Chapter 24
twenty-four
SOPHIE
“Hey, sleepyhead.” My whisper barely carries to the backseat where Hazel has curled into a tight ball, blonde curls spilling across her face. “We’re home.”
Silence.
I watch for a moment, transfixed as her chest rises and falls in the steady rhythm of deep sleep, mouth slightly open. The streetlight catches the glitter still clinging to her cheek from whatever craft project she’d ambushed us with at McDonald’s.
“I think someone used up all her energy reserves,” Mike says, voice low and amused as he shifts the car into park.
My parents’ porch light spills golden across the front lawn, turning their ordinary colonial into something warm and welcoming against the darkness. The sight tightens something in my chest—not quite homesickness, but close enough.
I turn to Mike and smile. “Thanks for today. For all of it. But especially taking the role of Chief Bug Guy.”
“Even the part where your sister choreographed a flash mob to ‘Baby Shark’ and recruited half the climbing gym?”
Heat floods my face at the memory. “Especially that part. You moved like someone was running electricity through your limbs at half speed.”
“That’s both highly specific and emotionally devastating.” His mock offense dissolves into a grin. “Some of us save all our coordination for ice skates.”
The car falls silent again, but it’s the loaded kind—thick with awareness of how close we’re sitting, how his cologne has claimed every molecule of air in this space. I know what I’m thinking, and the decisions I’ve made in the last few hours, but now I wish that I could read his mind.
My fingers twist the hem of my jacket. “We should probably…”
“Right. Yeah. Of course.”
He’s out and opening the back door before I can overthink it further. I gather Hazel’s detritus—backpack, jacket, three Happy Meal toys she’d named and created an entire backstory for—and when I look up, Mike already has my sister cradled against his chest.
My lungs forget how to work. The air leaves me in a silent rush, and something pools low in my belly. Not just attraction—though that’s certainly there, insistent and undeniable—but something more terrifying than that, something that feels like certainty.
He didn’t just pass my test today. He aced it with extra credit.
I lead him up the walkway on legs that feel disconnected from my brain. Before my knuckles can meet wood, the door swings inward. Dad stands there in his ancient Michigan Hockey sweatshirt that has seen better decades, but that he’d die without.
“You’re late.” No accusation colors his tone, just observation. “Hazel asleep already?”
“Sorry. We stopped for dinner after the climbing gym.” I shift my weight. “And then there was the whole impromptu dance party situation…”
“It’s fine, Sophie.” But his gaze has already traveled past me to Mike, cataloging every detail. His eyebrow performs that subtle arch I remember from childhood, a one that meant I was about to get a lecture about leaving my bike in the driveway.
Desperately wanting to break the silence, I stammer a completely unnecessary introduction. “I guess you two already know?—”
“Coach.” Mike executes an impressive nod considering he’s got forty pounds of drooling eight-year-old decorating his shoulder.
Dad’s eyes complete another circuit: Mike, me, sleeping Hazel, back to Mike.
I can practically see the calculations happening—daughter, player, unexpected Saturday activity, showing up at family home.
Although he knew we were both taking Hazel out today, he’s doing the math on exactly what this situation is.
“Altman.” He steps aside. “Second door on the right.”
Mike nods, squeezes past us both, and then navigates the stairs with an athlete’s grace while I hover in the entryway, trying to telegraph “nothing to see here” with every fiber of my being. Both my father and I stand in awkward silence until we’re sure Mike is out of earshot.
“So,” I grasp for literally any topic that isn’t the six-foot-four hockey player currently tucking my sister into bed. “How was New York?”
“Good.” His gaze remains fixed on the stairs. “Your mother enjoyed the restaurant.”
“That’s great.”
“Mmm.”
The silence stretches taut between us once again, the Cold War between us still being waged. I’m contemplating a detailed analysis of tomorrow’s weather when Mike reappears at the top of the stairs, backlit by the hallway light in a way that makes my stomach flip.
“She didn’t even stir.” He descends with the same easy grace. “I made sure her nightlight was on. Hope that’s OK.”
Something behind Dad’s eyes softens incrementally. “That’s fine. I appreciate you bringing her home.”
Mike comes to stand beside me, close enough that the heat of him presses against my awareness, but far enough to maintain plausible deniability. Dad’s gaze tracks between us with the focus of someone who’s spent decades reading player positions.
“How was the climbing gym?” The question is aimed at Mike, but it’s not really about climbing.
“Good, sir,” Mike says, and then he grins. “Hazel’s got no fear. Made it to the top before either of us.”
“Like her mother.” A ghost of a smile crosses Dad’s face. “I’m actually surprised she only beat you once.”
“Three times,” I add, desperate to steer us toward safer conversational territory. “She would’ve kept going if they hadn’t announced closing time.”
Dad nods, still dissecting Mike with his eyes.
But it’s not his coach look. I know that one.
This is something else. This is a father evaluating the young man who spent Saturday with his daughters, and the silence stretches until my skin prickles with the weight of it.
Then, finally, Dad gives Mike a small nod.
Mike’s shoulders drop a fraction. He’d understood the test, accepted the risk. Dad could make his life hell—bad ice time, poisoned references to scouts, the works—but he’d shown up anyway. And my dad knows it as well, and has now ticked off on… whatever this is.
“Rose is in the kitchen,” Dad says, his tone lighter. “She’d like to hear about your day, Sophie.”
It’s a dismissal wrapped in politeness. I hesitate, caught between them. “Uh, I think?—”
“It’s fine, Sophie.” His voice gentles. “Go on.”
I aim what I hope is a reassuring smile at Mike—though it probably looks more like I’m experiencing mild indigestion—and escape toward the kitchen, where I find Mom scrolling on her iPad when I enter. She doesn’t notice me right away, so I take a second to take a mental stocktake of her.
She looks tired, but happy.
And her face transforms at the sight of me. “There’s my girl!” She stands and enfolds me in a warm hug. “How was the day with Hazel and Mike ?”
The emphasis on his name could power a small city. “ Hazel had a wonderful time,” I say pointedly, breaking the hug and sitting opposite her.
“Just Hazel?” Her eyes sparkle with maternal mischief.
“How was your appointment?”
She flaps a hand. “Oh, fine. But your father found that little Italian place I’ve been stalking on Instagram. Sophie, the pasta. I nearly asked to lick the plate.”
“Mom!”
“What? The waiter was very understanding.” She shrugs. “Said it happens all the time.”
Despite myself, I laugh. The image of my proper father watching Mom commune with her cacio e pepe is amusing in the extreme, but footsteps in the hallway cut my response short. Mike appears in the doorway looking vaguely shell-shocked but intact. Whatever dad said, Mike survived.
“Oh!” Mom’s delight could probably be seen from space. “Sophie didn’t mention I’d get to meet you.”
My face goes nuclear. “Mom, this is Mike. Mike, my mom, Rose.”
He steps forward with that easy charm that probably sells hockey tickets. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Pearson.”
“Rose, please.” She studies us both with scientific precision. “So you’re the one who conquered the rock wall with my girls?”
“More like they conquered it while I tried not to embarrass myself. Hazel left us both in the dust.”
Mom’s laugh fills the kitchen. “That sounds right. Always charging ahead, that one.”
An awkward beat passes, then I fill the silence. “Mike was nice enough to drive us home. Hazel passed out in the backseat.”
“Speaking of which, I should probably head out.” He glances at his watch. “Early practice tomorrow.”
“Of course.” Mom beams at him. “It was lovely meeting you, Mike.”
“Likewise.” He turns to me. “Need a ride home?”
Relief floods through me. “That’d be great.”
I mouth goodbye to Mom, whose expression suggests she’s already composing the group text to her sisters about the hockey stud who’s stolen her eldest’s heart. Outside, the October air bites through my jacket, sharp and clarifying after the warmth of the house.
“So.” I pause at his car, hand on the door handle. “Scale of one to professional athlete funeral, how dead are you?”
His laugh rumbles through the quiet street. “Your dad just said to treat him like any other parent.”
“That’s weirdly normal of him.”
“He did give me a look though.” Mike narrows his eyes in a dead-on impression of Dad’s signature “I’m-evaluating-your-life-choices” expression.
Laughter bubbles out of me as I climb in the car. “I know that one very well, you won’t be shocked to know.”
He starts the engine, and as we pull away from my childhood home into the familiar streets of my neighborhood, the streetlights paint shifting patterns across his profile—the strong line of his jaw, the concentration furrow between his brows, the way his hands rest on the wheel with easy confidence.
It’s a sight.
Every few blocks he glances over, and something in his expression makes my ribs feel too tight for my heart.
I sink deeper into the leather seat, letting the day wash over me in waves.
My muscles ache pleasantly from the climbing, a good exhaustion mixing with the nervous energy that had built and then eased.
And Mike was the reason I felt more comfortable as the day went on.