Four
NAOMI
The Friday after Thanksgiving
“Thank you for coming over. I c-c-can’t make him stop crying,” I mumbled into Paloma’s throat the moment I opened the front door. I clung to her, desperate for some support.
Adam had tried, but…well, caring for a very fussy baby was way, way harder than we’d expected. Now I understood why everyone marveled at Mimi’s placidity…and her ability to sleep six or seven hours pretty much from the get-go.
“Colic, huh?” Paloma rubbed my back.
“I think so. I mean, that’s what the books and websites say, but I can’t get him to calm down.”
“Where’s Adam?”
I pressed my lips together, annoyance and hurt mingling together in a nasty cocktail that left me drained and achy. “Out.”
Adam had been leaving me, us, alone more and more often over the past couple of weeks.
First, it was to go to the store for more formula and diapers, even though we had plenty.
Then, it was to get in more time at the gym, so he was in good enough shape to skate with the rookie goalie he was helping to train into the starting position.
Today, he’d mumbled something on his way out the door that I hadn’t heard over Felix’s crying.
Because Felix cried a lot. Loudly. And nothing I’d tried from the various parenting websites and books seemed to help.
I caught Paloma’s expression before she smiled, patting my shoulder. “Well, it’s just us and baby Felix,” she said, trying to look and sound chipper.
I bit my lip. “Adam’s doing his best.”
“Never said he wasn’t.”
But Paloma was angry with him. I might have been, too, if I wasn’t so damn exhausted.
I could understand not wanting to be here, where there were so many tears and so little rest, and…and…and…my eyes welled with exhausted tears to match my infant son’s near-constant state of unhappiness.
Paloma shook her head. “I’m just sorry you’re having to go through this.” Adam was struggling with parenting more than I was, and I was struggling. Mightily.
Felix’s demands had me living in near constant freak-out mode. But for Adam…he left when the crying got too demanding. He’d promised never to leave me over and over.
Paloma squeezed my shoulder again, no doubt because I wilted under her light touch.
No, I wasn’t alone. I just felt alone, and sometimes that was even worse than actually being alone. I wasn’t sure how to reach out and ask Adam or the CATS for what I needed because I didn’t know what I needed.
When Felix had cried and cried and neither Adam nor I could calm him, Adam mentioned his parents had hated his crying, which was why he had moved in with his brother Owen once Owen had returned from his last deployment.
I’d sucked in a breath, too shocked by this revelation to do more than nod once, dazed.
How had I not known something so very important about my husband? What else was he keeping from me?
The questions worried me, but I was so consumed with new motherhood, I really couldn’t focus on Adam.
Breastfeeding had proven a nightmare, and we’d had to switch to formula to supplement my milk.
Felix liked the formula better, so I’d been trying to cope with my inability to nurture my baby…
and his hours-long crying jags that started midafternoon and seemed to never end.
I hadn’t showered in…too long. A couple…three days, maybe? And I was so tired I could barely stand upright.
I sucked in a shaky breath and stepped back.
“Sorry for attacking you. Felix went down right before you showed up. I was going to shower…”
Paloma nodded emphatically, and I tried, and failed, not to take that personally. “Yes, do. If he wakes, I’ll get him.”
“You sure?” I fretted. I was always fretting these days, and that bothered me, too. I missed confident Naomi, but I wasn’t sure if she would ever return. She flailed under exhaustion, diapers, and ugly new-mommy pants.
Adam
The guys fanned out around me, seeming both stern and unsurprised to find me at the practice facility. I wasn’t technically supposed to be here, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go…and I couldn’t stand to be in my house.
Which made me an epic dick. Epic. And that made me not want to go home because how did I apologize enough to my wife for leaving her with a crying baby?
No wonder my parents hadn’t wanted me. No wonder they’d been more than happy to pawn me off on my older siblings, the neighbors…anyone. I’d thought this was because they were uncaring, terrible people.
But I finally saw their side of the equation, and I hated that I understood. That made me angry—so fucking angry—so I left Naomi alone, and now I didn’t know how to go back.
So I continued to slap the puck into the net—never my forte, which was part of why I’d become a keeper.
“Why are you here?” Maxim growled. He didn’t say the rest of the sentence, but it was one that still echoed through the silence: and not home with your wife and child who need you.
Maxim didn’t have kids; he’d made some remark about never wanting kids, but he held Bree and Brooks like a blasted professional dad and his scary, I’m going to kill you and then wipe the floor with your corpse vibes disappeared when he smiled—actually smiled—at the babies.
He was totally going to end up with an entire hockey team worth of kids and revel in each shit-filled diaper and each cry.
That selfless bastard. I hated him. I hated them all for finding me here when I was trying to sulk and for calling me out on it.
“Because I’m shit at parenting, and I hate watching my wife beat herself up when rocking, singing, humming, feeding, whatever else we’ve tried, doesn’t get Felix to stop crying.
” I slapped another puck, but I was too frustrated to focus, so it went wide…
which pissed me off. I couldn’t even get a puck in an empty net.
“So you left your wife, who hasn’t slept in days, alone with a crying baby?” Cormac asked, getting in on the Adam’s-an-epic-dick train.
“No, dipshit. I called Paloma,” I said. “And I came here, not to a bar, which I seriously considered.” No, I hadn’t.
I would never do that to Naomi. Never. If she saw me out, no doubt with some fan hanging off me, it would destroy her.
But I was mouthy because stress was getting to me and the guys were pressuring me about my choices, and everything was making me angry.
“Yeah, but your wife, who gave birth to your son, like, three weeks ago, doesn’t know where you are…or what you’re doing,” Naese said.
I grimaced, white-hot anger singeing me…until it dulled to acceptance. “You mean she’s worried I’m fucking some puck bunny?”
“No, she wasn’t,” Naese said. Then, with a brutal honesty that slammed into my chest, he said, “But, based on your current behavior, I’m pretty sure Coach and Paloma think you might have an affair. So, if you sent Paloma over there, Naomi may be wondering, too.”
I gritted my teeth and shot them a glare. “Fuck Silas. Fuck Paloma. And fuck you, too.”
I squinted at him. What was his deal? Why did he get to have a deal? Naese was single and appeared to be loving that lifestyle.
Naese once invited seven women to an event, and they all attended. He charmed them. I frowned. He was also the only single guy to buy a house in the Wildcatter neighborhood, and he had partied little this year. Not since his birthday.
Now that I thought about it, Naese had been quiet and withdrawn all season.
Naese just smirked. “I’m already totally fucked. I’ll tell you something, Adam: I would give anything—I mean that, anything—to help my partner with my kid like you could right now.”
We all gaped at him for a moment. That was…deep. And left a lot more questions than answers.
“Like your right nut?” Maxim asked with a frown.
Naese didn’t even pause a beat. “Definitely.”
“Both your nuts?” Cruz’s eyebrows shot up as we all leaned in to hear the answer.
Naese’s expression shifted, turned inward for a minute, and the rest of us waited, the suspense ripening. I was pretty sure Cruz held his breath.
Naese grimaced. “Yeah.”
We all gawked, and Maxim grunted.
“You don’t have a partner. Or a wife,” Cormac said, but it came out as a question.
“He doesn’t.” Cruz looked around at the rest of us—as if we had the answers. “Not anymore.”
Naese ignored the drama his response caused, as well as all of our growing interest in his situation, and met my gaze. “You only get so many chances with the love of your life. When they’re gone, they’re gone. And all you’ll have left is regret.”
I was pretty sure my jaw was on the ice. Naese was twenty-four years old, more than a full decade younger than me. And he was talking about regrets.
I wasn’t the only man who was really interested in Naese’s personal life now. Before one of us formulated a question, Naese’s phone rang. He snatched it from his pocket. The expression that crossed his face was somewhere between excitement, dread, and suffering.
“No, no, now’s good. I told you—I’ll make time.”
He spun away, clearly wanting privacy for the call.
“What the fuck was that?” Maxim asked. He seemed confounded, which clearly made him angry.
“Does Naese have a kid?” Cormac asked.
“No,” Stolly said with absolute certainty. He frowned. “Remember, though, he said he wanted to hold Bree at my wedding?”
That had been a couple of months ago. Naese had been very interested in Stolly’s kid. He’d sent awesome gifts to Cormac and to us for our boys. Ones that showed he’d put effort into the process.
Like he had a reason to be thinking about kids.
Stolly looked around. “I think the dude wants a kid.”
“He wants more than that. He was in a serious relationship—really serious.”
“When?” Maxim asked.
“Dunno exactly,” Stolly said. “But a while back. Before coming to Houston.”
“He mentioned a woman—the night he got hammered.” Cruz said.
“That was his birthday,” Cormac offered. “And the last time he had too much to drink.”
I snorted, realizing we sounded like Naomi and Mimi when they got together. “Naese will tell us when he’s ready,” I said.