Chapter 19
ANNE
Sunday afternoon my mom took Finn to the Magic House while Liam was at video sessions.
I stayed home to catch up on paperwork — treatment notes, progress reports, billing for the team. The quiet was strange after two days of Finn's energy filling every room.
My phone lit up with photos throughout the afternoon.
Finn stuck in a giant bubble. Finn at the water tables, soaked to the elbows. Finn in a hard hat at the construction village, expression of supreme professional seriousness.
He hasn't stopped smiling since we got here, my mom texted. I may never recover.
You volunteered, I wrote back.
Worth every second.
They came home with Finn still going at full speed, rattling off everything he'd done in the order he'd decided was most important, which was not chronological order.
"And Grandma got stuck in the tunnel! And I helped her out! And there was a shadow room where your shadow stays on the wall! And Mommy — when is Daddy coming?"
"For dinner. A couple of hours."
"That's forever."
"It's not forever. Go wash your hands."
He disappeared to the bathroom still talking, and my mom dropped onto the couch with the expression of someone who had given everything they had.
"He has more energy than any human child I have ever encountered," she said.
"I know."
"He gets it from Liam."
I thought about that. "Yeah," I said. "He probably does."
When Liam knocked on the door that evening Finn launched himself like a missile before I could even reach the handle. Liam caught him one-handed, scooped him up, and immediately started getting the full debrief at close range.
I caught his eye over Finn's head.
He grinned — that particular grin, the one that was just for me — and something in my chest turned over quietly.
We ordered Chinese food and ate on the floor around the coffee table.
Finn attempted chopsticks with the dedication of someone who refused to admit something was hard, made a spectacular mess, and laughed through all of it.
My mom watched us with the particular expression she used to give my dad — quiet and full and not trying to hide anything.
After dinner Liam did bath time. Finn introduced him to every bath toy by name and backstory — Captain Splash, Bubbles the spy, and a nameless duck who needed a name immediately.
"Quackers," Liam said.
Finn's face went luminous. "That's perfect."
We read together at bedtime, Finn in the middle, and by the last page he was mostly gone. His final mumbled declaration was "love you Daddy" and Liam went so still beside me that I could feel it without looking at him.
We tiptoed out together.
On the couch afterward, his arms around me, we talked quietly about the week ahead. Games. Practice. His contract ending after Round 1.
"What happens after?" he asked.
"I don't know yet. Take some time. Be here."
"Here here?"
"St. Louis here. With you and Finn." I paused. "If that's?—"
"That's everything," he said. "That's exactly what I want."
He kissed me slow and deep and I wanted to drag him down the hall. But my mom was twenty feet away and Finn could wake up, so I pulled back.
"Tomorrow night," I said. "After you win Game 3."
"Confident?"
"In you? Always."
He left reluctantly, and I went to bed thinking about how much had changed. How close I'd come to letting all of this stay broken.
How grateful I was that it wasn't.
Monday my mom took Finn to the City Museum.
The photos she sent throughout the day were increasingly chaotic — metal tunnels ten stories in the air, a slide through an old school bus, caves Finn had to crawl through while my mom, by her own admission, moved slowly.
He crawled through a tunnel and came out the other side before I'd gotten in, she texted.
Champion, I replied.
I need a nap and we still have the whole afternoon left.
I had morning sessions with two players — a winger with a tight hip flexor, a defenseman rehabbing a groin strain. Routine work, no complications. My brain kept drifting to the game tomorrow. To Finn in the stands seeing his father play for the first time.
That evening Liam came for dinner and Finn delivered another full recap, complete with dramatic reenactments of the tunnel system and what he described as Grandma Getting Stuck, which my mom disputed on technical grounds.
"I didn't get stuck. I moved slowly."
"You were stuck," Finn said, with the serenity of someone who knows they're right.
After Finn went to bed, Liam stayed a while longer. We sat on the couch, talking about the series, about Dallas coming out physical in Game 3, about what the team needed to do.
"How's the shoulder?" I asked.
"Perfect. No pain. Full strength."
"Good." I looked at him. "Go score some goals tomorrow. Finn's going to be watching."
Something shifted in his expression. "I want him to see what I can do."
"He already thinks you hang the moon. But yes. Score a goal. Make his night."
"I'll do my best."
He kissed me on the way out — slow and deliberate, one hand cupping my face — and I stood at the door after it closed thinking about tomorrow night.
Game day.
Finn was up before anyone else, already dressed in his Blaze jersey — the oversized one with the tape on the front that said FINN in his own handwriting — clutching the puck Carter had given him, ready to leave approximately eight hours before necessary.
My mom took him to the zoo to burn the energy down to manageable levels.
I went to morning skate for the coverage. The team was loose and confident — up 2-0 in the series, one win away from putting Dallas on the brink. I worked Liam's shoulder, checked his range of motion, did the activation protocol. Everything was exactly where it should be.
"You're good," I told him.
"I know." He caught my hand before I could step away. "Finn's going to be there tonight."
"I know."
"I want to score for him. I want him to see it."
I looked at him for a moment. "He already knows who you are, Liam. Whatever happens tonight."
"I know. I still want to score."
"Then go score."
We arrived at the arena early — my mom, Finn, and me — and the moment we came through the main entrance Finn went completely silent.
He'd been talking nonstop in the car. Now he just stood there, head tipped back, taking it in. The crowd already filling the seats. The enormous screens. The noise and the light and the cold pouring out from the ice level.
"Mommy," he said quietly.
"Yeah, baby?"
"There are so many people."
"About eighteen thousand. All here to watch Daddy play."
He processed this. "Whoa...is that a lot of people?”
“Yes, it is! You’ll see.”
Our seats were right behind the bench — close enough to see faces, close enough to hear the boards when players hit them. Finn sat between me and my mom, puck in his lap, and did not stop moving his head for the next twenty minutes as the arena filled around us.
When the lights went down and the announcer's voice boomed through the speakers and the Blaze skated out to the roar of the crowd, Finn jumped to his feet.
He spotted Liam immediately.
Liam skated past our section, looked up, found Finn in the crowd — I don't know how, eighteen thousand people, but he found him — and tapped his stick on the glass.
Finn absolutely lost his mind.
"He saw me! Mommy, he SAW me! Did you see that? He tapped the glass!"
"I saw."
"He knew where I was!"
"He always knows where you are."
Finn beamed so hard his whole face was involved, and my mom reached across him and squeezed my hand and neither of us said anything.
The puck dropped.
Watching Liam play when you loved him was an entirely different experience from watching him play professionally.
Every hit made my breath snag. Every time Dallas came at him hard I felt it in my chest. Every shift I was tracking the shoulder — rotation, contact, the way he absorbed a board check in the corner — even as the rest of me was just watching the man I loved do the thing he was made for.
Finn was a running commentary.
"Why did they stop? What's icing? Is Daddy going to score? Why is that man in the box? Can I have popcorn?"
My mom handled the popcorn. I handled the rules explanations.
Dallas came out physical, exactly as predicted. Aggressive. Trying to rattle the Blaze, get back in the series. But St. Louis was ready and focused and playing like a team that knew exactly where it was going.
Midway through the first period, the Blaze drew a power play.
Liam on the ice, first unit, half-wall. I knew this setup — had watched them drill it all week. Carter won the face-off clean, the puck moved quickly, D to D to Liam.
He wound up and fired.
Top shelf. Past the goalie before he moved.
The arena erupted.
Finn screamed so loud the family three rows back turned to look.
"DADDY SCORED! MOMMY HE SCORED! DADDY SCORED THE GOAL!"
On the ice, teammates converging, the celebration moving toward the bench — and then Liam looked up into the crowd and found us again and pointed. Directly at Finn.
Finn pointed back with both hands, jumping, screaming, the puck clutched to his chest.
My mom was laughing and crying at the same time. I was biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste it, trying to hold myself together in public.
This. This moment. This was what I'd almost kept from both of them.
I wasn't going to think about that right now. I was going to watch my son watch his father play hockey, and I was going to let it be exactly what it was.
St. Louis won. Liam scored twice and added an assist. The building was still loud when the final horn went.
Finn was hoarse and half-asleep against my shoulder but refused to leave. We waited outside the locker room with the other families, and when Liam came out — suit sharp, hair still damp — Finn woke up like someone had flipped a switch.
"Daddy! You scored two! And you pointed at me! Did you see me pointing back?"
"I saw you. You were the first person I looked for."
"Really?"
"Every time." Liam lifted him, held him close. "You're my good luck charm."
Carter walked past. "Your good luck charm absolutely delivered."
"Told you."
We walked to the parking lot together — the four of us, my mom just slightly ahead giving us space — and by the time we reached the car Finn was asleep on Liam's shoulder, the puck still in his fist.
"Best night of his life," I said quietly.
"Mine too." Liam transferred him carefully to the backseat, buckled him in without waking him. Stood up and looked at me across the roof of the car. "Come over tonight. After he's asleep."
"You come to me. Mom's going to bed early."
His eyes did something that made my stomach drop in the best way. "I'll be there."
My mom went to bed not long after we got home. Finn didn't stir when I transferred him to the guest bed.
I changed, washed my face, sat on my bed and tried to read and couldn't.
The knock came quietly.
I opened the door and Liam was there, still in his suit, looking at me the way he'd looked at me across the car roof.
I pulled him inside. Checked the hallway. Closed the bedroom door.
His mouth was on mine before I'd even turned around fully.
"I've been thinking about this since the second period," he said against my lips.
"Only the second period?"
"Third period I was focused."
I laughed quietly and pushed his jacket off his shoulders. He helped, shrugging it away, already working on my shirt. We stripped quickly and quietly, both aware of the apartment around us, both not entirely caring.
He walked me back to the bed and laid me down and looked at me in the low light from the window.
He kissed his way down my throat, my collarbone, his hands moving over me — thumbs dragging across my nipples, slow and deliberate, watching my face the whole time.
"Liam—"
"Shh." He smiled against my skin. "Gotta be quiet."
His mouth replaced his hands and I grabbed a fistful of the sheets and stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to breathe. He worked his way down my stomach, took his time, and by the time he settled between my thighs I had one hand pressed hard over my mouth.
He was thorough. He knew exactly what he was doing and he did it without rushing until I was shaking and biting down on my own palm and coming apart as quietly as I'd ever managed in my life.
He kissed his way back up.
“Feel good?" he murmured.
"I'm exceptional," I managed.
He laughed — low and warm, right against my ear — and I felt him hard against my hip as he settled over me.
"Your turn," I said.
I wrapped my hand around him, stroked slowly, felt him tense and exhale carefully.
"Anne—"
"I know." I guided him. "Come here."
He pushed inside slowly and I arched up and we both went still for a second, just breathing. Then he started to move — deep and deliberate, one hand over my mouth when I got too loud, my fingers digging into his back.
"I love you," he said quietly. Not performed. Just true.
"I love you," I said against his palm.
We moved together, careful and urgent at the same time, chasing something that built slow and broke hard. I came with his hand muffling the sound. He followed a minute later, face pressed to my neck, breathing my name.
We lay tangled together afterward, not speaking, the apartment quiet around us.
Eventually he said: "Three more wins."
"You'll get them."
"And then you're done with the team contract."
"Then I'm just yours. No professional complications."
He pulled me closer. "I like the sound of that."
"Me too."
He stayed until the city outside had gone quiet, and when he finally got up to leave he kissed me in the dark doorway for a long time.
"Sleep," he said.
"You first."
He smiled — I could feel it against my mouth — and slipped out.
I lay in the dark and listened to the apartment breathe around me. Finn down the hall, dreaming about hockey goals and pointed fingers and the best night of his five-year-old life.
I fell asleep smiling.