Chapter 8
Jasper
“Do you think she knows who the father is, and she just isn’t telling us?” I asked as I slammed my locker shut. Maple’s situation had been stuck in my head for days.
Percy cocked his head, deep in thought for a moment. “No, I think if Maple was dating, we would know about it.”
She had always been pretty open about dating, even though we hated hearing when someone had asked her on a date. Luckily, from my limited understanding, Maple was rather introverted, so she didn’t go out often. Her lack of interaction with other men seemed to do wonders for our nerves.
“Why aren’t you angrier about her being pregnant?” Saint asked, turning to me, his hair sticking up after running his hands through it many times.
I knew we weren’t dating, that Maple technically wasn’t ours, but over the last two years, we had gained a closeness that made it feel almost real. So Saint was experiencing a lot of emotions about her pregnancy.
“I’m not exactly elated about the situation, but it’s not like she’s dating or bonded,” I said as I changed my socks.
A bitter laugh escaped his chest. “Do you really think she would ever be open to meeting us if she’s got a baby?”
I shrugged, a grin spreading across my face. “I’m not sure, but honestly, I don’t care about the baby. I’m more concerned that she is supported. Maybe this will be the thing that pushes her over the edge, accepts that we need to meet.”
My pack mate stared at me like I had grown a second head. “Dude, we aren’t exactly living a baby-friendly lifestyle, but fuck, I would change everything for her.”
If Maple said she wanted to meet, I would take her up on it in a heartbeat. The baby didn’t change my feelings about her one single bit.
More to love.
“We can change—that is—if she wanted to meet us.”
She had insisted she had her own reasons for not wanting to meet, and they had nothing to do with us, but it was kind of hard not to take it personally sometimes.
“We all know the only reason she hasn’t met us is because she’s shy,” Saint argued. “She has some crazy idea that we aren’t going to adore her because she won’t live up to our expectations.”
“You’ve been trying to change her mind for months and she hasn’t budged.”
“Don’t you want to meet her as well?”
I sighed. “Of course, I want to meet her—she’s wonderful—but is she really going to be all that we think she is?”
Saint looked away for a moment, a mildly guilty look on his face. “I may have had an idea…”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Tell me.”
“What if we hired a private investigator?”
My eyes snapped open, meeting his. “Actually, that isn’t a terrible idea. Is it an invasion of her privacy, though?”
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission?” Saint smirked, making me laugh so loudly, that several of our teammates looked at us questioningly as they changed. “I would ask Spencer to look into her, but can you imagine what he would do if he perceived her as a security risk?”
I laughed. Our security team was somewhat overzealous when it came to protecting us—we appreciated it, really. Even though we were all alphas ourselves, after one too many crazies had come after Saint, the Chargers insisted that we have security.
Maple really had us tied in knots.
“Dude, she would kill us. Forget about her—can you imagine how Devin would react?”
Saint winced. “Ugh, why does he have to be so responsible?”
Our pack mate was still in the rink with the coach, talking to him about some meeting or another, while we got changed.
“Because if he wasn’t, we would have probably been arrested by now,” Percy said as he closed his locker.
Saint pursed his lips and nodded. Over the years, we had gotten into our fair share of mischief, and Devin was usually the one who got us out of it.
Our conversation was interrupted by the assistant coach coming in. “Hey, guys, are you all packed and ready for the weekend?”
We all nodded. We had an away game coming up, and we traveled as a team.
“I don’t understand why we have to take a bus when we usually fly,” I said with a frown.
The assistant coach laughed. “It’s because we got gifted that fancy vehicle, and now the bosses want us to use it. Thankfully, we only take the bus if the game is a state or two away, otherwise, we’ll stick to flying.”
Saint grinned. “That’s good to know. I love all my teammates, but if I’m stuck in a bus with my pack mates for too long, I may murder one of them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Saint, of all the pack members who are likely to be murdered on a long drive, it’s you. Do you not remember the time you stole all my road trip snacks?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Cheese balls are sacred.”
“You also stole my gummy bears…”
The assistant coach shook his head, but there was a smile on his face, so thankfully, we weren’t irritating him too much. “I would really appreciate it if we could get through this game without having to instigate a murder investigation.”
“That’s a reasonable request, but what about a stalking investigation? You know the girls can’t resist Saint’s pretty face.”
“And that is why we have security,” he said before grabbing a pile of fabric containing some practice jerseys from the corner of the locker room and exiting.
Shaking my head, I picked up my phone, pleased to see a message from Maple to the group chat. We may have started talking via the ChattyPack app, but eventually we had moved on to a regular group chat.
Maple
So, the morning sickness has started, but these are amazing.
She had sent a picture of some cheese crackers and chocolate-covered ginger candies.
“I hate that she’s feeling sick,” Saint said, looking over my shoulder at my phone screen.
“That’s what usually happens when someone’s pregnant, unfortunately.”
What would it be like if I knew where she was?
She was clearly somewhere on campus, because she had to attend the university in order to be part of ChattyPack, as it was technically only for students.
We only had the app because Percy had downloaded it for an assignment.
She might be right under our noses and we had never even realized it.
Percy was the pack member who ventured onto campus the most, given that he attended classes regularly.
But we all went down occasionally. There were coffee shops and facilities we could use.
Saint was deep in thought for a moment.
I knew the chances of meeting Maple were minimal, but sometimes I felt like I needed to indulge Saint.
As a young pack of alphas on a popular hockey team, we got a lot of attention, but for some reason, Saint seemed to attract all the crazies.
Because of that, he hadn’t really dated in the last few years, retreating more and more into his online relationship with Maple.
Not that any of us had seriously dated since the day we signed with the Chargers. I had assumed that once we became famous hockey players, we would get a ton of attention. I was just naive when it came to what sort of attention we’d receive.
Crazy girls calling through our windows to get selfies with us crossed a line and gave me the ick. After that incident, we moved to the penthouse where there was much better security.
“Anyway, what do you want for dinner?” I asked. “I’ve got the ingredients for lasagna or a Japanese curry.”
Saint laughed. “I think we’re the only guys on the team who don’t use a nutritionist and a meal prep service.”
“If I fed you chicken and rice for every meal, you would revolt, and that’s what those services pretty much are. Also, I don’t think many of the guys use them on the team anymore because most of them have omegas and babies.”
A grin spread across his face. “I can’t wait until we can have family pizza night with kids, it’ll be so fun.”
“I think you’re jumping the gun a bit there. We need to find an omega first. So, you want to try dating apps again?” I smirked as I spoke because I knew his answer.
He shuddered. “Nope. Never again.”
Even as he grimaced at the idea, I couldn’t help but think about us eventually having a large family. An omega and children. Would they be athletic, like us? Or would they take after their mother?
Personally, I didn’t care if we had boys or girls, as both could be a whole barrel of fun. We often found ourselves on the ice with the kids during team events. Doc Jensen’s daughter was an ice skater and had taken it upon herself to race Saint every time they saw each other.
One day, I wanted to do that with our own kids.