34. Jacques
thirty-four
Jacques
W e were scoreless in the first period, and Coach was screaming at us to remember the drills we’d practiced a million times. He was right. We were all over the place, and the other team was taking advantage, scoring three times on us already. It would have been a whole lot worse had Cohen, Agosta, and Rune not been having the game of their lives.
“Get out there and sink the damn puck in that net,” Coach ordered us forwards, then dismissed us.
The others got up and filed out the chute, but I lingered. I was distracted. I needed to sort this out before I hit the ice again. I pulled my cell phone out and typed a message to Mom. I wanted them at Thanksgiving. Carina’s words resonated with me. I wanted to repair my relationship with them. Maybe if they saw us together, they’d understand.
I hurried to catch up to the others and skated out onto the ice. I looked around the stadium, knowing Carina, Travis, and Rusty were in the crowd. I wanted a win for them.
The puck dropped, and I reacted on instinct, slapping it straight to Hewitt. He shot out, flying down the ice and passing to Hux. Hux doubled back, setting up the play we’d practiced. I circled around, using my speed to my advantage, dodging their defense by the skin of my teeth.
I drew their goalie out.
Hux fired.
I caught the puck mid-flight on my tape.
The Canucks’ defense tightened around me like a band.
I opened my stance, elbow up, and slapped the puck straight back to Hux. It was the perfect wrister.
The puck sailed through the gap in their defense.
It landed right at Hux’s feet.
Step one complete. We’d opened up their defense, luring their goalie to the side of the net where I would have taken the shot.
Their goalie had his eyes on the puck, but we’d surprised him enough that he was a fraction of a second behind.
Hux took advantage of the millisecond we had and fired a bullet at the net, aiming straight for the gap the goalie was opening up as he moved back into position.
The puck sailed over his shoulder so close, it looked like it hit it. It slammed into the net.
The klaxon wailed, and I fist-bumped Hux.
“Well done,” I encouraged. “Let’s go, Seals,” I rallied with a shout.
We reset, and I held my breath, waiting for the puck drop. The linesman let go, and I reacted instantly, but I was a fraction of a second too slow. The Canucks’ center snatched it away and fired it to their forward.
Agosta was closest, shouldering their forward. He pushed him off his line and straight into the boards.
The puck spun away, and Hewitt was there to scoop it up.
I skated hard, pushing to get into position.
My focus narrowed.
Time slowed.
Hewitt shot to Cohen, and he wristed it to me. I tore down the ice, pushing hard. The puck was glued to my stick.
The Canucks’ defense was breathing down my neck, gaining on me.
I skated harder, pulling away from them again. I was three feet out from goal, and I shot it, the puck flying like a bullet low and tight under the goalie’s leg.
The buzzer sounded.
Music filled the stadium.
Our goal song thumped through the stands.
The home crowd—our crowd—screamed and whistled.
My eardrums vibrated with the noise.
We were narrowing the lead, and the crowd was loving it.
I breathed hard. My heart thundered in my chest. Steam rose up from under my pads with every move I made. Sweat dripped down my forehead under my helmet.
We were close. We could do this. If we could score two more and hold them off for the final twenty-odd minutes of the game, we’d bag another win.
***
We didn’t get the win. We were so close, though. The second period was ours, and the third was a messy scramble for the puck while both teams fought tooth and nail to score. We hadn’t been able to pull it off, but we’d kept the Canucks at three goals, too, so we were taking solace in that.
I hated losing, but I’d learned to move past it. I didn’t dwell on the losses or the wins. I needed to look forward, focus on our next game. So that’s what I did.
Now we were sitting around the firepit, enjoying one another’s company. It was such a contrast to the stadium. Quiet surrounded us, the far away hoot of an owl and crackling of the fire the only sounds.
I sipped the hot chocolate Carina had made for everyone after insisting she was freezing. I was sitting on the ground with a cushion under my ass and Rusty behind me, his arms and legs wrapped around me. We were wearing the same thing, both of us having thrown on sweats and tees when we’d arrived home. Carina sat in Travis’s lap, toasting marshmallows for them.
“What do you think of Charlie?” I asked as Carina leaned back and ran her hand over her belly. We hadn’t talked names, but I’d been pondering a few ideas.
“Who’s Charlie?” Rusty asked as he nuzzled my nape.
“Names for Peanut.”
“I like it,” Travis said, mimicking Carina’s move. “There’s Chloe too.”
“Charlie’s cute, and Chloe’s sweet too,” Rusty said. “Or Cadey?”
Carina smiled. “I love all of them.” She passed Travis his marshmallow and blew the fire off hers. It was a black, melting mess, but that’s the way she loved it.
“You know we don’t have to have a C-name,” she added.
“We know,” Travis replied with a mouth full of the marshmallow. He swallowed and asked, “Have we just agreed on a few names?”
“I think so,” I said with a chuckle. “We can always wait to meet Peanut before deciding on the final one.”
“How can we agree on names in thirty seconds but struggle to pick a color for furniture?” Carina muttered.
I shot a look at Travis, and he grinned. When he’d been out, he’d dropped off a key to Kamirah. She’d picked up the last of the decorations for the nursery and had set it up while we’d been at the game.
“About that….” My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, read the message, then blinked. I reread it. “Mom and Dad are coming to Thanksgiving,” I murmured. “Holy shit, they’re coming.”
“That’s wonderful,” Carina said, her smile genuine. But I could see the hesitance playing on her face. She was already worried that if she went into labor early, we wouldn’t have the nursery set up. Now, knowing Mom and Dad were coming, I imagined she’d worry that they would think we weren’t serious.
“I think we should head inside,” Travis said.
“Me too,” Rusty added and stood up, then held his hand out for Carina to grasp before helping me up too.
Carina started picking up the mugs, but I stopped her. “We’ll come back for them and to put out the fire.” I grasped her hand, and Rusty wrapped his arm around her waist. Travis did the same to me, and we walked into the house, Zeus following and trying to jump up as we went.
Travis held the door open, and Rusty led Carina inside to the bedroom next to ours. The door had been closed for a few weeks now as we decorated it. I’d suggested to Carina that we use another bedroom down the corridor for the nursery, but I knew she’d had her heart set on this one.
“You know that furniture you picked,” I started and closed my hand over the doorknob. “We didn’t like it—”
“No shit,” Carina retorted and giggled. “There wasn’t a single one we agreed on.”
“That was because of me,” Rusty explained.
I opened the door, and Rusty flicked on the light. The lamps were dimmed to low, and the shadows cast over the room added to the ambiance. The walls were jacaranda purple with a raised mural of a tree in full bloom along one side. In the middle was the crib Rusty had made, whitewashed oak timber with white sheets and a pale purple blanket folded at the foot. On the other wall was the changing table and a chest of drawers. The brightest prints we could find of painted emus, kangaroos, koalas, and wombats were hung above. The windows already had blinds, but Kamirah insisted on softening them with white gauzy curtains, and it looked perfect with the lavender-colored rocking chair by the window. In the middle of the floor was a pale purple rug, and by the door was a height chart marked in centimeters.
Carina gasped as she looked around. Her hands went to her mouth, and she blinked, tears filling her eyes. “Oh my God, it’s perfect,” she breathed. “You chose all this?” she asked Rusty, then ran her hand over the pale timber of the crib.
“He made it, beautiful,” I clarified. I was so damn proud of my man. He didn’t have any official qualifications, but he’d spent years honing his skills with a dedication borne of perfectionism and a need to escape into something he could destress with.
Her breath hitched, and she moved to the mural. “How?” she asked. “When?”
Rusty shrugged and smiled. “I closed the website down for commissions a couple of months ago. I haven’t had any orders—I’ve been working on these.”
Carina cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his lips. “It’s perfect. I… I have no words. It’s more beautiful than anything I ever imagined.”
“Those words sound pretty damn perfect,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her.
When they broke apart, she reached for Travis and me.
“Thank you, all of you, for doing this.” She huffed out a laugh and blinked, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I thought we were going to fight over it. I was stressing so much, and then you said your parents are coming, and my first thought was that they were going to think I’m hopeless because I can’t even organize a nursery.”
“Darlin’, we’d never fight over this,” Travis reassured her. “You need to know that we’ll give you anything and everything you want.”
“I know that now.” She laughed and looked around again. “We’re having a baby,” she whispered, then her eyes widened. “Give me your hands.”
We placed our hands on her belly, and I could feel Peanut moving. There was a strong kick, and I looked at Rusty, Travis, then Carina with wide eyes. The sense of awe I had every time I thought about Peanut never dimmed. We’d made them. We’d created a life that was growing in Carina’s belly. We were going to be parents. I was going to be a dad.
No matter what happened on the ice, win or lose, coming home would always give me the biggest thrill. This, here, these people who I adored and our baby, were my home. They were everything.
“I love you,” I whispered, unsure who I was saying it to. But it didn’t matter. I loved them all with my whole heart.