckles.
“You fight for everyone else,” she says, voice shaking. “Let me be here for you now.”
I close my eyes as she presses her lips to my chest. My heart hammers under her mouth.
We make love like it’s a prayer, not the urgent rush we’ve had before. Like it’s the first time either of us has been truly seen and not turned away. She cries. So do I. We don’t hide it. We don’t need to.
When she’s beneath me, she keeps whispering my name like it’s the only word she knows. When she comes, she clings to me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“I’m here,” I promise, again and again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
After, we lie tangled in the sheets. Her head on my chest. My hand in her hair. Her fingers tracing slow, steady shapes on my ribs.
“I love you,” she says quietly. “I think I have for a while. I was just too scared to believe I could have this.”
My throat is too tight to answer right away. But I kiss her hair and hold her tighter.
“I love you, Maya Dawson,” I say. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving you’re safe now. With me. With us.”
She sighs, soft and warm against my skin.
Outside, the city hums. In here, we are quiet. Connected. Whole.
For the first time ever, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
I wake before the sun.
Maya’s curled against me, warm and soft, her hand still tangled in the hem of my T-shirt like she never wanted to let go. Her lashes twitch against her cheek. There’s a crease on her forehead even in sleep, like her mind hasn’t fully accepted it’s allowed to rest.
I stroke my thumb over her knuckles.
Last night comes back in pieces. Her words. Her trembling. The way she let herself be seen fully, painfully, bravely. And then how she touched me like I was something safe. How we moved together like we were building something new out of the wreckage.
She trusted me with her story and I’ll carry it like gold.
Lila’s door creaks open. I freeze for a second, listening. Soft footsteps pad toward the living room. I shift gently, easing Maya’s hand from my shirt. She stirs but doesn’t wake. I pull the covers back up to her chin and kiss her temple.
“I’ll get her,” I whisper.
I pad out into the living room, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Lila’s standing in front of the little hotel kitchenette in her pyjamas, rubbing one eye with the back of her hand. Her hair’s sticking up in all directions.
“Hi Bear,” she whispers.
“Hi, Jellybean,” I murmur, crouching down. “You sleep okay?”
She nods and launches herself into my arms. “You were really good last night. You hit that mean man and then scored.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have messed with Uncle Murphy.”
She presses her cheek to my shoulder. “You won.”
“We did. Big time. You were our good luck charm.”
She grins, still half-asleep. “I dreamed I was on the ice and you pushed me in my unicorn sled and I was zooming.”
“I’ll make that happen one day,” I say, and I mean it.
She peers past me toward the bedroom. “Is Mummy okay?”
“She’s still sleeping,” I say softly. “She was really brave last night.”
Lila rests her head on my shoulder again, quiet. Then, after a moment she asks, “Is she sad?”
My chest tightens. “She’s not sad right now, Jellybean. Just tired. You know when you carry something heavy for a really long time and then you finally get to put it down?”
She nods.
“That’s what she did last night. She put it down.”
Lila thinks about that. “Like my backpack after school.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Only she’s been carrying it for years.”
Her arms tighten around my neck.
“Let’s make her breakfast,” she says.
We cobble together a breakfast with what we’ve got. Instant oatmeal from the hotel mini-bar, bananas, a few mini muffins I snagged from Coach’s post-game snack stash. I make instant coffee. Lila arranges three spoons on a napkin “like a picnic.”
She draws a heart on the hotel notepad. Inside it, she writes in shaky letters,
I LOVE YOU MUMMY. BEAR TOO.
When Maya shuffles out in one of my oversized hoodies, blinking sleepily, Lila leaps off the sofa and runs to her.
“I made you breakfast,” she announces proudly. “Me and Bear. And a note.”
Maya drops to her knees and scoops her daughter into her arms. I see it hit her like a wave. The warmth, the normality, the way her daughter wraps around her like an anchor to the present.
She starts to cry. Soft, soundless tears.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Lila hugs her tighter. “Don’t cry, Mummy. We’re happy now.”
Maya meets my eyes over Lila’s shoulder. Her lip trembles, but she nods.
“Yeah,” she says. “We are.”
We eat our breakfast picnic on the hotel floor, Lila chattering about unicorn sleds and “the way Bear zoomed that man into the wall.” Maya laughs and wipes her cheeks with her sleeves.
After breakfast, we all lie back on the carpet. Lila sprawls between us like a puppy, giggling. Maya’s fingers find mine where they rest on the floor beside us. She doesn’t look at me, but her pinky links with mine.
I squeeze once. She squeezes back. No words. Just breath and morning and quiet connection.
The start of something real.