1. Trent
Trent
I ran back up the steps to Katerina’s place, wondering, not for the first time, if I should have given her a longer kiss goodbye.
It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I wasn’t raised in an affectionate family.
It’s just that affection doesn’t always cross my mind at the moment.
My brain is always three steps ahead, running through job site schedules, material quotes, and structural layouts.
Slowing down to just be in a moment takes effort for me.
My twin brother, Gideon, tells me it makes me look like a dick. Which is why, when I met Kat nine months ago, he couldn’t believe she actually gave me her number.
I shook my head, a faint smile pulling at my lips as I reached her front door.
She was the first woman who had literally taken my breath away.
That afternoon at the bar, watching her sit with a handful of the Summit City Kodiak’s hockey team’s players, I thought I didn’t stand a chance.
But as I watched, I realized she wasn’t a puck bunny or a groupie.
She was relaxed, professional, and held her own.
The guys treated her like family, or at least, with the deep respect you give the physiotherapist keeping your knees and shoulders intact for a long season.
When Kat walked past our booth, Gideon caught her eye and called her over. I felt completely frozen in time as she stepped up to our table. She wore barely any makeup, completely unbothered by the uneven spray of freckles across her nose and tanned cheeks.
It wasn’t until she turned those striking hazel eyes on me and asked, “Does he always stare like that?” that the underwater sensation cleared and I snapped back to reality.
Yeah. I definitely should have kissed her better before she left for the airport.
Kat was headed out for the team’s first major away-game road trip of the hockey season, a gruelling two-week run through Central Canada and the Eastern United States.
She had been rushing around her house, packing her kit, checking her phone every thirty seconds.
When I stopped by to have a coffee with her before she left for two weeks, she patted my chest, kissed my cheek, and tossed me a silver key on a plain brass ring.
“Hold on to this,” she’d said, slinging her heavy duffel over her shoulder. “In case a pipe bursts while I’m away. Or, you know... if you just want to be here warming my bed when I get back.”
My heart had done a weird, heavy thud in my chest. Nine months in, and that was the biggest leap forward she’d offered yet. To be fair, it wasn’t like I had offered any reassurances about where we were headed either, but she knew we were good.
Now, standing on her porch after watching her Uber pull away… Why didn’t I offer to drive her to the airport? I realized I’d left some of my tools and the blueprints for our latest residential flip sitting on her kitchen counter, and my mind drifted back to what I was working on today…
I unlocked the front door with the new key; the lock clicked open smoothly.
The house still carried the faint, clean scent of her citrus perfume and the coffee we had shared.
I walked toward the kitchen, snagged my things, and was turning to leave when I decided I might as well use her washroom rather than the onsite porta-potty.
I dropped everything on the counter in her guest bathroom, and my mind was running over what needed to be done this week when my foot clipped the small, plastic wastebasket tucked beside her toilet, and it tipped over with a soft clutter.
“Dammit,” I muttered, zipping myself up before dropping to one knee to scoop the trash back in.
Some balled-up tissues, a crumpled receipt, an empty cardboard box… My hand froze over the box. Printed on the front, in bold blue lettering, were the words: Digital Early Detection.
My heart didn't just skip a beat; it slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape its cage.
I stared at the box. Then, slowly, my gaze dropped back to the trash can. Resting at the very bottom, partially hidden by balled-up tissues, was the white plastic wand, a tiny digital screen facing upward.
Two solid dark lines.
Pregnant.
The air rushed out of my lungs in one jagged burst. I picked up the stick with trembling fingers, staring at it as if it might morph into something else. But the lines stayed put.
A baby.
An overwhelming wave of heat surged up my chest, filling my head with a loud, ringing, and then hollow silence. My stomach flipped into a thousand knots, but beneath the sheer, blinding terror... something else sparked.
A fierce bloom of pride that bled into a terrifying wave of joy.
Kat is pregnant. With my kid.
Images flashed rapidly through my head: a tiny version of her with those dancing hazel eyes, a toddler wearing a tutu and a miniature team jersey, holding my hand on a job site. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a ragged breath, trying to force my brain to slow down.
Then came the cold drop in my stomach.
Why didn't she tell me?
I stood up with the test still in my hand, walked out into Kat’s home as if it could answer any of the questions swirling through my head. She had just been standing right here. She kissed my cheek, handed me a key, talked about away games and flight schedules... and she hadn't said a word about...
I looked at the box again. It was at the bottom of the trash. I knew she had a cleaner that came by once a week… What day did she come by last? When did she take the test?
I was surprised she would take in the guest bathroom, rather than her ensuite that she almost only used, but I used that bathroom too. Panic threatened to overtake the joy. Is she scared? Is she going to keep it? Does she think I won't step up? Is she hiding it from me?
I shoved my free hand through my hair, squeezing the back of my neck to stop the spinning. My mind raced straight to my parents.
Everyone told my mom and dad they were ruined when she got pregnant with Gideon and me in high school.
They were seventeen, broke, and terrified.
But my dad didn't hesitate. He stepped up, dropped out of school to start digging foundations, married my mom, and built Prescott Construction from the dirt up.
Growing up, they were solid. The kind of relationship that people often commented on.
They turned a sudden twist of fate into a real family, real love, and a life they were proud of.
My dad always said that was what a Prescott man did. When responsibility called, you didn't run. You built a foundation.
Kat and I hadn't been dating for years. Nine months was still early.
We hadn't even dropped the "I love you" bomb yet, mostly because I was always too choked up or too hesitant to say it out loud. Maybe she thought I was just a casual guy. Maybe she was terrified I’d bolt. And she’s headed for a grueling two weeks for work, I realized, my chest aching with a sudden, desperate urge to protect her.
She had a high-stress job, traveling with a professional sports team, dealing with elite athletes and relentless schedules.
She was probably panicking, trying to figure out how to handle this on her own.
I paced her small living room, the pregnancy test still gripped tightly in my hand.
I could call her the second she landed. I could demand answers.
No. I forced myself to stop. Don't overwhelm her.
If she took the test this morning, she was probably still processing it. She needed space. She was leaving for two weeks; I could give her two weeks to digest the news, to figure out how she wanted to lay it out for me. If I called her now, I’d just freak her out more.
I had to be calm. I had to let her tell me on her own terms. When she got back from the road trip, she’d break the news, and I would be ready. I would show her, without a shadow of a doubt, that she wasn't alone. I was in this one hundred percent.
Carefully, I set the test back into the trash can, right where she’d left it. I stood up, washed my hands, and looked at myself in the mirror. Hands shaking, I smoothed down my work shirt, my pulse still beating a steady, heavy rhythm in my throat.
When I walked out of her house and locked the door behind me, the world looked completely different.
I climbed into my truck and started the engine, heading straight for the current job site where my dad and Gideon were framing out a two-story home.
When I pulled up, Gideon was leaning against the bed of his truck, scrolling through real estate listings on his tablet while my dad yelled instructions to a drywall crew over the roar of a saw.
"Where have you been?" Gideon called out as I hopped out of the truck. He grabbed a coffee from the tray beside him and handed it to me as I walked up to him. "Dad’s about to lose his mind over the delayed delivery."
"Sorry," I said, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears.
Gideon narrowed his eyes, studying my face. "You look like you just got hit by a semi. What happened? Are you already missing your kitty Kat?"
"She gave me a key," I blurted out, because I wasn't sure if I could share the other news without Kat feeling like she could share it with me.
Gideon raised an eyebrow, a grin spreading across his face. "Damn, brother. Moving fast. Look at you."
My dad walked over, wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve, looking between the two of us. "What's going on?"
"Trent got a key to the kingdom," Gideon joked.
My dad gave me a proud pat on the shoulder. "Good for you, son. She’s a great girl. Keep your head on straight and treat her right."
"Yeah," I murmured, "I’m gonna treat her right."
As I walked toward the framed structure of the house, looking up at the wooden beams coming together against the crisp September sky, my mind was spinning, and for once it wasn’t about work.
I had to show Katerina what I had obviously failed to show her until this moment. I could be, would be there for her.
She was scared, and she didn't know how to tell me yet. But I would prove to her that she didn't have to do this alone. We were going to be a family; she just had to come home and say the words.