Chapter 18
. . .
Silas
“You see this, Tristan?” Will pulls back his driver and pauses midair, a gleeful smirk plastered across his face as he waits for my alternate captain to acknowledge him.
When Will doesn’t get a reaction, he powers through the ball, hitting it low, hard, and straight. I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no end to this guy’s talents, and I see the way it grinds on my teammate.
Will moves away from the tee, and Mason steps up next, ready to take his shot.
It’s past eight p.m. on a cold November night, and the driving range is the last fucking place I want to be. It’s possible I want to be here even less than Tristan does.
“Whose idea was this goddamn team-building night anyway?” Tristan bites, folding his arms across his chest.
“Mine.” Mason punches through the golf ball, sending it out into the night.
Will slow claps at the shot before tipping his chin at me to go next.
Like a petulant teenager, I throw my head back and see stars twinkling brightly in the sky. “As captain, I second the idea of a team-building night, but can the next one be in a bar or something?”
Mason’s lips curl into a suggestive smile as he rests his golf club on the wall behind me. “Did you have a specific bar in mind?”
I scowl at him as Tristan steps up in my place to take a shot. It goes wide of the target zone, and Will snickers at the effort.
Enraged, Tristan spins on his heel, pointing his driver straight at Will. “Do you ever get tired of being an asshole, or do you earn loyalty rewards for every day you piss me off?”
Mason flops his head between his shoulders, thankfully distracted from his previous line of thought.
I don’t want to be here tonight because I’m grumpy as fuck and I haven’t heard from Vesper since I left her apartment yesterday.
The last thing I need is to be goaded by my teammate about the woman who may or may not be carrying my unborn child.
“Jesus fucking Christ, why are you all so irritable? Here I was, trying to arrange a fun night for single guys looking to fill a boring weekday night, and all you can do is moan about not being in a bar or how intolerable your teammate is,” Mason snipes.
Will raises a hand like we’re back in school. We might as well be, considering the level of maturity on display.
“Should I have been invited? I’m getting married in February, and I am very unsingle.”
Tristan mock gasps. “Wait, you’re getting hitched in the bye week? Wow, you should’ve said, William. I don’t know how we overlooked it.”
Will arches a brow, ready to retort.
“Oh, fuck me,” I drawl, head tipped back again in despair. “Can we all stop acting like we don’t have huge things going on in our lives?”
When I reset my focus back on my three teammates, they’re all silent and staring at me.
Mason scratches at the back of his neck, wincing. “Well, Silas isn’t wrong. My wife has run back to France and won’t speak to me.”
“And I’m getting married, in case you aren’t aware.”
Mercifully, Tristan ignores Will. “And my season so far is a sack of shit, and I’ll likely be dropped to the farm team, so I guess that’s my drama.” He adds his own woes to our collective list.
Three pairs of eyes all land on me. Shit.
I sure walked into this one.
“What big event have you got going on in your life, Si?” Mason adds with a similar smile to earlier.
Will steps toward me. I feel like a defendant in a courtroom, being analyzed by the jury.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Silas’s ‘big event’ has to do with his desire to be spending the night in one bar in particular.”
Suddenly animated, Tristan clicks his fingers. “And get served by a cute bartender with black hair and bright blue eyes.”
“Are we”—Mason steps right up to me, mirth invading his features—“along the right lines, Cap?”
He damn well knows that they’re along the right lines.
And I’m certain that my teammates aren’t going to let this drop until I give them something about what’s going on between me and Vesper.
There’s no hiding it anymore and I did a shit job at concealing my attraction to her in the first place. Clearly.
“Drew is a vault,” Will says, pulling his pinched fingers across his lips. “And if the girls can keep secrets, then so can the boys.”
While I figure out how much I’m prepared to divulge to these nosy motherfuckers, I slide my phone out of my jeans pocket and check the screen for messages.
“Cap is pining,” Tristan points out.
“Yep,” Mason agrees. “That’s the look of a guy so far under the thumb that his world has gone dark.”
I don’t know if it’s my empty phone screen or my annoying friends that pull the next words from me. In the end, it doesn’t matter because they tumble from my mouth regardless.
“I’m waiting to find out if Vesper might be pregnant.”
Will tries to say something but chokes on his own breath and breaks into a coughing fit.
I release a maniacal groan, praying that my teammates are as trustworthy as I hope they are.
“Wait a fucking minute.” Mason holds up a hand, and Tristan slaps Will hard between the shoulder blades. Something he probably enjoys way more than he should. “Is she taking a test right now, and you’re waiting on the results?”
I gaze around, wide-eyed and thankful that there’s no one within earshot.
Mason mouths, Sorry, and, yeah, I’m regretting my big mouth already.
“I’m going to bring it back one more step here,” Will says now that he’s caught his breath. “You say that Vesper might be pregnant. Are we to assume the baby is yours or …”
“Holy fucking shit!” Tristan announces, and I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Can at least one of you define discretion for me? Because I’m ninety-nine percent sure none of you knows what it means.”
It’s not only Mason standing right in front of me now, but all three of them.
“Si …” Will says in a much lower voice, now looking way more serious than before. “Is the baby yours or your brother’s?”
I look between all three of them. “If Vesper’s pregnant, then the baby will be mine. And I’m not waiting on test results.”
“Okay, that’s good because I thought we were looking at a paternity issue here.”
I narrow my eyes at Mason. For saying this guy is one of the calmest defenders I’ve ever played with, he sure can get ahead of himself off the ice.
“No,” I bite out, not meaning to sound so harsh. “Sorry,” I say, closing my eyes as I try to get ahold of myself. “The past two days have been draining, and by now, Vesper will have definitely made a decision about whether to take Plan B.”
A half hour later, we’re holed up in the hotel bar, attached to the driving range.
Each of us—apart from Will, who has a soda—has an untouched pint of beer as I recount everything that’s happened with Vesper.
From eating pizza in bed with a movie to Kane showing up drunk at Vesper’s apartment as I left Mason standing in Riley’s.
The only part of the story I haven’t laid out is how deep my feelings run for the girl I keep praying will blow up my phone at any second.
From opposite me at the table, Mason presses his lips into a thin line before he clears his throat and takes his first swig of beer.
“I get that you wanted to give Vesper the choice, and that’s how it should be, but …”
He pushes a hand through his dirty-blond hair, and my heart sinks on his behalf. When I blurted out about a potential pregnancy earlier, I didn’t stop to think of all the issues he and Eloise had experienced when they tried to start a family.
“I want to have a baby with her more than anything,” I cut off his mental spiral, quickly clarifying where I stand with my responsibilities.
“Did we plan to have unprotected sex? No.” I swallow thickly.
“But I’ve been in love with her for a long time, I’ve always wanted a family of my own, and there’s no one else I want to do this with. ”
Will sits back in his chair, tongue gliding along his bottom lip. “I have two more questions.”
Tristan rolls his eyes, making sure that Will notices him.
“Does Kane know anything yet?”
Mason swallows his latest sip of beer, setting the glass back down on the table. “I’m guessing not since Cap still has all of his limbs attached.”
I nod my confirmation, opting not to address the fact that I still don’t give a fuck what Kane thinks. To my teammates, it’s only Kane who is capable of doing serious physical damage to someone. They’ve yet to see me when I truly lose my head. If they had, they wouldn’t be worried for my safety.
“Question two,” Will continues. “Does she share the same feelings for you?”
My stomach sinks, skin prickling with discomfort.
I shift in my seat, words failing to materialize.
“I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. We can co-parent if that’s what she decides.
” Disinterested in my beer, I push it away, a sick feeling rising up my throat.
“Total transparency: both of us have always wanted a family, but other than Vesper, I’ve never met anyone I want that with, and I know she feels the same way.
Sure, she’s only twenty-four, turning twenty-five in a couple of months, but she’s also lost faith in men. ”
Will offers me a small smile. I’m nine years older than him, and he’s already found his person for life. I guess it’s hard to put himself in my shoes.
“Are you hoping that she’ll fall in love with you?” Mason redirects my attention to him.
Now, this is a question I can answer with ease.
“Yeah, and I plan to make her the happiest woman on the fucking planet.”
Tristan clicks his tongue, a cocky smirk overtaking his face. “With statements like that one, you could make even the doubters like me believe in a happily ever after.”
Will side-eyes him. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Tristan. Silas isn’t a first-rate asshole, so he has a shot at Vesper falling in love with him.”
Tristan grabs a coaster from the table and launches it at Will, Frisbee-style.
It smacks him between the eyes, and I slap my palms down on the table, rising to my feet.
“I’m calling time on tonight and this conversation before it descends into more bickering between you two.”
I’m halfway to the exit with the guys trailing behind me when I feel a vibration, and I almost rip my pocket, yanking my phone out.
“Wait.” Mason holds out both hands, preventing Will and Tristan from moving. “Our boy might have an update.”
It feels like the longest time as I unlock my cell and navigate to the message.
Knockout
Hey, can you meet me at the bar tonight after my shift? I should be done by midnight, and I want to talk to you face-to-face. And I know it’s late, but I don’t think this can wait.