15. Drake
CHAPTER 15
DRAKE
When finally I made it into the players’ lounge after the post-training media scrum, a small workout, and cleaning myself up, Jon was there, chatting with Alfie and some of the other Otter guys. He was loose and smiling—glowing really—in a way he hadn’t been in a while. Mr. Sunshine was back. He must’ve finally gotten the news we’d been waiting for about his next contract.
“Hey,” I said, and wrapped my arm around his waist. “You’re exceptionally happy.”
“He’s always happy,” Alfie said. “Like summer.”
No one was happy all the time, though Jon came close. The last couple of weeks, he’d been moody. More contemplative than usual. “I saw JR with you at one point. Did he finally re-sign you?”
Jon huffed a laugh. “No,” he said softly. But his smile—he didn’t look like someone who’d gotten bad news.
“Bet his agent’s still negotiating, and JR’s playing hardball,” Gavin said.
That got another laugh from Jon, and I studied him. There was something he wasn’t saying. I didn’t think he was keeping anything—oh shit.
Jon wouldn’t tell me he wasn’t re-signed in front of a bunch of people. He’d want to talk about it in private. But—I wasn’t imagining the way he was relaxed, or how his eyes sparkled with excitement. I gave him a gentle squeeze and matched his smile.
“I met MaryAnne Charleston when I was walking around. I knew she was a director here, but…” He waved his hand. “Olympic gold! Mom was so happy when she won. I can’t wait to tell her I’ve met her.”
That might explain the mood. “You talked?”
He shrugged. “Briefly. The Help Wanted poster they had up for coaches caught my eye.”
Oh. Then my brain caught up. Oh .
Maybe I looked too sharply at him, because that grin widened. “You were right,” he said. “You and my father.”
That everything would work out. I stared at him. “Yeah?”
And there was all the sparkle and light I hadn’t seen since he’d broken his shoulder. “Yeah.”
Alfie chuckled. “Wow.” He grabbed Gavin’s arm. “Come on, let’s leave them alone for a couple minutes.”
Gavin’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because,” Alfie said, “they have things to say.” He led Gavin away.
“Oh man,” Jon said. “Alfie’s smart .”
“Yeah.” I watched his back for a moment, then faced Jon. “JR isn’t re-signing you.”
“No,” he said mildly. “He’s not. I’m retiring.”
“You’re… what?” He was only thirty. I couldn’t imagine retiring at thirty .
The lounge got really quiet. Probably because I’d been very loud.
Then Jon laughed and broke all the tension. He threw his arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”
We went to the players’ parking lot. “You can’t retire.”
“Oh, I can,” he said, beaming at me. “Look, I don’t want to play anywhere else. I want to be with you, so I’m not leaving. If I’m not leaving, I’m retiring. Simple.”
“Jon, I can’t ask you to?—”
“Will you marry me?”
My head swam. What even was happening here? “Yes,” I said, since we’d talked about that before. Then I pieced together what he was saying. “Wait. You’d rather marry me than play hockey? But you love hockey!”
“I love you more,” he said simply. “And MaryAnne is looking for coaches.”
“Hold up.” I rubbed my forehead, because my brain hurt from the whirlwind of information and emotions whipping around inside it. Jon loved me more than playing hockey. He wanted to marry me. “Did you just propose?”
He blinked and tilted his head. “I guess I did. I kind of want to be a hockey husband.” His laugh seemed to fill the parking lot.
“And a coach.”
“I think I’d have fun with it, and I’d still get to skate and handle the puck and all that. Maybe I’ll join a rec team or sub in or something, once the shoulder isn’t so cranky.” He shrugged. “My agent said I should talk to you before I made any big decisions, but it’s the right thing , Drake.”
“What about the bar?”
A little of the sunshine fell into seriousness. “I’ll have to talk to Ella first, of course, but she’s been running Hideaway while I’ve been rehabbing. I bet—I hope—she wouldn’t mind partnering with me. We’ll see. I hate admitting this, but it’s been nice not being in charge all the time, and they don’t actually need me that much—it’s mostly that I stabilize the place, you know? Money-wise. Margins are always close. It’s been in the black for a while, but when it wasn’t I—” He waved a hand.
“Paid the difference?” Because he could. And he would’ve to keep the staff on and the community there safe.
“It’s—I could do that, so I did. Point is, I can be more of a silent partner.”
“You? Silent ?”
He gave me a gently shove. “You said yes to marrying me.”
“I did.” God, he was so beautiful like this. Playful. Happy. Looking to the future. “Talk to Ella, then to MaryAnne. I think it’s a good plan. I bet kids are going to love you as a coach.”
He grinned at that. “Should we go in and tell the guys I’m retiring and marrying you?”
That was bound to turn the lounge into a madhouse. “Bet you no one had that on their bingo card. Not together.”
“Eh, you never know…”
This time I was the one to laugh. We walked back into the facility, arms wrapped around each other, joy in our hearts.
One Year Later
Whenever we stepped into Target, I lost Jon. One moment, he was by my side, the next… vanished. Poof. He’d usually reappear with something absolutely ridiculous. One time, it was a giant squishable pillow in the shape of a lion. An other, it was a shower curtain with cute otters holding hands.
The perils of buying a house together, I guess. We’d swapped back and forth between our homes last year, but with Jon’s coaching job, we’d ended up in Pittsburgh most of the time. Ella had full run of Hideaway, now, so there was no need to return to Greensburg that often. So Jon had sold his house near the woods. Together, we’d bought another house north of Pittsburgh that backed up against a protected nature area that had a stream with rocks for Jon to sit on. Lots of walking and hiking, too. The area even had back roads for Jon to ride his bike on when the weather was good.
After some renovations and painting, we were finally moving into our new place.
But once more, Jon had disappeared during a Target run. Tonight, he reappeared wearing a flower wreath on his head and another in his hand. “It’s midsummer!” He set the wreath down on my head.
“This isn’t going to turn into some horror movie with a human sacrifice, right?”
Pretty sure the rest of the store heard his laugh. “No, no. It’s a party with food and flowers and games. No weird rituals that involve blood or unsuspecting tourists. He peered into the cart. “We should get cookies.” He paused. “We should go to IKEA!”
Oh God. Ever since we moved into our new home, that place was like letting Jon loose in a funhouse. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was getting tired of meatballs. “We should go to the house and unpack more before the cats decide the stacks of boxes are their new cat trees.
He snorted. “Before?”
I had to laugh at that. “Come on, let’s get the stuff we need and get out of here.” Before he found something else, like rainbow His and His T-shirts or something.
“All right. But I’m getting cookies.”
I left the flower crown on, gave in, and steered us to the cookie aisle, which was, of course, when one of his players found us.
“Hey, Coach Erik!” The young woman had dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing shorts and a Lions Hockey T-shirt. She peered up at his head and had one of those expressions teens get when they think adults are acting weird. “Wow. I like the flowers.”
“Midsummer,” he said. “It’s a Swedish thing. Flowers and food and fun.”
I hung back, leaning on the handle of the cart. I loved watching Jon interact with the kids he coached. The U16 team had won their championship under him last season. They’d start up again soon. There were some hockey clinics coming up that Jon would be a part of—and apparently, so would this kid, since she was animatedly telling him about the new gear she’d gotten. “Dad even let me get new skates.”
“You bake them?” Jon asked.
“Nivisha?” A man—obviously her dad—rounded the aisle. His hair was graying, but they shared the same South Asian complexion. He was dressed very dad-like in a white polo, dark blue shorts and boat shoes.
“Dad, it’s Coach Erik!”
He eyed Jon’s crown, then glanced at me, then did a double take, his eyes widening. Then he focused back on Jon, who promptly stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gupta. Nivisha was telling me you got her new gear for the upcoming season?”
That led to a conversation about the price of equipment, but how much Nivisha loved hockey and how he wanted her to have the best so she could play the best.
Finally, Nivisha noticed me with the cart and the matching flower crown. “Hey Mr. Williams.” She turned to her dad. “That’s Drake Williams. He’s Coach Erik’s fiancé. He plays for the Lions.”
“I know who Drake Williams is,” her dad said, sounding a bit put out by his daughter’s assumptions. “I watched most of the games last year.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “An honor to meet you.”
“Thanks. I’m just along to push the cart.” I was still getting used to being Drake Williams, the goal scoring magician. The Lions had ended the season second in our division, and had made it to the semi-finals. We’d pushed this year’s eventual Cup winner to seven games and had lost in a heartbreaker of a double overtime game. I’d scored thirty-one goals during the regular season and twelve during our playoff run.
I’d also finally put everything with my bio-father to bed. After leaving me alone for a while, he’d had the audacity to show up and try to get into a closed practice during the playoffs. The fight with security by the door to the practice arena had caught everyone’s attention, including Jon. He’d been sitting in the stands watching practice. That was the only time I’d ever seen Jon dangerously angry, so I knew I had to do something about it.
By the time I’d gotten out there, security had him under control and the police were on their way. He was a tall man, but in skates, I was taller, and I think that’s what caused him to shrink back. Maybe he’d still had the impression I was a little kid, despite being twenty-three.
“You’re Drake?” he croaked .
“Yup. And you’re the guy who thinks I’m a fucking ATM.”
“I’m your dad.”
“I don’t have a dad. I’ve never had a dad. You’re the guy who had a one-night stand with my mom, then called her a whore and tried to get her to abort me.”
The crowd around us murmured.
I stepped up to him, and he backed into the security guard. “You signed away your rights when I was born. ‘Washed your hands of me,’ isn’t that what the email you sent said?”
“Yeah, but?—”
“But nothing. My mom worked her ass off to feed and clothe us, and sacrificed so much to get me here.” I gestured around the practice facility. “The only reason you’re here is because you’re looking for a payout. You’re not getting it, you useless leech.”
His face had gone red, and I think he realized that the people around him were not at all on his side. There were employees, parents, older teens, even some of the hockey reporters with their phones out, recording.
“You’ve been harassing me this whole year. I told you to stop. Mom told you to stop. Guess now we have to get lawyers and the police involved, huh?” And as if on cue, the local cops walked in.
I nodded to them, then marched back into the arena. The team trespassed him and banned him from their properties, and I filed a restraining order. That—and the articles that came out about the incident—seemed to have scared him off, thank God.
I shook myself out of the memory. Jon was still chatting with Nivisha and her father. “We moved recently. Seems like every time we turn around, we’re missing something.” He waved a hand. “Look at me rambling on. I should let you and your daughter go. Niv, work on your shot, eh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Wait until you see my backhand.” She pulled her dad down the aisle in the opposite direction.
Jon called after her, “Can’t wait!” Then he grabbed a bag of chocolate chip cookies off the shelf. “Just here to push the cart?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Oh,” I said, breezily, “And other things.”
There was the bit of pink on his cheeks that I loved so much, along with the grin that matched the summer sun. “Let’s go home, and you can tell me all about the other things.”
I snorted, pushed the cart, and headed toward the front of the store.
Never in a million years at the start of that fateful season that had sent me to the Otters, had I expected my life to turn out like this.
I was a hockey star—an actual one now. With my likeness on banners and commemorative cups at the arena. I was also pushing a cart through a Target with a crown of flowers on my head.
With a stellar season behind me, and only a year left on my bridge deal, this summer I’d signed a new eight-year contract with the Lions that amounted to more money that I could wrap my head around.
Despite all that, it wasn’t me that was turning heads as we walked through Target, it was the dark-haired beautiful man walking next to me. The one who lit up a room, cackled like a madman, and was able to corral a whole team of young women, unlock the game of hockey for them, and lead them to a championship. The man I’d marry next month in front of my mom and his parents, and our friends and teammates .
Getting sent down to the Otters had been the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t know where I’d be without Jon. Definitely not at a self-checkout at a Target, having him pluck a flower wreath off my head. I could only laugh, as it got tangled in my hair.
“Your damn curls,” he said, sighing dramatically.
“You love my damn curls!”
Oh, he softened at that. “I love everything about you,” he said, then cocked his head. “Well, almost everything.”
I gave him a look .
“Socks. Put them in the hamper! That’s why it’s there .”
I just snorted, paid for our things, and headed for the exit. “You know I leave them in the living room to annoy you.”
“I have Loki to annoy me,” he quipped.
My best buddy. Loki had very much claimed me as his person. “You have me to love you.”
God, I adored doing that—making Jon stop in his tracks and get that dopy smile of his.
Then he met my gaze. “I have you. I love you. Let’s get out of here.”
We stepped out into the bright, hot afternoon, and I couldn’t help my grin. Jon might’ve ended up a hockey husband, but I was pretty sure it was me who was about to marry the superstar.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The End