3
“Pizza?”
“Yes. I’m ordering because you’ve done enough meal prep. Unless you’d rather something else? It doesn’t have to be pizza.” Jordy settled onto the couch and tossed Rowan the remote. “So, what’s it going to be?”
By the time the pizza arrived, Rowan had found an episode of CSI: Toronto and snuggled under a throw blanket. His muscles were slowly relaxing, and he looked kind of adorable curled up in the corner of the sectional. Especially when his nose wrinkled every time the TV showed anything gross.
It wasn’t a bad way to end the day, regardless of the way things started. Jordy could get used to this.
ROWAN STUMBLED out of his room the next morning in search of caffeine. He’d fallen in love with Jordy’s stupidly expensive pour-over set and would grieve its loss once he inevitably moved out.
Gem liked to mock of him for his un-English morning routine, but Rowan figured his Canadian genes must be responsible for his coffee taste, because he refused to start the day with anything but a properly brewed cup.
Five minutes later, he sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee and noodling around on his phone, when soft feet shuffled into the kitchen.
An adorable sleep-rumpled Kaira wandered in, rubbing her eyes. She paused in the doorway when she caught sight of him, her eyes wide. Rowan held his breath and prayed not everything was ruined after yesterday’s disaster. What if she still hated him? What if she threw another fit?
Kaira broke the stalemate when she shuffled enthusiastically in his direction and crawled into his lap. Or attempted to. Rowan did most of the heavy lifting to make that happen, as her limbs were clearly still sleepy. Thankfully, they managed to get her arranged in his lap without any disastrously placed elbows or knees.
Once she’d curled up under his chin, the last of yesterday’s tension melted away and relief and affection filled Rowan’s chest. He murmured into her hair, “Good morning, poppet.”
Kaira hummed and snuggled closer. The sharp contrast to her usual behavior surprised him—he’d never seen her so quiet or so snuggly—but since she didn’t look upset, he figured he should take advantage while it lasted.
Fifteen minutes later, he was glad he had. She was wiggling in his lap and chattering away as if she’d absorbed his caffeine through osmosis, clearly having left all of yesterday’s grumpiness in the past.
“Why do you sound different from other people?”
“I grew up in England. It’s another country.”
“Does everyone in England sound like you?”
“Sort of. Some people do.” Rowan wasn’t sure how to explain regional accents to a six-year-old.
“Do you like pancakes?”
“Yes?”
“Daddy makes the best pancakes. We should ask him to make some.”
“Maybe when he gets up.”
“He probably went to the gym. He goes really early.” She swung her legs, little heels bumping against his shins. “Do you like to make sand castles?”
Rowan blinked. “I’m not sure I’ve ever built one.” His parents hadn’t been keen on beach vacations, at least not with their kid in tow.
Kaira stilled and stared at Rowan with eyes wide and mouth open. “ Never ?” Clearly Rowan had committed a faux pas. “Sand castles are the best! We should go to the beach and build one. Daddy can show you how.”
“What am I showing now?” Jordy strolled into the room dressed for the gym in an Under Armour T-shirt and shorts that strained around his thighs and biceps. Had Jordy bulked up recently? If clothes could talk, these would probably beg for mercy.
“Sand castles! Rowan never made sand castles at the beach! His daddy didn’t show him how, so we should show him. Can we take Rowan to the beach?”
Jordy headed to the fridge to grab a bottle of Gatorade. “It’s getting a bit late in the year for a trip to the beach, peanut. Rowan and I will keep an eye on the weather and our schedules, and if we can, we’ll go, but Rowan’s sand castle education might have to wait until next year.”
Kaira squirmed in Rowan’s lap. “He could come with us to Curacao!”
Fortunately Rowan wasn’t drinking at that point—he’d run out of coffee, alas—so he didn’t choke at the suggestion that Jordy take him on a family vacation.
Jordy was midgulp with his Gatorade and somehow didn’t choke. He just pulled the bottle away, wiped his mouth, and tilted his head as if considering Kaira’s suggestion. As if it wasn’t insane to invite Rowan on a family vacation after a week of cohabitation. “Hm. Maybe. But next summer is a long way off, so it’s too soon to make plans. Lots of stuff could happen between now and then.”
Kaira looked doubtful. “Like what?”
“Well, Rowan might have another job or make different summer plans, or we might not go to Curacao again.” Kaira’s whole body drooped, as if she’d never even considered any of these devastating possibilities. “Or you might decide you hate sand and swimming and castles and you never want to see any of them again.”
“Daddy!” Kaira shrieked, animated again and outraged at the sheer ridiculousness of her dad’s suggestion. “I would never not wanna swim. Daddy, everyone loves castles and sand.” She squirmed out of Rowan’s lap to wrap herself around Jordy’s leg.
Rowan’s attention swung from the total adorableness of the sight and the love and trust between parent and child to how much larger Jordy’s thighs looked juxtaposed with a near-toddler.
Maybe before Jordy’s work season really started, Rowan should go out and get railed so he could burn off some of the fire Jordy’s everything kept stoking.
Jordy did make pancakes.
“Pizza, then pancakes? I’m pretty sure they aren’t athlete dietician approved,” Rowan said in an undertone.
Jordy waved this off with a shrug and a small smile. “Eh, I’m a defenseman. I’m supposed to be hard to take down.”
Once they were settled at the breakfast table and Kaira was deep into her pancakes, Jordy caught Rowan’s eye and said, “So, there’s a work thing coming up that we should talk about.”
That sounded ominous.
“Basically they’re sending me to New York for a couple of days for some media stuff. We’re invited to bring our families. They’ll keep me busy most of the day, but we have our evenings mostly to ourselves.”
“Oh?” That sounded intriguing.
“So the question is, can you, and do you want to, come to New York next month? I’m not expecting an answer right now. I know you probably have to look at a calendar, and I know doing this job in another city, in another country, is a whole different ask. Technically I think you’d have to come as a friend, even, because you don’t have a work visa for the US. Which is fine, I can hire someone while we’re there too, or you and Kaira can stay here. But if you do want to come, it’ll be for three days, and you’d probably have some support in the form of spouses with kids doing the same thing.”
That was a lot to take in. Rowan swallowed a bite of pancake. “Uh, wow. You go to this often?”
“Sometimes. I didn’t go last year, but our captain is young this year, so I think the team wants me to bring up the average age.”
Rowan snorted. “You say that like you’re old.”
“Only if you’re counting hockey years. Just turned thirty-two last spring, and most guys are done before they do.”
Rowan’s eyes bugged. “Wait, seriously?”
“Average retirement age is twenty-nine.”
“Huh. I guess I figured it would be closer to thirty-five. Most footballers last that long.”
Jordy shrugged. “There are outliers, obviously, but hockey is fast and hard, and it’s only getting faster and harder”—Rowan’s libido perked up and wagged its tail, but he swatted it down with a newspaper—“and the players are getting younger.”
“I… picked the wrong profession. I will definitely not be retired in five years.” He ate some pancake in consolation.
“True, but you’ll probably still have the use of your knees and aren’t likely to need surgery to hold your body together before you reach fifty.”
“Thanks,” Rowan said dryly. “Tell me more silver linings. I need some. At this rate, I’ll be so old by the time I’ve got pensionable earnings that I won’t be able to retire before ninety.”
Jordy frowned. “Doesn’t the library have a pension fund?”
“Yeah, and I pay into it in the hopes of one day collecting from it instead of having to buy it all back, but I’m not full-time or even permanent. I’ve been working mat leaves for the past two years, and my contract is up in a few weeks and I don’t have anything new lined up. I lucked out getting two back-to-back, but the odds of getting a third look slim.” Rowan had thought his master’s in library science would give him job security. After all, modern society still needed systems of organization. But the waiting and hoping and worrying about not having a permanent job was wearing on him.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Jordy said, and he sounded it. “Was the public library where you were hoping to work?”
Rowan shrugged. “Yes? Maybe? I like working with the kids, the outreach to the community. But I don’t know. It would be nice to work somewhere I could use my English lit degree.”
“Oh, like at a college?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Rowan agreed, reluctant to admit that that was what he wanted in case saying it out loud jinxed it.
Fortunately, before Jordy could attempt further inquiry, Kaira put the conversation out of its misery. “Daddy, do you have to go to work today?”
Jordy swooped down to plant a kiss on her nose. “Afraid so, peanut. You and Rowan have lots of fun without me today, okay?”
Kaira returned the kiss, a gesture so sweet Rowan almost died. “We will.”
And, amazingly, they did.
AUGUST SPED by in a blur of intense workouts and summer thunderstorms.
When he was younger, Jordy enjoyed his off-season training. It felt good to push himself, to make himself into the best hockey player he could be. He liked the mind-numbing routine of it—lift this, jump over that, sprint this far, work these ropes.
He still enjoyed all of those things. Part of him suspected that a lot of professional athletes were just people who hated making decisions all the time, and having a trainer tell you what to do was a nice break from that. Bonus if you could get paid the big bucks for it.
But these days, training was getting harder. Jordy’s body had been through over a decade of professional hockey, and he could no longer deny the wear and tear on his joints. He could push through that—with proper medical supervision, because Jordy’s knees were worth millions of dollars a year—but he was missing out on time with his kid. In just a few weeks, he’d be in the grip of the preseason and Kaira would be starting school full-time.
Who let that happen?
But when he texted the question to Sully, the answer he got was less than sympathetic. Stop bragging. My kid still shits itself and wakes up screaming every 2 hours.
Which, okay. Jordy remembered those days. But he’d had Janice’s help, so when Jordy needed to be in game shape, the night changings and feedings weren’t his problem.
Sully’s next message bordered on offensive. How much do you think I would have to offer your manny to get him to work for me instead?
Jordy sent him a middle-finger emoji. Get your own!!! It wasn’t like Sully couldn’t afford it.
Besides, Jordy was used to Rowan being around the house now. Kaira had loved Janice and still Facetimed with her a couple times a week, but Janice had usually made herself scarce when Jordy was home. Jordy got that. It made sense that she wanted to keep a division between her work life and her home life. But it also meant he’d missed out on the experience of living with another actual adult—someone who didn’t go to bed at eight and didn’t think Bluey was the height of entertainment.
“Don’t forget I’ve got an eight-hour at the library tomorrow,” Rowan said as he returned from the kitchen with a board of cheese, fruit, and nuts. If he had complaints about this being the go-to snack food, rather than chips or popcorn or junk, he hadn’t mentioned it. He leaned forward to set it on the coffee table as Jordy flicked on CSI: Toronto . “And Clement’s family is on vacation this week. I can take Kaira with me, but uh….”
Jordy shuddered as he imagined it. Much as he appreciated having Rowan around, the schedule didn’t always work out perfectly. Until now they’d always been able to wrangle it, either with Clement’s parents’ help or with Rowan switching to a later shift at the library or Jordy heading to the gym early so he could be home before Rowan had to leave. “It’s fine. There’s a day care at my gym.”
The charcuterie clattered against the tabletop. “There’s a what ?”
The way he was looking at Jordy right now reminded Jordy of Kaira’s face when he told her what bacon was made out of. “Uh, a day care?” Jordy ventured. He was sure he’d mentioned this. “It’s not, like, ideal. She gets pretty bored if she has to go more than once a week, especially for three hours.” Training was starting to ramp up.
He still wasn’t sure what the problem was, but maybe he didn’t need to know, because after a few seconds, Rowan just shook his head and popped a piece of cheese in his mouth. “You professional athlete types are so spoiled.”
Jordy snorted and helped himself to a handful of almonds. “Of the two of us, who’s the one who knew what the backup kitchen was called?”
Rowan snatched the remote off the couch and poked Jordy in the stomach with it. “Excuse me, you’re the one who has rooms in his house he doesn’t even have names for.” He cued the episode to play. “Same terms as last time?”
Whoever correctly guessed the perpetrator first got to choose the snack for the next episode and then laze around on the sofa while the other prepped it. Jordy was basking in his first-ever win. “Obviously.”