Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Leif
Best ways to Puck Handle Your Feelings
Is it wrong to be happy that Hailey’s given up on finding the father of this child?
That’s selfish, right?
I should feel bad about it. Maybe even guilty. But as I sit beside her, watching her actually eat—chew, swallow, and not immediately make a break for the bathroom because there’s a battle between her body and her digestive system. Honestly, this feels like a miracle I don’t want to question. She picks up another forkful, eyes bright with something dangerously close to enthusiasm, and it does something strange to my chest.
“This is amazing,” she says around a mouthful of food, covering it with her hand like that does anything to make it more polite. “Did you tell George I was sick of grilled chicken?”
I shake my head. “George just knows things. He’s a food psychic.”
Hailey hums, already going for another bite. “Well, tell him to keep doing . . . whatever this is.”
She looks better than she has in days. There’s color in her cheeks again, a little energy in the way she moves, and I should just feel relieved that she’s getting a little back to herself. And I do. Sort of. But it also makes it impossible to ignore the thing I’ve been trying really hard not to think about.
She’s not looking for him. Not going to track him down. Not going to make a grand effort to force some random guy into this picture.
Which means . . .
I exhale, pressing my fingers against the tension building in my jaw. I should not be happy about that. Yet, sitting here, watching her pick at her food in my sweatshirt that’s at least three sizes too big, hair in a half-falling-over knot that defies physics, it doesn’t feel impossible.
It feels like something I can work with.
I’ve been watching her since she got back, memorizing all the little differences. She’s still Hailey, still sarcastic, still prone to dramatics, but there’s something else too—something careful. She used to be bolder, braver, but now it’s like she’s waiting for the next disaster to hit. Like she’s waiting to be told she’s doing everything wrong.
Her eating habits have changed too. I notice the way she starts cautiously, taking small, testing bites like she’s waiting for her stomach to betray her. I notice the moment her shoulders lose some of their tension when it doesn’t. I notice how she fills the quiet with words, filling the space with chatter because silence makes her nervous.
She keeps glancing at me, not like she expects me to say something, but like she’s waiting for me to be normal. Which is funny. Because normal is the last thing I feel.
My eyes drift to her hands, noticing how her fingernails are longer, coated in something glossy. I don’t know why my brain latches onto that, but it does, and then suddenly it’s not just thinking about the baby. It’s thinking about Hailey here, in my space, in my life, in ways she never has been before.
Mornings with her feet against my kitchen floor, complaining about coffee because she can’t have it. Her voice filling the quiet when I come home from a game, her laugh when I tell her something isn’t funny, her stealing the blankets because, apparently, I run hot and she’s incapable of staying warm.
I want her here. Not for a week. Not for a few months. I want to come home to her. I want to figure out a way to make her stay.
And I have less than two months before I go back to training camp.
“You’re staring.” Her voice cuts through my thoughts, dragging me back to the present.
I meet her eyes, completely unapologetic. “Yeah.”
She squints at me, chewing slowly. “You get hit in the head too many times today?”
“Not really.” I shrug a shoulder. “I use a helmet—all the time.”
“Yeah, but you went to the rink, right?”
“Uh-huh,” I say casually. “I was doing some drills with Kade—he’s visiting for the day. Papa was here too.”
She tilts her head, studying me like I’m an untrustworthy science experiment. “Okay, seriously, what?”
I lean forward, resting my arms on the table. “I’m wondering how we’re going to set everything up here. The nursery, your . . . I don’t know, what do you need for work? Should we move to Brooklyn and get one of those big brownstones with a lot of rooms?”
She blinks, her fork pausing midair. “I can’t work in here.”
“Why not?”
“I travel. That’s one of the biggest parts of my job.”
“Yes, but for now you need to stick around, right?”
She nods slowly, like she’s bracing for whatever I’m about to say next. “Yeah, but I can’t just stop everything, Leif.”
I hesitate, my fingers curling into my palm. “Do you have plans for your next documentary?”
She sighs. “No, I don’t, but?—”
“Then you can figure something out here. In the city.” I shrug, keeping my tone casual even though I’m anything but. “Lucian’s in upstate New York with Sarah. You could write about a boy and his weird love for his Vizsla.”
That makes her laugh. “Sarah is adorable.”
“Unless she’s escaping or destroying things,” I remind her. “According to Scottie’s last text, Sarah let the horses out again. This time it took hours to get them back in the stable.”
She shakes her head, laughing harder, and I just sit there watching her, because when was the last time I heard her laugh like this?
“I wouldn’t mind visiting Luc and Sarah,” she admits, catching her breath. “Though I’m definitely not filming a documentary about them. I could about your family. The tell-all of the Crawford Playbook.”
“That would pay a lot,” I agree. “But you wouldn’t dare.”
She smirks but shakes her head.
“How about applying for the Ph.D.?” I continue, nudging the conversation forward.
“It’s . . . I don’t know. It’s probably too late for this year. Maybe next year, after the baby is born,” she says, almost like she’s convincing herself. “I could see what I could find for jobs around town. Maybe someone needs a hand with cameras or writing a script, or . . .”
She trails off, and I can see it happening—the doubt creeping in, the way she’s already talking herself out of it. Hailey doesn’t stay. She never has. She moves, she adapts, she makes herself fit into whatever place she’s landed, and then she leaves before it can root too deep.
Convincing her to stay here, with me, with this baby?
It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
She sighs as she finishes the last bite of food, like she’s just completed a marathon, then tilts her head at me.
“You’re still staring.”
I nod, because I’m past pretending. “Yep.”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you planning something?”
I lean back in my chair, letting a slow smile tug at my mouth. “Maybe.”
She groans, dropping her head onto the table.
I don’t move.
I just sit there, watching her, memorizing this moment.
Because I have less than two months to make her see what I already know.
She belongs here, with me. I’m going to prove it to her, I’m just not sure how.