Chapter 20
Jeremiah
I’d filled up two pages in my sketchbook this afternoon leading up to dinner with Zoe’s aunt and uncle.
My nerves made zero sense, but anxiety didn’t exactly care about logic.
Sure, it was only a step down from meeting her parents—Calvin and his wife being pseudo parents for her ever since she’d moved to Denver—but I’d known Calvin since Charlie joined the Puffins three years ago.
I hadn’t been dating his niece back then, though.
Being a parent of one of his players was worlds away from being the boyfriend of his niece.
My heart stuttered at the title. Boyfriend. I still wasn’t used to it, but damn, did I like it.
As predicted, all the worrying was for naught. Calvin didn’t act any differently around me, and I found myself relaxing back into our familiar banter.
“Zoe here told me that she beat you playing one-on-one.” He smirked, eyes darting back and forth between the two of us.
My jaw dropped in shock, and I looked at Zoe incredulously.
“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “It ended in a tie, thank you very much,” I reminded her.
Zoe pointed a finger at me. “I would have had that last shot if you hadn’t cheated and picked me up,” she argued.
“Yeah, Daddy had to go to the penalty box for holding,” Charlie chimed in from across the table.
Calvin’s eyebrows rose, his amused smile just making me even more flustered as they teamed up on me.
I raised my hands to ward off any more jabs. “Hey. All’s fair in one-on-one.”
Especially when you had a crush on your opponent and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what it felt like to hold her.
Heart-stopping was how it felt. Those two minutes in the Sin Bin were worth every second.
Calvin wiped his mouth with a napkin and then sat back in his seat, subconsciously rubbing his full belly. “How about a rematch now? I just have to turn on the lights around the rink, and you’ll be set,” he offered. “Can even get a bonfire going for Peg and me to watch.”
“I don’t know about that,” I hedged. My hand moved to rest on my own bloated stomach. I’d eaten far too much, but Peg’s food had been so good, I couldn’t get myself to stop piling more onto my plate. “I don’t think I could even bend over to get a pair of skates on.”
“Wait. You have your own hockey rink? Here?” Charlie asked.
“Yup. Wanna see?”
Calvin held his hand out to her, and Charlie nearly tipped her chair over getting out of it, dragging the poor man to the back door and the window that looked out over the yard.
“Daddy! They really do have their own rink.”
“Well now I know what she’ll be asking Santa for,” I joked under my breath.
As if she didn’t spend enough time on the ice up at the rink I owned. If we had one at home, I’d never get her out of her skates. That’s if I could even find room for it between the playground and trampoline.
Charlie turned, her eyes already pleading with me before she’d even opened her mouth. “Can we go skate, Daddy?”
I pressed my lips together, hating when I had to disappoint her.
“We forgot to bring your skates. I’m sorry, Tot.”
Peg waved her hand dismissively as she stood from the table. “That’s no problem at all. We kept all of Zoe’s skates from when she was little. There’s bound to be a pair that fits.”
Zoe’s brows furrowed and she spun to face her aunt and uncle.
“You kept all of them? Why?”
Skates weren’t cheap, and they probably could have made decent money selling the ones she’d outgrown. At least, that’s what my parents had done. Any money they made off of them went back toward new equipment and tournament fees. The only skates they saved were my very first pair.
Calvin shoved his hands into his pockets, eyes not quite meeting Zoe’s. “We wanted to save them for when you had little ones of your own.”
The muscle in Zoe’s jaw jerked, but otherwise she let no emotion show through. The topic of children hadn’t come up, so I wasn’t sure where she stood on having kids, but her reaction—however small it may have been—made me think that it was a bit of a tender subject.
Peg cleared her throat and reached her hand out to Charlie.
“Come on. Let’s go see what we can find.”
Charlie didn’t have to be told twice. She eagerly took Peg’s hand and led her down the hall herself.
“I’ll go get the bonfire started for us,” Calvin announced and then he was gone.
I waited until the door had clicked shut behind him before I reached over to rest my hand on Zoe’s leg. Her mind was clearly elsewhere. It took a few seconds for her to respond to my touch, but then she turned to me, a timid smile on her lips.
“You good?” I asked softly.
She nodded absently. “Yeah. I just… I suppose I feel a little guilty for letting them down. It’s not like they have anyone else to give them grandchildren.”
I frowned and adjusted in my seat so I could face her straight on.
“Do you want that? To have children?”
Her lips pursed. “I never really thought much about it when I was younger. It was just one of those inevitable things; when the timing was right and I’d done what I wanted to with my life.”
The tightness in her jaw returned as she seemed to mull something over in her mind. The more time I spent around her, the more I noticed her tells. One of them being that glazed over look she got in her eyes when she was lost in her thoughts.
“Then Jada and Levi had Bash, and the baby fever hit hard, but…” She shrugged helplessly. “It’s not like I had any prospects.”
Her hand came to cover her face and a small laugh slipped out of her that loosened the tight feeling of concern in my chest. I laughed with her.
“Are you really using hockey terminology in regards to your love life?” I teased lightly.
She sent me a half-hearted glare through the crack between her fingers, but then her cheeks lifted from the grin she was hiding.
“Does that make you my first draft pick?”
I sat up straight and jokingly puffed my chest out. “I’ll take it.”
She dropped her hand to rest on top of mine, shaking her head in a way that told me she thought I was a dork.
Our laughter faded, and I inadvertently glanced toward the hallway where I could faintly hear Peg and Charlie, most likely playing Goldilocks to figure out which skates fit just right. My heart panged in my chest.
“Our plan was three,” I shared, voice barely more than a whisper. “Didn’t mean for Charlie to be an only child.”
Zoe followed my attention and then she gave my hand a gentle squeeze. Our eyes were once more drawn back to each other, the glazed look in her hazel eyes gone and the green specks in them bright again. I turned my hand over to interlace our fingers.
The pattering of socked feet coming down the hall broke the moment.
“We found a pair!” Charlie cheered, holding up the skates for us to see. “And they have purple laces.”
Zoe held her hands out to get a closer look, cradling the skates almost reverently.
“I remember these. I swore that the purple sparkles made me skate faster.” She smiled at Charlie. “Should we test them out?”
Charlie nodded like a bobble head, somehow even more excited now. We retrieved our coats from the foyer, and I helped her bundle up, wrapping her scarf securely around her neck before we all filed outside.
“Wow,” Charlie breathed.
‘Wow’ was right. String lights bathed the small rink and surrounding piles of snow in a warm glow. Next to it were several outdoor chairs, most of them gathered around the fire pit.
“Can one of you grab some more firewood while you’re up there?” Calvin called to us.
I shooed the girls off. “I got it. You two go skate.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Zoe and Charlie beelined for the chairs closest to the rink to get their skates on. I watched them walk off, hand in hand, the sight warming me more than any fire could.
Calvin smiled gratefully once I joined him with an armful of logs. We worked together to build the fire, making sure it had a solid start before we retired to our own chairs. Calvin and Peg sat close together, their gloved hands intertwined on the armrests between them.
What Zoe had said earlier came to mind. In all my time of knowing Calvin, I’d never realized that he didn’t have any children. I’d just assumed he did with how great he was with all of the kids on the team. Seeing him and Peg with Zoe, though, it was clear to see that she filled that void for them.
Zoe was the same as her uncle. She just had a way with kids, and I knew she’d make a great mom one day if the way she cared for Charlie was any indicator.
“Daddy, watch!” Charlie called out.
Her and Zoe were apparently participating in an interesting mix of hockey and figure skating, seeing who could score the best goal while balancing on one skate.
Charlie couldn’t keep her leg up nearly as high as Zoe did, no matter how hard she tried to imitate her.
Like most things, Zoe made it look as easy as breathing.
“She’s a natural.”
Calvin chuckled beside me, the affection he held for Zoe clear in the warmth of the sound.
“That’s exactly what I said the first time I saw her step out onto this rink.
She had to have only been four?” He looked to his wife for confirmation, and Peg nodded in agreement.
“She’d never seen snow, let alone stepped foot on the ice, but she glided out there like it was what she was made to do. ”
Every move of hers seemed effortless, as if her body knew what it needed to do without her even thinking about it.
“Why didn’t she go pro?” I asked.
Any agent or team would have been insane not to snatch her up with the combination of talent and clear passion she possessed.
The wonder in Calvin’s expression faded, the glow of the fire making him look somber, and he shifted in his seat. Peg had grown more serious next to him as well.
“She was drafted by the Boston Rebels, but…” He hesitated before seemingly coming to some sort of decision, his head shaking almost imperceptibly. “That’s her story to tell.”