Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
I hope she lets me keep her
Reid
The door doesn’t slam, and there’s no screaming.
She just quietly retreats into her room as I stare after her, the soft pad of her bare feet swallowed by the floorboards and the click of her door pulling shut.
I’m left standing here, like I just took a puck to the ribs and haven’t quite figured out how to breathe around it yet.
The living room feels different now, as though something sacred’s been broken open, and I’m standing inside the wreckage of it. Her keys are still on the counter. One of her shoes is tipped sideways next to her coat on the floor. The gap beneath her bedroom door glows faintly with light.
I scrub a hand over my jaw, but it does nothing to cut through the echo of her voice in my chest. The words don’t sound any different the second time in my head, or the third. There’s no distortion, or chance I misheard her.
She’s pregnant. Pregnant.
I didn’t see the signs, but maybe I should’ve. She’s been distant, pulled tight, pulling away. But I figured it was just a tense mix between the playoffs and her work, the stress of both our schedules. I didn’t think…
Jesus.
And she just declared it as though she’s been holding it in so long, it cracked her open just to say it.
My hands are still half-curled at my side. I don’t remember if I was reaching for her, but I think I was. She moved away from me on instinct, as though she needed to shield herself from how I might react.
I glance back down the hallway, and every part of me wants to move—to knock, to follow, to fix.
But I don’t, not because I’m angry. I’m not. And I’m not confused, apart from in that ‘everything’s shifted and I don’t know what comes next’ kind of way.
I know she needs space. And I get it. Why she told me like a confession instead of a conversation. Why she closed the door.
She didn’t run from me; she ran from the weight of it. And fuck, that hits harder than if she’d screamed at me, because all I want is to hold this with her.
I walk the hallway slowly, my steps barely making a sound. The light spilling from under her door feels fragile somehow, a line I shouldn’t cross.
Pressing my palm to the wall beside the doorframe, I splay my fingers out to ground myself. Or maybe I’m just reaching for her without meaning to.
“I’m not leaving,” I say, my voice a low murmur through the wood.
There’s no response, but I don’t expect one.
“You don’t have to talk yet. I just…” My chest tightens, and I exhale. “I’m here.”
And then I stay, waiting. Because this moment—no, she—matters too fucking much not to.
She’s in there, probably curled up tight and silently thinking that if she holds still long enough, nothing can reach her.
The part that kills me isn’t the silence, though.
It’s what it means. That she thought I wouldn’t care, or that I’d care in all the wrong ways.
That I’d flinch and tell her it’s not great timing, or I’d panic.
Think she was trying to trap me, or that this would keep me tethered to her when I don’t want to be.
Which is so fucking ironic, because I’ve been trying to figure out how to tether myself to her this whole damn time.
And that pisses me off.
Not because I deserve better, but because she does. Because at some point before me, the world taught her this was how it would go. That men leave, and women pay. That strength is silence, and she needs to brace for disappointment.
I lean my shoulder against the wall and exhale, letting my eyes close. She didn’t shut me out; she shut everything out, so the hurt couldn’t reach her first.
But I’m not leaving, not unless she tells me to.
The door clicks open a few minutes later with a soft creak and the quietest shift of air as her silhouette appears in the frame. Her head’s tilted down, and she turns quickly, hair falling like a curtain around her face.
She doesn’t say anything, just quietly moves back over to her bed. A silent invitation.
I follow her into the dim room. A low bedside lamp casts a warm glow against the blankets, and she sits on the edge of the bed with her knees drawn up. Arms wrapped around them, holding herself in place.
The bed dips as I sit down, leaving space between us, careful not to jostle the mattress. Silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel empty. It feels full, heavy with everything unsaid, everything still suspended in the air between us.
When I finally speak, my voice is low and tender.
“Have you known a while?”
Her lips part, but no words come. I glance over, and her jaw’s tight, as though she’s biting the words back. She finally nods, her gaze fixed on a frayed thread in the comforter.
“Just over a week, but I… It wasn’t the right time.”
“For what?” I ask gently. “Telling me?”
She breathes in shakily. “Yeah.”
My chest aches, but I nod, absorbing that without flinching as she continues.
“I didn’t want to derail you,” she says. “You’re in the playoffs, and you’ve worked so hard to get back. And this is—” Her voice splinters. “This is a mess.”
“It’s not a mess, Carina.”
“It feels like one.”
Her fingers are white-knuckled around her knees, and she still won’t look at me.
“We agreed this was no strings attached, no expectations,” she murmurs. “But this? This feels like a choice I’m forcing you to make, and it’s one I didn’t see coming.”
I nod, letting the quiet settle again.
“Just so we’re clear,” I say finally, “I’m not mad, and I’m not leaving… and I’m not here because I feel forced to.”
Her breath hitches at that, but there’s still no eye contact. I shift closer, just enough for my knee to brush the side of her ankle. I don’t reach for her yet, but fuck, I want to hold her.
“But it pisses me off,” I say softly, “that you thought I would.”
Her eyes finally lift to mine, fragile in a way I’ve never seen before. I pause, searching for the words that won’t come out clean.
“That you thought I’d be annoyed, or think this was some kinda trap. Like I wouldn’t want to show up for you because things get a little messy.” I glance down, huffing a breath. “That fucking kills me, Carina.”
She blinks once, holding back the weight of it all behind her lashes, but I don’t let her look away.
“You’re allowed to decide what happens next.
That choice is yours, and I mean that.” My eyes coast down her face, then I meet hers again.
“But don’t you dare think you need to carry this alone, or you have to protect me from the consequences.
This didn’t just happen to you. We did this together.
And whatever happens next—whatever you decide—I’m in it.
I’m with you. But I need you to know that I would never walk away just because it’s not part of a perfect plan. ”
I pause, the air in my lungs knotting with something heavy. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
She says nothing, but her lip trembles slightly, and her hands—still folded around her knees—are clenched so tight. I don’t reach for her, but I’m pretty fucking close. Instead, I let the words land, let her feel the truth of them before I offer more.
“You don’t have to want me,” I say softly. “You don’t owe me anything. But don’t shut me out just because you’re used to being the one who holds everything together.”
She swallows, her voice barely audible.
“You don’t get it.”
“Then help me understand.”
Her shoulders tense, folding in on herself, trying not to break.
“I didn’t think you’d disappear,” she says finally.
“I just… I don’t want to be the thing that derails your life.
Or scares you away, or makes you settle when it’s not what you want.
You’re Reid fucking Hutchison. You’ve got the playoffs, your hockey team, your life.
I don’t want to be the thing that makes you stay against your will. ”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “What if I want to stay?”
“That’s the problem,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “I don’t know if I can trust that. If it’s real, or if it’s just… guilt. Duty. Some caveman instinct kicking in because it’s your baby, too.”
“You really think that’s all true?”
She doesn’t answer, so I reach out slowly. My hand finds hers and rests gently over it.
“You keep listing all the ways this could affect me,” I say. “But I’m not the one I’m worried about.”
Her eyes trail over my hand, watching the way my thumb strokes her knuckles.
“You’re Carina fucking Park. Rockstar orthopedic surgeon. You have patients and surgeries, and you save lives. So I want to know your reasons, Carina. I want to know what this means for you. Not me.”
The tears well fast, brimming over before she can stop them, flooding her eyes and streaking her cheeks. She covers her mouth, trying to hold in her sob.
And I fucking hate that.
“Hey,” I whisper, leaning in to thumb a tear gently from her cheek. “Baby. You don’t have to hold all that in.”
It’s a small, sharp breath. A tremor in her shoulders. And then she shifts, sliding sideways until her body folds into mine with a bone-deep weariness that guts me more than anything she could’ve said.
I catch her like I’ve been waiting to, one arm looping around her back as the other cradles the back of her head. She tucks into my chest, her forehead pressed to my collarbone as her body shakes and her tears fall.
And fuck, I don’t know how to hold something this sacred without breaking myself, but I do it anyway.
“I found him,” she raggedly breathes. “My dad. When I was twelve. I came home early, and he was on the floor. A heart attack. And I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t save him.”
“Christ,” I whisper, arm tightening around her.
“I kept thinking…” She gasps in a breath, the words tearing out of her. “If I’d known more about CPR, if I’d got home earlier… if I was better, stronger, smarter—”
“No,” I say fiercely, burying my hand in her hair. “No, Carina. You were just a kid.”
“I vowed to never feel that helpless… that useless again.” Her voice cracks wide open. “So I learned how to control situations. I fixed everything I could. I became the one who always had the answers.”
She draws a shuddering breath.
“But this? It’s not a quick fix, Reid. I can’t control it, and I don’t know what I want. I love my job, and I love what I do. But the scariest part is, maybe I want this too. And I don’t know how to make that possible.”
She breaks again, sobs tearing out of her as I hold her tighter.
“I don’t want to lose myself,” she cries, “and I don’t want to lose this either.”
“You don’t have to lose anything,” I murmur, pressing my mouth to her temple. “You’re not alone in this. You don’t have to carry all of this by yourself.”
Tears wet the front of my shirt, and her fingers curl into the fabric. Every part of her shakes with silent, wild sobs. It’s not pretty, but it’s everything.
Every tear she’s swallowed, every scream she’s silenced. Every ache of exhaustion and fear she’s buried so deep she forgot how to feel it.
It all comes out in my arms, and I have the privilege to hold her through it. To hold her like she’s mine. Rocking her, telling her she’s safe. That she doesn’t have to decide anything tonight. That I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper into her hair.
I count her breaths as they come apart, then I keep counting as they stitch themselves back together. Eventually, the shaking eases, and the hitch in her throat evens out as her fingers go slack against my chest.
“Will you stay?”
The whispered words are so quiet, I almost miss them, but my heart certainly doesn’t because it fucking cracks. She could’ve asked me anything right now. Anything, and I would’ve given it.
I kiss the side of her head and nod against her hair.
“I don’t wanna be anywhere else but here.”
She exhales against my skin, as though my answer was something she didn’t know how much she needed to hear.
I ease us back gently, shifting so we’re both lying down on the pillows.
She curls up against me, with one hand over my heart, and I count her breaths until they sync with mine.
The way she sinks into me now feels different, as though she’s letting someone else carry the weight.
And I thank every single star in the sky that it gets to be me.
My thumb brushes slow circles against the small of her back. I keep the rhythm even, keep myself steady, even as everything inside me feels like it’s cracking and realigning at once.
She’s asleep within minutes, but I don’t move. I can’t. Won’t.
Because I’ve never wanted to be anywhere more than I want to be here. And yeah, the playoffs are calling. I have another game in two days. Life’s about to get loud and chaotic, and more complicated than ever.
But none of it outweighs the feel of her head on my chest. The soft heat of her breath against my skin. The way her body has finally let go in my arms.
This woman. This moment. This truth.
Everything has shifted, everything in me narrowing toward her.
And fuck, I hope she lets me keep her.