Cocky as Puck (San Diego Seals Hockey #4)

1. Keeley

one

Keeley

Icaught the front door with my foot before it banged shut and called out, “Si, I’m home.”

“In here,” he responded from the back of the house.

I walked through to the kitchen and internally groaned.

I didn’t have time for visitors tonight, but Amanda, my husband’s junior agent, was already here.

I rarely saw her—we didn’t really spend time together—but I hadn’t realized it’d been that long since we’d caught up.

Her being pregnant was a surprise. Simon spoke a lot about her; it was strange that he’d never mentioned she was expecting.

“Hey, Amanda.” I smiled politely.

I was itching to tell Si our news. I couldn’t wait. I didn’t even give Amanda a chance to respond before I turned my attention to my husband.

“You wouldn't believe the call I just got, Si,” I exclaimed, my voice wobbling with emotion.

My heart was beating a mile a minute, and I was bouncing between giddy excitement that we were getting a new foster child and devastation that we were needed.

But it was the excitement that overruled everything.

My smile was wide enough to hurt my cheeks.

My hands were shaking, and I wanted to dance and laugh.

I continued without waiting for him to speak.

“It was LaShelle. She has a twelve-month-old—a little girl who needs urgent care. I said yes. They're going to be here in a few hours.” I was word vomiting, but I didn’t care.

This would make Si’s day too. “They’re trying to find her family.

Her mom just died, and the daycare center said her dad has passed too.

I know our adoption application hasn’t been approved yet, but this could be it.

We might get the chance to raise a child. ”

A fierce stab of guilt sliced me open. A woman had just died. Her baby was alone until LaShelle could locate her family. What if she had no one? If there were no family or friends who could step up, she’d be a ward of the state.

Yet I was happy.

I was a shitty, awful person. A horrible human being.

But it was also what I’d dreamed of.

Having kids had never been a priority—I’d wanted to focus on my career and be free to travel—but I’d come around.

I saw babies all around me. Hockey players seemed to get married young and have kids quickly.

There were so many children at team events.

Just seeing the love between those big beefy men and their babies was enough to make me yearn for the same, and Simon had desperately wanted children.

We’d decided to start with fostering while we were trying for our own.

Then I found out I couldn’t have kids. It had rocked me to my core.

Ripped my heart out and stomped on it. I’d walked around shattered for weeks, bloodied and bruised where my heart used to be.

I couldn’t describe the ache, the emptiness that had taken up residence in my chest. It was soul deep.

I hadn’t thought I wanted to be a parent at first, but before that moment, I’d never been told I couldn’t.

Isabella had pulled me out of it. She’d arrived on our doorstep, trash bag in hand and a hole in her sneaker.

She was a six-year-old who’d needed to be loved, and I’d fallen for her sweet scowl right then and there.

A couple of months later, when she’d been collected so she could live with her aunt, I’d been thrown right back into that dark place.

By then we’d made the decision to adopt.

While our application was being processed, we were fostering.

Now, maybe, with luck on our side, we might have the chance to make adoption a reality.

“Sit down, Keeley,” Simon said. His voice was low and serious, his poker face firmly in place. I’d seen him like this before when he was working, but never with me. “That's actually what we wanted to talk to you about,” he added.

Alarm bells started ringing. Something wasn’t right. I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

He slowly made his way from the refrigerator over to the table and sat down in his usual spot, then waited for me to do the same.

I must have been silent for a beat too long because Si clarified, “Keeley. Children. We need to talk.”

“Okay?” I responded, dragging out the vowels. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Why did they need to speak with me about children? I looked between them and furrowed my brow.

Then it dawned on me. Did Amanda not want her baby? Was she thinking of giving them up? I turned to her trying to gauge what was happening.

I froze.

She was watching Simon. A soft smile tilted her lips up, and her entire body was turned toward him.

Was she attracted to him? They’d worked together for a while now, but she was being awfully familiar with him.

She was sitting too close, too, her shoulders almost touching his, and her head was tilted toward his as well.

But then Simon shifted his attention to Amanda. I watched as he slipped his hand into hers and smiled, his expression so full of affection. Love.

Bile surged up my throat. My stomach curdled, and a sickening, sinking feeling washed over me.

I swallowed hard.

My legs turned shaky. I gripped the chair in front of me to steady my knees, trying to stop them from giving out beneath me.

I shook my head.

No.

This couldn’t be happening.

Amanda grinned, her smile full of sunshine and rainbows. My gut twisted harder.

She lifted her shoulders, leaned in closer to Simon, and then she announced, “We're having a baby.”

Oh, fuck.

The floor fell out from below me, and my stomach turned. A rushing sound filled my ears, and my mind filled with static. “I…” I blinked. I pressed my hand down on my belly, willing my stomach contents to not make a reappearance.

“Keeley, did you hear? Amanda and I are expecting,” Si prompted as if he was waiting for me to congratulate them. He watched me with downturned lips and narrowed eyes, his displeasure at my reaction obvious.

He flicked his gaze to Amanda, and his expression transformed like a switch had flipped. He smiled, his eyes filled with tenderness and love as he leaned closer and rested their foreheads together. “I’m sorry. She’s being rude.”

I blinked, disbelieving the words he’d just said. I was being rude? Was he serious?

Simon touched her cheek with so much affection that it would have been sweet had I not been watching my husband with another woman. Instead, the only thought echoing through my head was When had he last looked at me like that?

Amanda returned his smile. Their eyes locked once more as he pulled back and brought her hand to his lips. He kissed her gently, and I pressed my stomach harder, forcing the toast I’d had for dinner back down.

My husband’s mistress caressed her rounded belly lovingly before adding, “We were trying for a little while before it happened. I'm six months along.”

I opened my mouth again. But I had nothing. I couldn’t speak. I was utterly numb. I sank into the chair opposite Amanda and exhaled heavily.

What the fuck was happening? Was this some sick joke? I didn’t understand how this could have happened. We were happy. Weren’t we?

I rubbed my eyes to stop the stinging and tried to make sense of the noise in my head. My mind was spinning, words tumbling over one another like they were in a washing machine.

The ache in my chest was as much physical as it was emotional.

I pressed the heel of my hand against my breastbone, instinctively trying to relieve the sharp pain slicing me there.

I curled in on myself, my spine bowing and another breath whooshing out of my lungs.

Inhaling was more difficult. My chest was tight, and the lump in my throat made swallowing impossible.

I wanted to cry and beg Si to tell me it was a lie.

But I knew it wasn’t.

He was leaving me. He’d cheated on me, and now he was leaving me.

Then it dawned on me.

My voice shook, the words I enunciated sounding choked when I asked slowly, “You've been trying for a little while? But then it happened six months ago?”

“Yes. Isn't that great?” Amanda responded with another excited grin. She was beautiful and petite, with long wavy hair a few shades lighter than my medium brown, bow-shaped lips, and guileless blue eyes.

A jolt of anger surged through me, fiery and devastating in its ferocity. How dare they?

“You do realize we're married?” I asked, my words sharp, but not harsh enough. I gestured between myself and my cheating-ass husband. “Don't you?”

“Yes.” She nodded and smiled again.

I flicked my gaze to Simon. He was staring at her, completely enamored. Un-freaking-believable.

“So,” I started, biting my tongue to bank the ridicule in my voice. Instead, I sounded sickly sweet. I wanted to vomit at my tone. “How long were you trying?”

“About six months,” Simon responded without sparing a glance my way.

Rejection hit me hard, and I wanted to slap him, to make him hurt as much as he was hurting me.

I balled my hands into fists and pressed them against my thighs. My fingernails bit into my palms, no doubt leaving crescent marks in the flesh.

Right, then. Six months trying plus six months of her being pregnant. Simon and I had been married for three years. A third of our marriage was a lie. There I’d been, thinking everything was wonderful, while Simon was off screwing his junior agent and succeeding in making a baby.

I rubbed my temples, a headache pressing against my skull.

Bitterness swept through me, followed by bone-deep hurt.

My eyes stung with unshed tears. My hands shook, and my jaw ached with how hard I was clenching it.

I needed space. I needed to get away from them.

How could he do this to me? How could he betray me like this?

I thought we were happy. I thought he loved me.

My eyes filled with tears, and I pushed myself up from the chair and turned away from them. I pressed my hands against my mouth, trying to hold back my sob.