Epilogue
MASON
The paperwork was piling up. It wasn’t because I was ignoring it, just that we had a ton of things to wade through on the McCarthy-Denning case.
There was so much on the legal side, particularly with the amount of money they had between them, and the privacy, anonymity, and trust issues, and today I’d felt as if I wasn’t a family expert but a trainee lawyer.
The final paperwork would go through lawyers, but for now it was us checking everything in preparation.
“Last one,” Becca murmured, but she was talking to the folder not me.
I put aside the rest of my to-do list, turning my attention back to adding information to our brand new website, stupidly proud of myself for not messing it up when I dragged a photo from my desktop to the software.
I even remembered to update our Instagram with the same image—score one for social media dominance.
We even got two likes, but one of them was Eli, and the other Xander, so that didn’t count.
Of course, them liking the post meant they weren’t at the diamond, which meant they’d be here soon, interrupting our day, and causing a general nuisance.
I loved every minute of Xander being in my life. I loved Xander.
Becca thumped another folder on my desk and smirked when I shot in the air. “You’ve got that look,” she announced with her hands on her hips.
“What look.”
“The one where you’re thinking about Xander.”
“Says the woman who was staring into space for five minutes with her coffee.”
The smirk turned into a genuine smile. It appeared to me that Becca and Eli had been hiding some serious feelings of their own because outside of me and Xander, I’d never seen anyone so smitten in such a short time. The phone ringing cut short the teasing, and I answered it immediately.
“Kingsley-Clarke, Mason speaking.”
“Hi, is this Kingsley’s brother? The guy dating Holdy?
” Great. The last thing I wanted was some fan calling the office, but I suppose we couldn’t avoid it.
One day when we’ve actually made some money then maybe we could hire a receptionist, but for now we were doing it all ourselves, and we’d fielded our share of crank calls.
“What is this concerning?” I asked evenly casting a look of exasperation at a confused Becca, who crossed her eyes at me.
“My name is uhm… Dan. Dan Bailey.” The man paused as if I should know the name, and it did seem familiar.
He’d gone so quiet that I pulled the phone from my ear to check we were still connected.
“I’m a single hockey player. Not NHL level like your brother and your…
yeah… but I play for the Schooners, in Essex, they’re a feeder team for the Rebels, you know? ”
Of course I knew who the Essex Schooners were.
Any kind of desire to play hockey may have passed me by, but I’d grown up around Eli and Xander, and forgotten more about the game than what most people ever knew.
I recognized the guy’s name, not able to put a face to him as I’d been so sunk into setting up Kingsley-Clarke, but aware he was causing a stir in the AHL.
Why was he calling? Was this some kind of stupid prank call? I bristled but remained cool.
“And?”
“I don’t know where to start, but I know you’d understand where I’m coming from… ” More pausing. “Is this a confidential thing?”
“What thing?”
Becca and I exchanged glances, and she mouthed a what as Dan cleared his throat.
“My best friend wants to have a baby, no, we want to have a baby, and I said I would, y’know, donate, but her brother is all over her to not be stupid, and he’s an asshole.
He keeps saying we’ll both find someone to love one day, but fuck…
I’m happy as I am, and Chloe, that’s my friend, she’s had a lot of shit happen to her.
Look, I know your website is all about inclusion, and she’s gay, and I’m demi, but her brother doesn’t get that, and I don’t understand how the surrogacy journey will work, or where we’d even start, but your agency, you could help us right? ”
Everything spilled out of him so fast that I had trouble keeping up, and in the end, I pulled a notebook toward me.
“Of course we can help, how about you start from the beginning?”
By the end of the call, we had a meeting set up, and I pulled out the gold colored folders we were using for the client pack—a ton of information for someone to read through before they made a decision collated in one place—sealed it and put into the mail.
“Maybe we can just focus on the hockey market,” Becca teased and sat back in her chair, feet up on the desk. “Better get some marketing out to the Railers and the Raptors.”
“On it.” I pretended to write a note and then huffed a laugh at the joke and rolled my shoulders.
It was six. I was hungry and tired, but I’d never felt so exhilarated.
I’d managed to calm down Dan, plus give him some viable and realistic options for himself and his friend, and I’d assured him that we could help.
I’d said it with absolute confidence backed up by experience.
We didn’t get much of a chance to debate what had happened when the sound of two hockey players heading down the corridor had us both knowing our workday was finished.
The door flew open in the only way that Eli knew how to enter a room, with energy and determination, and he scooped Becca up and out of her chair before we even got a hello.
“I’m kidnapping you,” Eli announced and kissed her soundly before they left hand in hand and all of that without a hello for his little brother. Only when the coast was clear did Xander peek around the door then saunter in with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Hey, sexy.” He leered and leaned right over my desk to steal a kiss, sighing in pleasure when I laced my fingers behind his neck and held on tight. I could kiss him forever, and even then it wouldn’t be enough.
“Hey back,” I said into the kiss, and when we finally broke for air, he placed a bag on the desk.
I recognized the logo immediately and fell on the contents as if I was starving, only stopping to talk after I’d inhaled half the sandwich.
Xander ate with more care, and he watched me the entire time with an indulgent smile.
“Did you even get lunch?” He dabbed at his lips with a paper napkin.
“No time, seriously, we’re busy—two more enquiries, no three now—and lots of legwork on our latest clients. If even one of those enquiries pan out, then we’ll be golden.” I wanted to tell him about the conversation with Dan Bailey, but confidentiality was a real thing, and I played by the rules.
He kissed me again. “I’m so proud,” he whispered against my lips.
We settled back, and I finished my cheesy goodness at a more sedate pace and sipped my frosty soda after each bite.
When I finished I patted my belly and stretched in my chair, aware I hadn’t moved from it much since seven this morning.
Becca said something about introducing yoga into our day, but that was somewhere between coffee number four and five, and we debated it for thirty seconds and decided we didn’t have time.
Goal one, hire a receptionist. Goal two, get yoga mats.
He went to the bathroom, but when he didn’t come back after a while I went to see if he was okay, only because of the fact that Becca had spent five minutes locked in the washroom after coffee number seven.
The lock was stiff to pull, but surely that hadn’t caused Xander an issue.
I found him in the family room, standing in front of the huge pinboard which took up an entire wall.
It was half full already with posters and photos, puzzles for kids, information for prospective and existing parents, along with a sign-up sheet for things like Lamaze classes.
Honestly, we’d thought of everything and it was this entire picture of being a parent that we wanted to create, from the idea of wanting a child, to actually growing a family.
I slid my arms around his waist from behind and rested my forehead on his broad back, inhaling the scent of him and feeling overwhelmingly peaceful.
He turned in my hold and hugged me tight then took my hand and faced the posters again.
He sighed heavily. “Nick Sinclair called me today, reiterated what he said at the party, about me and the captaincy, and I hung up on him.”
“Your team owner might be mega rich, but his money didn’t buy him compassion or care. Asshole.”
“He’s all about money and numbers is all. I don’t want to judge, but you know with his opinion on me being fit to captain the team, and then the highs of loving you, I want something else for our future than strangers judging what I can and can’t do.”
“I get that.”
“Did you ever think about this?” he asked, and I glanced up at him and saw he was staring at the large poster of two smiling men with a baby and a toddler.
“Think about having a child you mean?”
“Yeah. You know, making us into a bigger family for real, with kids, and a dog, and a minivan.”
I snorted. “You in a minivan?”
He frowned at me then smiled. “I would you know. When I’m done with hockey, I’ll be the best dad I know, I’ll drive a van if that’s what it takes.”
“You’re not retiring for a very long time,” I reminded him.
Another sigh—as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
“I’m thirty now. I have five useful years left, maybe less.
I don’t carry the injuries some of the guys do, but I don’t want to face what Brady went through.
I want to decide for myself when it’s enough and it’s time for me to go, not because I’m in pain. ”
“You’ll know when it’s right,” I reassured him. “Then when you do retire, I’m one-hundred-percent wanting to create a family.”
He looked thoughtful and worried at his lip, pulling it between his teeth then releasing it. “There are kids out there who need a family, I thought a lot about maybe adopting.”
“You did?”
“I’d reached the point where I knew you were what I needed, the man I loved…
” He stopped and smiled down at me. “I knew I wanted a family, and I thought about some of the kids I teach, and how adopting a child that age might be what I was meant to do. What do you think about that? Is that something you can see us doing?”
I leaned into him and he put an arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side.
“Yes. And we could start with fostering when things are settled with your career and with the business here.”
“For real?”
My heart expanded with love, and I tugged him down to my height until we were eye to eye.
“Forever might get lonely if it was just the two of us,” I murmured. “Let’s make the biggest brightest family we can, get twenty dogs, and a minivan each because I want it all with you.”
We hugged and then stared at the poster in silence, our fingers interlaced.
“I wish I’d been able to be honest before—we lost so much time.
” There was real pain in his voice, and I wasn’t going to let him think about what might have been when we had the rest of our lives together.
So I jumped him, caught him off balance, and tumbled my big bad hockey player back onto the sofa, pinning him to the cushions and kissing him until he didn’t have the capacity to have any regrets.
“I love you,” he muttered fiercely and twisted his fingers in my hair, holding me still for more kisses.
Love, life, and a family with the man who stole my heart?
Bring it on.