36. Travis
thirty-six
Travis
C arina’s grip on Rusty’s hand had turned his knuckles white. Her face was red, sweat dripping down her temples. She panted, out of breath, but she was nearly there. Peanut’s head was crowning. One more push, and Peanut’s head would be free.
“You’re doing so well, beautiful,” Jacques said through the cell phone.
“Get here, please,” Carina begged.
Jacques was at the tail end of a road trip. He’d been about to get on the ice when Carina’s contractions started in earnest. He’d been calling every hour to get updates, but we hadn’t told him it had progressed—Carina didn’t want him distracted while he was on the ice with a bunch of dudes with knives on their feet and a bullet being fired around.
When the buzzer at the end of the second period sounded, Carina’s contractions were five minutes apart and had been for a couple of hours, so I made the decision for her. I called Keeley Fisher, the Seals’ PR person, and Sawchuck, the second assistant coach, as well as messaging Jacques. We’d hightailed it to the hospital and been admitted straight into the birthing suite.
Carina’s labor had slowed from there. Hours of her contractions getting more intense, then backing off had passed. It was as if Peanut was giving Jacques a chance to get here. But it was going to be close.
They’d played the Sharks, so flying from San Francisco was only a ninety-minute trip. But moving a whole hockey team was never quick, especially when there were compulsory media appearances. I had no idea where he was, but he was about to miss the birth of our child.
“Jacques, Peanut’s head is crowning. You have five minutes at most. If you’re close, sprint.”
“I’m on my way. Getting there as quick as I can.” There was a rustling in the background, and he murmured something away from the cell phone.
Penny stood over my shoulder. “Carina, big push with the next contraction. Baby’s head is nearly out.”
Carina groaned, and her whole body shook as another contraction gripped her.
“That’s it, darlin’. Push,” I guided and reached out to support Peanut’s head as Carina shouted out, curled in on herself and pushed.
I watched in awe as a tiny head of black hair emerged, my hands looking huge as I held Peanut steady. Our baby was perfect. Tiny eyelids with long lashes, a button nose, perfect adorable little ears, and rosy-red bow lips. Carina fell back, and my breath hitched. “Carina, Peanut’s perfect,” I gasped, tears brimming in my eyes.
Rusty shifted and peered between her raised knees, then looked up at me. “Oh my God,” he murmured. “Sweetheart, one or two more big pushes.”
“I want Jacques here,” she cried, tears falling down her cheeks.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” he said.
I could tell he was running. Fuck me, he was cutting it fine. He’d never forgive himself if he missed it. I sent up a prayer to the hockey gods to deliver him here in time and brushed my tears with my shoulders, taking care not to move Peanut’s head.
Carina choked out a cry that turned into a full scream as another contraction gripped her. She sucked in a breath and shouted, “Jacques Gauthier, get your fucking ass in here!”
Everything happened at once. The door slammed open and bounced off the wall. Jacques was holding the biggest teddy bear and bunch of roses I’d ever seen. He dropped them on the floor and dashed forward, moving straight to Carina’s other side where she held the sheets in a white-knuckled grip.
He took her hand and brushed a kiss on her forehead. “I’m here, beautiful. I’m here. You’re so fucking strong. You’ve got this, beautiful.”
Carina pushed, her breath coming out on a sob, and one of Peanut’s shoulders appeared, followed by the beginning of the other.
“You’re almost there, Carina. One last push,” Penny advised.
“I can’t,” she panted.
Jacques wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her temple.
“You can,” Rusty encouraged. “You’re a badass. Not a single one of us could have done this.”
“Suck it up,” Jacques taunted, and Carina stilled. Fire lit in her exhausted eyes, and she bared her teeth at him, a feral growl ripping from her throat.
“What the fuck?” Rusty breathed, anger etched in the set of his jaw and his tense muscles.
Carina clenched her jaw, and her nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath. She gripped Jacques’s hand so hard, I could hear the bones cracking, and she pushed one last time.
Peanut’s second shoulder emerged, and like a slippery seal, the rest of her tiny body slid out. I choked out a cry, looking at the tiniest human I’d ever seen.
Our baby girl.
With shaking hands, Carina tried to unbutton her shirt, but her fingers weren’t working properly. She’d been in labor for most of the day, exhaustion now overwhelming her. Her blood sugar levels were probably dangerously low too. I’d tried to get her to snack between early contractions, but she’d vomited most of it back up and hadn’t had anything except ice chips since.
Rusty held a glass of apple juice with a straw to Carina’s lips, and she took a few long sips while Jacques unbuttoned her damp shirt. The moment her chest was exposed, I passed Peanut over to her. I exhaled slowly and let the magic of the moment wash over me. I’d just delivered our baby girl. We were parents.
I watched as Penny worked around Carina, clipping and cutting the baby’s umbilical cord. I shifted so she could deliver the afterbirth and when she was done, Jacques laid a soft wrap over Carina and Peanut.
Carina cried, and Jacques wrapped them in his arms, rocking them gently. “I’m so fucking proud of you, beautiful. You are incredible. Rusty’s right, none of us could have done that.”
Our baby cried the tiniest little bleat, and my heart escaped my body, depositing itself straight at our little girl’s perfectly formed feet. Rusty reached for her, touching her scrunched up forehead with infinite gentleness, looking in wonder at her open mouth and the increasingly loud cries.
I’d always wanted kids, but they came with a side of terror—what if I turned out like my parents?—but in that moment, my fears were dashed. My entire world would revolve around this little one. I would give anything to protect her. I would move heaven and earth just to see her smile.
My whole future played like a reel in my mind’s eye. A little girl with dark, curly hair bounding into the house with Zeus hot on her heels. Each of us following her around with hearts in our eyes and smiles in our hearts.
Carina pulled back from Jacques’s arms and punched him in the nuts. He yelped and his knees buckled. He grasped the bed before crumpling to the floor and breathed through his nose, his eyes filling with tears.
“That’s for telling me to suck it up,” she muttered, unimpressed.
His voice cracked like a teenaged boy’s, and he gasped, “Motivation. Got you to channel your anger.”
“She’s perfect,” Rusty whispered, ignoring Carina and Jacques. “Hi, Peanut. I’m your daddy.” He brushed his little finger along Peanut’s, and she uncurled her fingers and gripped him. His breath left him in a whoosh, and I cuddled close when he wrapped an arm around my waist. “This is Dad, and your papa is over there, catching his breath. Your mommy did so good bringing you into the world,” he added.
One of the nurses placed the flowers and teddy on the bed before filling up a vase. Everything happening around us was controlled chaos, but we were in a bubble of serenity. We watched in wonder as Peanut latched onto Carina’s nipple and suckled.
“Penny, hi,” Jacques finally said. “Can we send someone out to the waiting room? The whole team is there, and Cara, Monroe, Kamirah, and Chris were already waiting when we arrived.”
“How about Rusty and I go?” I asked. “Give you some time with Carina.”
Jacques nodded, and I washed up, slipped my Henley on, and followed Rusty out to the waiting room.
Cara rushed over the moment she saw us. “How’s Mum?”
“She’s a trooper,” Rusty said. “Peanut’s a sweet baby girl.”
Cara squealed and threw herself at Rusty and me, hugging us tight. “That’s the best news ever. Congratulations,” she whispered.
When she pulled back, I announced, “Jacques and Carina had a baby girl a couple of minutes ago. He made it just in time, so thank you for rushing home. Peanut is healthy and is just beautiful.”
Cheers rose up, and the guys congratulated us with slaps on the back and fist bumps. I was sure they felt weird about saying anything to us, and not a single one of them questioned why we were in the delivery room—I guess it was one of those “better not to ask” scenarios—but they got over the awkwardness quickly enough. We weren’t Peanut’s dads in their eyes, but they’d known us almost as long as they’d known Jacques. They probably assumed we were the single best friends who never moved out.
“Who won?” Rusty asked when the noise level died down.
I snorted out a laugh. I hadn’t even thought about that.
“We did,” Hux scoffed as if it were a foregone conclusion. “Carina going into labor lit a fire under Gauthier’s ass. I’ve never seen him skate faster. He got the W, then pushed us to get on the plane as quickly as we could.”
Coach added, “His post-game interview consisted of Gauthier walking in and announcing he couldn’t answer questions because his wife was in labor and he needed to get home for his baby’s birth.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. It would have stunned the reporters silent. Jacques always made the effort to be the poster child for responsibility.
“All right, y’all,” Coach said. “Let’s leave these good people in peace.” He shook mine and Rusty’s hands and nodded. “Pass on my congratulations to Gauthier.”
“Thanks, sir,” I answered. “We will.”
“Coach, I’ll stay,” Hux said. “Cara will want to see her mom before we go.”
“Y’all be safe,” he responded.
The nurse walked out and spoke quietly to Rusty before she grinned at me. “Well done on the delivery, Travis.”
“Thanks, Belle.”
“It’s a special moment,” Roe said as she walked away. His smile was soft and wistful. “I got to hold Asher and Zali when they were born. It’ll stay with you forever.”
“I’m—” I started, my voice choking up. “I’m so in love with her already. Was it like that for you?”
“With Zali, definitely. With my first, Asher, I was terrified.” He looked at Cara and Hux and his sad smile turned happier. “Enjoy every exhausting, wonderful moment,” he said. “Start taking photos right now and don’t stop. She’ll grow up before you’re ready, and if she’s anything like her big sister, she’ll be a handful.” He grinned wickedly at Cara.
“Hey,” Cara joked, “I’m a delight.”
“You are.” Roe wrapped his arms around his girlfriend and kissed her head.
“Carina’s about to move to the room. We can go and wait there if you like,” Rusty said.
I wanted that more than I could express.
Chris was bundled up in the corner, his hoodie pulled low and his hands in his pockets. I caught Kamirah’s eye and gestured for them to follow. The seven of us walked up the corridor in search of Carina’s room. When we entered, Carina was freshly showered and holding a sleeping Peanut while Jacques dried her long hair with a towel.
I moved around to the other side of the bed and looked down at the swaddled baby in Carina’s arms. I had no idea who she looked like, but the shock of dark hair the same color as mine and Carina’s had my belly flip-flopping. Our little girl was utterly beautiful.
Everyone else filed in and congratulated Jacques and Carina. Hux and Roe hugged Jacques and pressed kisses to Carina’s cheek. When Kamirah and Minns walked in, she handed Jacques a gift basket of different-colored pastel terry toweling rolls.
“Different sized rompers all the way to fitting a two-year-old,” she explained. “I’ll take it home with me so you don’t have to carry it around and bring it over with the other gifts I have once you’re settled in at home.”
Without missing a beat, she prompted, “Now let me see this little bundle of joy.” Kamirah sat down on the edge of the bed and peered over the swaddling to get a look at Peanut. “She’s so precious,” she breathed.
Everyone was focused on Kamirah, Carina, and Peanut, but movement caught my eye. Minns shifted to the corner of the room and used the wall for support. His movements were slow, like he was in pain.
Conversation surrounded us, but I was happy to be in our little bubble, Jacques on one side of the bed and Rusty and I on the other, with Carina and Peanut between us.
“Her eyes are as blue as yours,” Carina murmured to me.
“She’s got big lungs like her papa too,” I teased.
“And strong hands like her daddy,” Carina added, looking at Rusty.
He blushed, color streaking across his cheeks, and he huffed out an embarrassed laugh. There was no way he could be Peanut’s biological parent. But that didn’t stop any of us ensuring he knew he was Peanut’s dad too.
“She’s as beautiful as you,” Rusty whispered to Carina, leaning in to kiss our little girl.
Kamirah shifted away and gestured for Cara to come closer. She climbed straight onto the bed with her mum and Peanut, then curled into Carina’s side. She had a battered old teddy bear with her, one that looked like a mangy antique. Its pale green-and-grey fur was patchy, rubbed down to bare material in a few places. There were rough stitch marks along a few joins in faded multicolored wool, and it was missing a glass eye too.
When Cara held it up, she said, “I bought Rupert.”
Carina choked out a laugh filled with emotion and brought the teddy to her chest, hugging it with her free hand. “How did you get him?” she asked softly, her voice filled with joy.
“Dad pulled him out of storage for me and shipped him over.” She turned to us and explained, “Rupert was Mum’s teddy when she was a baby. Oh, my goodness gracious.” She gasped. “What happened to your face?”
I looked around the room and realized Minns had moved from his position slouched in the corner to stand next to his wife. His hoodie was pushed back just enough that we could see black bruising under his eye and along his jaw.
“What the fuck?” Hux asked, shoving past Rusty to get to Minns. He pushed his hood back and growled. “Who did this to you?”
“It’s nothing,” Minns mumbled. “Just leave it, Hux.”
“No.”
“Hey,” Roe said gently to Hux, wrapping an arm around his waist. “This is about the new family. Perhaps we should take it outside.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Hux said, flicking his gaze around the room and letting it linger on Peanut.
“Have you been looked at by a doctor?” Roe asked.
“He has,” Kamirah said with a nod as she eased Minns’s hood back over his head. “He just needs to take it easy for a few weeks to let everything heal.”
“Cara,” Minns interjected. His voice was barely a rasp, as if it hurt for him to speak with any kind of volume. He cleared his throat and continued, “You were saying.” He waited for Cara to continue, but she hesitated, looking between Hux, Roe, and Minns before Kamirah encouraged her to tell the story again.
“Ah, yeah. Um, Rupert was Mum’s favorite teddy when she was a little girl. She gave him to me when I was born, and he became my favorite too. So now it’s…. Wait, what have you named her?”
Jacques looked between us. “Is she a Charlie, a Chloe, or a Cadey?”
Carina answered immediately, “Charlie.”
“Charlie,” I seconded as Rusty nodded with a smile.
“Definitely Charlie,” he added.
“Meet Charlie, everyone.” Jacques grinned, his eyes alight with joy. He was devastatingly handsome in his suit, but that smile made him a knockout.
If the others didn’t know before, that conversation and the way I was no doubt looking at Jacques like I wanted to devour him just clued in all the people in this room to our relationship status. But no one blinked.
I was grateful that they all respected our decision to stay quiet—I expected it from Hux and Roe. As queer men themselves, they knew what it was like. But as far as I knew, Minns wasn’t. Still, I didn’t think for a second that he’d say anything to the press. His own scandal had seen absolutely zero comment from him or his agent. Only the team’s PR rep had released a statement.
Staying private was no longer about Jacques’s contract renewal. That had come through, and with a five year no-trade extension, Jacques knew he’d likely play most of his career at the Seals. We simply didn’t want our lives to change. We didn’t want the craziness that would come with news of a four-way relationship, the “think about the children” crowd butting their noses in, or the scrutiny of Jacques’s game.
We just wanted to be together and be happy. We wanted to raise Charlie. We wanted to watch her grow into an incredible, strong, and capable young woman. We wanted to spend our lives loving one another and our daughter. We wanted to grow old together after having shared a lifetime of memories.
It didn’t matter what outsiders thought. The people important to us—the trio and couple in this room—were behind us one hundred percent. Even Jacques’s parents had made an effort to atone for their appalling behavior in the first six months after Carina and Jacques were married. They were flying in soon to visit once we all got settled back at home.
I looked down on our little girl in her mom’s arms and thanked the universe for Carina’s strength and a smooth, safe delivery. My hands shook as the adrenaline crashed, and the nausea from helplessly watching while Carina was in labor and desperately wishing Jacques would arrive finally abating. I exhaled, the weight of the stress lifting off me. All that was left was overwhelming love and joy.
I could never have imagined my life ending up like this. Being happy, healthy, and loved seemed like a pipe dream when I was a kid. Some people took it for granted. But I never would.
I finally understood why I’d had to suffer through my childhood with parents like mine. I understood why I couldn’t have escaped them sooner. It was to make sure I never turned out like them. It felt a lot like fate had stepped in and made me appreciate exactly what kind of life I wanted.
And I wanted exactly what I had.
I was so grateful that the universe worked in such inexplicable ways. We were pulled together like the planets orbiting the sun, crossing one another’s paths at exactly the right time. Each step we took brought us closer to this moment. To Charlie.
I hadn’t thought college was a possibility, but my guidance counsellor convinced me I could get a scholarship. She persuaded me to study fire science rather than joining the fire department straight out of school. I’d looked at a single college—the furthest away from Texas that I could get. But it was more than that. Something in me recognized that I needed to be there. I’d known it was important to my future and that it was the only choice for me the moment I’d seen its name—Ridgeview College.
The same thing had happened when I’d rushed for the frat. If I hadn’t, I never would have met Jacques and Rusty. We never would have ended up neighbors on the first floor, and we never would have fallen for each other. We’d navigated those years at college with stolen nights and hidden rendezvous, and I was sure it made us all the stronger for it.
We’d needed that strength when we’d graduated and been split apart. But we’d endured. We’d nearly lost Rusty, his job pushing him to the brink. But he’d found himself again, and in doing so, came back to us. As a trio, we’d built our slice of heaven together. We were happy.
We had no idea that it could get better.
Even Jacques spending a few years in Australia was serendipitous. He was living his dream with the Seals now, but who could have imagined that it was Carina’s ex who would facilitate bringing Carina back into Jacques’s life? It was as if fate stepped in again and sprinkled a little magic dust over the idea. How else could the Seals have ended up being one of the teams in attendance?
It was even more of a fluke that Cara had volunteered to be the sponsor’s liaison with the team. She’d asked Carina to go to the game with her, and it turned into another moment where fate stepped in to bring us together.
Jacques’s and Carina’s attraction to each other had sparked that night, even if Carina wasn’t ready to see it then. I’d hardly believed Jacques when he’d telephoned to tell us about her. He’d been smitten, and something in my gut told me to encourage him. Carina turned out to be the final piece of our puzzle that we didn’t even know was missing.
Jacques’s trip had been the catalyst for everything to fall into place, that pivotal moment that changed all our lives for the better.
But if a single moment had failed to eventuate—if Cara hadn’t walked in on her dad cheating, if Carina hadn’t gone to that game, if she’d said no to Jacques’s invitation to go out for drinks, if his grandfather hadn’t fallen and injured himself, if we hadn’t gotten drunk in Vegas—we wouldn’t have been here today.
We wouldn’t have Carina.
We wouldn’t have Charlie.
I’d never been one to dwell on those pivotal moments, but it was worth it. The baby girl in Carina’s arms was a testament to the importance of them.
Carina held Charlie out for Rusty to get his first hold, and he took her gently into his arms. My man was so gentle with her, so utterly smitten already. It took my breath away.
Our lives, our futures, flashed before my eyes. It had happened once when I was a kid, when my dad was drunk and violent. I thought I was going to die that night. The vision I’d had was bleak, filled with greys and browns, faded skies, and unhappy faces.
But now it was in Technicolor. It was vibrant and lively. Our future together was filled with laughter and hope. It was filled with love.
I looked at the men and woman and our baby girl that we loved, so grateful that they felt the same way about me.
This, right here—our family—was my perfect world, and I would spend the rest of my days living it to the fullest with Jacques, Rusty, Carina, our baby girl, and the rest of our family by our sides.