Divorced from Number Thirty-Eight (Grizzlies Hockey #2)

Chapter 1

One

Gray

“This is a bad idea,” my teammate mutters from beside me.

I pause next to Leo on the sidewalk and can’t help but agree.

This place is bigger than Costco.

And it’s filled solely with baby products.

The Baby Emporium is…terrifying.

And I’m saying that as a man who plays professional hockey for a living.

But as captain of the San Jose Grizzlies, I can’t show fear.

I’m expected to lead—even if part of me knows my teammates are wondering when I’ll screw up again.

When the shit in my life will overflow and impact the team.

Again.

My temple throbs, but I shake it off, know I’ve spent far too many nights lying awake, staring up at the ceiling, shame the worst kind of bedmate.

“We got this,” I say, mostly to myself, and trudge toward the bank of plate glass doors, grabbing the handle and yanking one open.

Then wanting to promptly slam it shut and get the hell out of here.

The noise.

Good God, the noise.

“Fuck,” Leo mutters from next to me.

“Buck up, boys!” Smitty, another teammate who, along with Ryan, is accompanying me on this shopping trip.

Or hijacking it, really.

Because Aiden’s baby shower is next weekend.

His co-ed baby shower.

What kind of fresh hell is that?

One that’s going to have me attending a co-ed baby shower on my day off when I’d much rather be rotting in front of my TV or if I’m feeling energetic, getting dressed in adult clothes and driving to the movie theater not far away, buying a huge bucket of buttered popcorn and a soda big enough to quench the thirst of an elephant, then rotting in front of a giant screen while an action hero diffuses bombs with seconds to spare and makes jumps between buildings that are impossible and always gets the bad guy.

Though, as much as I like going to the movies, I don’t often feel energetic on my days off because my work days include hockey games, hockey practices, off-ice hockey training to keep honing my hockey skills, and working out for hours in the weight room to strengthen my hockey-playing body.

So usually if I have a choice, I’m flat out on my couch.

Something that hasn’t prepared me for this shopping extravaganza.

“I didn’t know I could hear this frequency,” Leo mutters.

I want to chuckle because Leo can be fucking funny.

But I’m too busy trying to focus so we can get this shit done.

I turn to Smitty, who has the most experience with kids. He and his wife, Kailey, don’t have any of their own, but when he was playing with the Breakers, his teammates popped them out on the regular. “Where do we start?”

A particularly loud scream—do babies seriously have the ability to screech like pterodactyls?—has us all jumping.

But we’re hockey players.

We block hundred-mile-per-hour shots. We enact or take center ice hits. We slash and crosscheck and battle along the boards or in front of the net. And we do all that on three-millimeter-wide blades that are sharp enough to wound.

So we get it together.

And when Smitty leads us to the clothes section, we dutifully follow him.

I hold up the tiny outfit.

Are kids seriously this small when they’re born?

Apparently so.

And since it looks like something that could work—meaning it’s sized for babies and I found it in the baby section—I toss it in the cart.

“Dude,” Smitty says—or really booms because the man doesn’t have the ability to modulate his volume.

He comes in loud.

And louder.

“What?” I mutter, grabbing another item that also looks like it could work and chucking it in the cart.

“You can’t just buy newborn-sized stuff.”

I blink.

Then blink again.

“Is the kid not going to be newly-born?” I ask.

But he’s not answering. He’s digging through my cart, sighing. “Seriously, man, more than half of this shit won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” He grabs a hanger and holds it up, shaking it so the bag-like thing for sleeping is at risk of sliding off the plastic and falling to the floor.

I snag it from him, toss it back into the cart.

“Why not?” he asks again then holds up another. “Quantity isn’t quality my man.”

“Don’t kids throw up?” Leo asks. “Like a lot?”

“They do,” Ryan says with some authority (and considering he’s in love with a single mom who won’t give him the time of day but whose kid loves hanging out with him, he would know).

Smitty gives another aggrieved sigh. “Yeah, they throw up. But they also grow fast, dude. We need variety.”

“What’s a onesie?” Leo asks.

“What’s a—?” Smitty is at a loss for words. Which is a miracle. One that lasts for a few seconds, anyway.

Then he grabs a series of hangers.

And suddenly we’re having a chalk talk on onesies versus sleep sacks versus rompers versus footed pajamas.

Do I absorb any of that breakdown?

Nope. Not really.

But do I grab the shit he says I should?

Yup. I sure do.

A full cart of it.

As do Leo and Ryan.

Smitty’s not far behind us.

Yeah, Aiden’s kid is going to be kitted out.

Considering that Aiden comes from a big family himself, it’s not like he needs us to chip in and set him and his wife, Luna, up. They’re going to have plenty to fill their nursery.

But he’s also part of another family.

The Grizzlies.

So yeah, the kid is going to be kitted out.

That’s what being the first guy on the roster to have a kid on the way means.

I always thought that’d be me, that kids were the next logical step in my life.

Then I seriously fucked up.

Now…it’s Aiden’s next step.

And he gets to deal with the attention, the shit-giving, and the…sleep sacks, rompers, footed pajamas, and onesies that say I have the Best Uncles Ever.

In multiple sizes.

My mouth twitches.

Because the most important thing we learned today?

Apparently, kids grow, and they do it fast.

Funny that.

We still bought Aiden’s kid the I have the Best Uncles Ever onesie in newborn size, though.

And in three-to-six months and six-to-nine and nine-to-twelve and…all the way up to every size they carry.

Because…priorities.