Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Leo
“Argh,” she grumbles as we walk out of the doctor’s office, a stack of ultrasound pictures tucked carefully into her planner, the knowledge that our baby is the size of a sweet potato giving rise to a new nickname.
Potato.
Maybe less than creative, but…
Fitting.
“Why are you grumpy, Mama?” I ask, the breeze hitting my back and raising goose bumps on my skin. I had to come straight from a workout to the ultrasound appointment, hoping that my deodorant would get me through until I showered and changed.
Maybe I shouldn’t bother, considering the rest of the day is going to be spent packing up her apartment and unpacking her things at my place.
Good thing I have plenty of helpers to go around.
Harper’s face is soft when she turns to look at me, the same way it always is when I call her Mama.
Which means I won’t ever stop.
She sighs and turns her head up to the sky, quiet for a moment as the clouds slowly drift across the azure sky.
“I’m grumpy because I wanted to find out the baby’s gender.
Or I was, anyway,” she murmurs turning her gaze back toward mine.
“Figures with a daddy like you that she’d be stubborn and not let us see her. ”
Okay, now I’m suddenly intimately aware why she likes it so much when I call her Mama.
I take her hand, draw her against me, tucking her hair back. “Now that’s just rude.”
“I think you’re confusing the word rude with the word true.”
I snort, brush my lips over hers. “The technician said we may be able to get another scan in a month or two.”
“She’d probably give us her back then too.”
“Maybe,” I say on a laugh. “What with two stubborn people like us as her parents.”
The scan had taken longer than expected, mostly because our little guy had kept his back to the probe the entire time, requiring plenty of creativity to get the proper measurements.
“At least we know everything is okay,” Harper says as we pull into the apartment complex.
“Exactly.”
We may not know the baby’s sex, but we do know that he’s healthy and measuring properly and that’s a gift in and of itself.
Beep! Beep!
Harper jumps and I turn to glare at the source of the honk…only to groan.
“Is that…Smitty?”
“Yup,” I tell her.
“Who’s that in the front seat?”
“I think…that’s the Blue Line Matchmaker.”
“Pivot,” Smitty booms. “Pivot!”
We all roll our eyes and I brush by him, opening the front door and holding it wide. He and Sawyer carry in Harper’s couch, Aiden, Gray, Ace, and Storm trailing behind them, all with boxes in their arms.
The women are in the kitchen, unpacking the bulk of Harper’s belongings—those being items that belong in the kitchen.
Good thing I have a big one.
The couch goes in the den, and I direct the guys to leave the paperwork and her planner things in one of the empty bedrooms, figuring with all the windows and natural light it will make a great office. The boxes of her clothes go in my room, obviously.
And the baby stuff—what little of it we have so far—goes in the room nearest the master.
“Is that it?” Sawyer asks, brushing his hands on his jeans.
“That’s it,” I say, my mind drifting from the small number of boxes back to those bills. “Harp lives simply.”
“And now you’re going to spoil her, right?” he asks.
I lift my fist for him to bump. “Damn right I am.”
“Righteous!” Smitty shouts from the kitchen and we both shake our heads.
“Fucking Smitty,” I mutter. “He only comes in one volume.”
Giggles trail into the hall—both female…and toddler-sized.
“Eh,” Sawyer says. “He’s not all that bad.”
And I can’t help but feel the same when I round the corner and see everyone gathered around the kitchen island, Gray with his arm looped over Faye’s shoulders, her body tucked close to his side, Kailey smiling indulgently up at Smitty, who’s resting his palm on her growing belly, Aiden holding Reese while Luna fixes Reese’s bowed headband and Bri smiles at the trio.
Lainey and Ollie standing next to Harper, who’s already pulled dough out from somewhere and is helping him cut shapes out of it with a butter knife.
Ryan stands, leaning back against the opposite counter, watching the scene with an indulgent smile.
Storm is beside him—he’s heading home to Cedar Hollow tomorrow.
The younger player is maybe even more quiet than Ryan, shadows clinging to his eyes and a sense of deeply seated anger sitting heavily in the air around him.
Then there’s Ace Ambrose and Violet Lamour.
He’s tall and dark and a complete and total asshole on the ice.
She’s like a real-life version of Cinderella—blonde hair, blue eyes and a refined quiet demeanor, as though she’s hiding a hundred secrets.
And considering she’s known only in a few select circles, and those circles mostly know her as only the Blue Line Matchmaker, that’s not a surprise, I suppose.
She’s probably rife with secrets.
“Does that mean you’ll be around more during the season?” Luna asks Violet.
“My home base is in Harrisburg, so I spend the bulk of my time there. Though”—she shrugs—“I do travel a lot for my job.”
“For the matchmaking,” Luna says.
Vi smiles. “Yes.”
“Do you need another employee?” Luna asks—or maybe it’s more akin to a demand.
“I—” Vi begins, her eyes skating to Ace’s.
He slips his arm around Vi’s middle, draws her close. “Vi and Josie have it under control.”
Probably because Luna’s looking positively feral…and Smitty’s not much better.
“Who’s Josie?” he asks suspiciously.
“My assistant,” she says. “Or better described, the person who keeps my life on track.” An embarrassed smile. “I’m not sure how I’d manage without her.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Smitty says (or maybe demands).
“Um, I’m not sure—” Vi nibbles at her lip. “She’s really busy with work and with her nephew, Nate, who she recently got custody of—”
“We’ll make time when we come out to Harrisburg to kick some Hawks ass—”
“Connor,” Kailey says gently, her eyes cutting to Ollie, who’s standing next to Harper, watching her roll out a circle of dough.
“Oh, right.” He winces. “Sorry, Lainey.”
Her mouth twitches. “It’s fine. I promise he’s heard worse.”
That has Sawyer’s eyebrows flicking up. “From you?”
Now her mouth flattens out, her cheeks going more than a little pink.
“My mom says fuck in the car a lot,” Ollie says into the quiet, totally calling her out.
I bite my lip to keep in my laughter—notice I’m not the only one.
Lainey sighs, ruffles his hair. “He’s not wrong.”
“She also says sh—”
“Ollie and Harp are making sugar cookies!” Smitty booms. “So we’re having dessert before dinner. Then we’ll have dinner dinner. And then we’re playing video games because Ollie loves MarioKart.”
My eyes go to Harper’s—no, they cling to Harper’s, getting lost in the beautiful golden-green depths for far too long to be polite.
But these men…they get it.
No one gives me shit as I stare at the woman I love, and when she nods, silently telling me she’s on board with Smitty’s plan, I force out, “Sounds good.”
No one gives me shit; that is, until later that evening.
When she kicks my ass in MarioKart.
Then I get plenty of it.
But that’s okay.
Because Harper leans close and kisses me in front of everyone.
And I’d lose a thousand times over if it earned me another taste of her.
“What are you doing?” I ask, padding into the kitchen and flicking on the lights.
She jumps, her hand jerking. “Damn,” she whispers as flour drops onto the floor. Then she scowls up at me. “You ruined it.”
Wetting a paper towel, she starts to bend, but I snag it from her, clean up the mess myself. “What exactly did I ruin?”
She flushes. “My surprise.”
I look behind her, see the containers of flour and sugar and oatmeal, the carton of eggs, the sticks of butter.
And the bag of raisins.
The bag of raisins.
“Um, Harp?”
She’s turned her back on me, is measuring out a scoop of oatmeal. “Yes,” she says archly.
“Are you making oatmeal raisin cookies?”
It’s a hopeful question.
She turns, glances over her shoulder, eyes narrowed when they lock onto mine. “I’m making Chocolate Chip Traitor Cookies, yes.”
I do a little fist pump.
Which she sees, of course.
Her lips quirk. “You’re ridiculous.”
“What? I love your cookies.”
“Or just my cookie?” she teases.
“Well, yours is my favorite,” I say, shifting closer and wrapping my arm around her middle, drawing her back against my chest. “But the ones you bake are pretty damned good too.”
She snorts then relaxes against me. “I was going to surprise you.”
“This is a pretty great surprise already.”
Having her in my house, my arms. Finding her in my kitchen like this.
It feels like…coming home—maybe even more than hockey does.
“Will you teach me?” I blurt.
She freezes, the cup of oatmeal hovering over the bowl. “Teach you how to make my oatmeal raisin cookies?”
I press my lips to the side of her neck. “Yeah.”
“I…” She falls quiet for a moment. “You’d really want me to teach you?” she whispers.
My heart convulses. “Very much so.”
Another pause. Then, “Okay.”
I wait as she seems to get her thoughts together. Then she shifts out of my arms, hands me the measuring cup. “Two more cups of oats in the bowl, Mr. Richardson,” she orders gently.
Grinning, I take it from her, start scooping. “At least you didn’t call me Ricky.”
“What’s that about, anyway?” she asks as she starts measuring sugar and dumps it into the silver bowl, adding the sticks of butter.
“Ricky?”
“Yeah.” She turns on the mixer then tells me the measurements for the baking soda, the salt. “It’s Smitty,” I say as I start measuring. “He’s desperate for me to have a nickname. A bunch haven’t stuck.” I sigh. “I just hope that Ricky doesn’t either.”
“It doesn’t seem to be going away.”
“No.” I stir the dry ingredients when she passes me a spoon. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t.”
“Poor baby.” Her lips twitch as she cracks one egg into the bowl, then the next.
“It could be worse.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Sawyer’s nickname is Cupcake.”
Her brows lift. “Seriously?”
A chuckle rises in my throat. “Yup.”
“Why?”
“That,” I say on a sigh, “is a secret known only to Smitty.”
“He likes cupcakes?”
“Maybe?” I shrug. “But no more than the rest of us, I think. Sometimes, hockey doesn’t make any sense.”
“You mean, sometimes Smitty doesn’t make any sense.”
“Also that.”
We grin at each other.
Then she has me add the dry ingredients in a little at a time, until it actually starts looking like cookie dough.
“Now the raisins,” she says, pulling the bowl free and nodding to the bag.
I tear it open, dump them in, and when she passes me a spatula, I mix them into the dough. “Did your mom teach you how to cook?”
A shake of her head. “No, actually. She was terrible at it. I learned because I got tired of choking down inedible food.” Her smile is soft, full of memories.
“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and my mom worked really hard to provide for us.
We couldn’t just throw away food, even if her cooking left… a bit to be desired.”
“So you learned?”
“Yeah. Through YouTube. I was pretty terrible at first, but I figured it out, and pretty soon I was making all of our meals. Later, I started a little side hustle at school, selling cookies and other treats to my classmates. I wasn’t rolling in it, but it took the edge off.
And it was good practice.” She shrugs and hands me a spoon, snagging one for herself.
“The rest is history. I got the bug and didn’t stop experimenting.
” She scoops up a hunk, shows me how to roll it into a disc of deliciousness, and places it on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet.
“And now you’re making a living at it,” I say, scooping up some dough and trying to repeat her motions.
I’m slow and clunky.
But eventually I roll a shape close to what she made.
“Yes, I am,” she says as we work through the dough. “It’s not always easy, and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. But food…is happiness and memories and connection. I love being able to give people that.”
“Even in a dimly lit kitchen in the middle of the night,” I tease.
“Especially then.” She puts the cookie sheet in the oven, brings the next one over, and we fill that one. “What about you? Did you ever bake growing up?”
“God no,” I say.
Her brows flick up. “Not even with your billet families?”
“I was really busy then.”
“I bet.”
I force a smile. “I wasn’t all bad. A couple of the families I stayed with did try to teach me some basics so I wouldn’t starve when I moved out on my own.”
Her eyes study mine for a long moment. “So what? You learned how to make ramen noodles and pour bowls of cereal?”
I laugh, thankful for the change in subject. “Something like that.” I take the empty bowl, place it in the sink, start filling it with water. “I can also make a mean grilled cheese.”
The timer interrupts her giggle, and she goes to the oven, pulls out the first batch of cookies.
It smells…
Like heaven.
“That good?” she asks lightly.
“Better,” I say, leaning close and inhaling.
The second sheet goes in, and she comes close again, handing me one of the still-warm cookies.
It’s gone in two bites. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“I’m glad,” she says softly, watching me eat.
“Should we make a batch of something you like?” I ask as I reach for a second cookie.
“No, this is for you.”
“Harp.”
She comes close again, wrapping her arm around my waist, resting her side against my front. “For you, Leo,” she whispers.
And, the scent of cinnamon and sugar in the air, warm cookies in my belly, I get it—what she meant about happiness and connection…
And memories.
Because I know I won’t ever forget this one.