Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Vesper
Juniper Ridge is stunning, which feels rude considering I’m about to tell my dad I’m pregnant and in love with two men.
Still, the pines crowd the road as if they’re eavesdropping, branches leaning in as if they’ve heard my name before and they’re dying to see what I’ve done with it. The mountains sit back in the distance—calm, judgmental, gorgeous—like they’re waiting for me to prove I deserve oxygen.
The air smells like wet earth and cedar and that specific brand of silence that makes city people start talking too loud just to prove they exist.
It’s late afternoon. The light is soft in that rude way, as if the sun is trying to make my crisis look romantic.
I waited for them to finish their “recovery day.” It’s a day where they don’t do as much because they’re in between games and the coaches need them to relax and look at videos—or get special care for any injuries they might have.
Monty said it was a good thing that they had to go to the training facilities. They had the chance to talk to their coach, the GM, and the team owner about our situation. The good thing is that we found out all of them are very supportive of . . . well, us.
Their “full support” came with a nice little ribbon: they still have their positions, they’re looking forward to naming Cally captain once Caspian Spearman retires at the end of the season, and there’s a hopeful little prayer tucked behind every word about winning the Cup—without saying it out loud because that would jinx it.
At least that’s one thing taken care of, so the next will be . . . my family. Hurray for things that might shatter my entire life.
Maybe I could tell them to wait until this becomes a press release and then my father can process everything without me needing to be present.
But it’s too late—as we crest the last curve, the house appears, and my stomach drops like it recognizes the driveway the way people recognize the place their heart got broken for the first time.
The campsite looks different than it did last month when we first visited. The rink has scaffolding around it. The cabins look . . . not like haunted props anymore, thankfully. And less like you could accidentally lean on a wall and end up outside.
“It looks almost the same as it did when we came in the first time—at sixteen,” Monty says from the driver’s seat.
Callaway whistles, leaning forward between the seats as if he can’t help himself—bright-eyed, keyed up, already invested. “They’re doing a great job making this . . . livable.”
“So the county wanted a makeover?” I blink a couple of times, trying to find the difference.
“Nope.” Callaway shakes his head. He knows more than any of us, since Harvey has been feeding him updates almost daily. “It wasn’t just cosmetic renovations. They replaced bathrooms in the cabins—including plumbing, rebuilt some walls. The place was literally crumbling.”
Monty points at the rink with two fingers like he’s aiming. “What’s happening there?”
“They’re reinforcing the walls.” Callaway shrugs. “They had to go inside and redo the ice because it had a few problems.”
Monty’s jaw ticks. That tiny, violent movement that means someone’s about to regret existing. “That should’ve been fixed, but how did they find so many problems at once?”
“It seems like one of the parents from last summer complained about the conditions and were trying to get the place closed,” Callaway adds, like he’s telling me someone cut him off in traffic, not tried to torch a legacy.
“Just closed?” I squeak.
“They couldn’t go to Philippe and tell him what was happening?” Monty asks, and it’s not a question so much as a growl wrapped in grammar. “They had to go to the county? That’s weird.”
Cally shakes his head. “Harvey dug into it. One of those guys wanted to buy the place for cheap after they shut it down. Convert it into a resort or something.”
Monty’s eyes narrow, and I swear the temperature in the car drops a degree. “Are we going to let them get away with that?”
“Since I’m in a vindictive mood,” Callaway says, voice easy like he’s talking about ordering dessert, “the guy’s going to pay for fucking with the camp—and my father-in-law.”
My father-in-law.
That phrase hits me like a punch and a promise all at once. Because it makes it sound like the decision is already made. Which I know it is, but it hasn’t sunk in yet.
When I look around again, I see him. At the center of the driveway stands my father.
Standing with his hands in his jacket pockets. Boots planted like he’s rooted himself to the earth so nothing can knock him over. Expression unreadable in that way that used to make me feel like I was about to be grounded for breathing wrong.
My heart doesn’t just speed up. It stutters.
“Who told him we were coming?” I ask too fast, too high, like my voice is trying to climb out of my body and escape.
Monty doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze locks onto my father like he’s assessing a threat, and it’s not fair how quickly my brain flashes to Monty’s protective instincts: cold, direct, brutal in their simplicity.
Callaway shifts in his seat, already turned halfway toward me like I’m the most important thing in the world and also something he might have to physically shield. “Harvey mentioned we would be coming after training.”
Of course he did.
Of course the universe couldn’t let me have a quiet arrival.
The car crunches to a stop on the gravel. Monty kills the engine. Silence fills the cabin, thick with everything I’m not saying.
And then Monty looks at me in the rearview mirror—straight into my soul, like he’s checking the locks on it.
“You want me to—”
“Nope.” I’m already unbuckling because if I hesitate, I’ll stay in this car until my child is old enough to drive it away. “I’m going first. I’m not twelve.”
Callaway’s mouth quirks. “You weren’t twelve the last time you were here either.”
“I was emotionally twelve,” I mutter. “Which is worse. My dad was sick and I felt slightly lost.”
I open the door, step into the cold, and my lungs pull in Juniper Ridge.
The air hits clean and absolutely uninterested in my coping mechanisms. My father doesn’t move. But his eyes—his eyes track me like he’s trying to figure out which version of me I’m bringing up the path.
I walk toward him like I’m approaching a ref after a blown call—ready to argue, ready to cry, pretending I’m neither.
Every step feels like it echoes down my spine.
When I’m close enough to see the lines at the corners of his eyes, the gray in his beard, the way his mouth presses tight like he’s holding something back, he finally speaks.
“Hi, Vessy.”
That nickname hits me so hard my vision wobbles. It’s ridiculous. It’s one word. It shouldn’t undo me.
. . . but it does.
My throat closes and I’m crying before I can stop it, like my body has been saving these tears for years and just needed the right key.
I don’t just tear up. I break—ugly, loud, humiliating sobs that make me feel like I’m six and I’ve scraped my knee and my dad is the only person in the world who can make it stop hurting.
I cover my face with my hands like I can hide from grief.
Behind me, car doors slam.
And then I’m not alone anymore.
Callaway’s arms come first—warm and quick—like his body moves on instinct, like holding me together is as natural as breathing.
Monty is right behind him, not gentle, not hesitant.
His hand closes around my arm and it’s firm, possessive, a wordless mine that doesn’t ask permission from anyone—least of all my fear.
My father hasn’t moved.
“What happened?” Monty’s voice drops low and dangerous, aimed straight at my dad. “Yes, Philippe. Vesper is pregnant and we’re a throuple but I don’t understand why you would make her cry.”
Silence.
My father blinks once, like his brain is buffering.
“You’re pregnant?” Dad asks, and my lungs hiccup and I laugh—this horrible little sound that comes out between a sob and a snort, because of course this is how it happens. Of course Monty just skates straight into the boards without checking who’s on the ice.
“What did I miss?” Monty asks, frowning, genuinely confused now, as if he didn’t just detonate my entire plan with one sentence.
I cry harder. I laugh harder. I hate myself and love them both in the same breath.
“I cried because he called me Vessy,” I manage, wiping at my face with the back of my hand like that’s going to fix anything. “I hadn’t told him, you fool.”
Cally makes a sound that could be a chuckle if I wasn’t actively humiliating myself in front of my father. His mouth presses to my temple.
Monty leans in close, his breath warm against my ear, voice rougher than usual. “Well,” he murmurs, not sorry, not even a little, “I guess I did it for you, baby.”
I elbow him weakly in the ribs, which would land harder if he weren’t basically a wall in a hoodie.
My father takes a step forward, slow and careful, as if he’s afraid of startling me more.
“Vessy,” he says again, softer now. “Are you . . . pregnant?”
I nod, because talking feels impossible.
“Yeah,” I whisper, voice shaking as if my own body is betraying me. “And it’s complicated and I—” My breath breaks. I point with a trembling finger, as if it’s the most elegant way to lose my shit. “These two men . . .”
I press my lips together, swallow hard, and look up at my dad. His eyes are wide, confused, afraid.
“I love them,” I say, because if I don’t say the truth now, I’ll choke on it later. “I love them, you know?”
Dad narrows his gaze as if he’s trying to decode a language he never learned. Then he looks at Cally. Looks at Monty. Looks back at me.
“You three are together?” he asks, cautious, as if the wrong word might crack the ground open.
I inhale too fast, lungs burning. My pulse goes loud in my ears.
Callaway’s arms tighten around me. His posture changes too, spine straightening, shoulders squaring. He doesn’t puff up. He just becomes . . . present, protective in the way he always is when it matters.
“Yes,” Callaway says, voice steady in a way mine will never be today. “We love her. We love each other. And I hope you support this relationship.”
My father stares at him for a long beat.
Then he says, simply, “Okay.”
“And you’re not—” I almost trip over my own tongue. “You’re not mad?”
Dad’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.
“Took you long enough,” he says to me.
I freeze.
I blink at him like he’s started speaking fluent nonsense.
“Excuse me?”
He gestures toward Monty and Callaway, then back at me, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.
“Your mother always said you three were close. Too close, sometimes. That you seemed to love each other in a way that didn’t fit into neat boxes.
” His eyes soften when he says your mother, and for a second it looks like it hurts him to breathe.
“Even when you grew up and went separate ways.”
His smile appears. “She waited for this,” Dad says, voice thickening. “The three of you finally admitting what you’ve been circling around for years.”
My eyes sting all over again. My chest feels too full. My mouth tastes like salt and panic and a future I didn’t know how to ask for. Mom was okay with this—us. Now I miss her even more than I did yesterday. How I wish she were here to . . . I sob a little more because I really miss my mother.
Once I calm down, I have to ask again, “You’re . . . okay with this?”
Dad nods. “I’ve watched them love you since you were a teenager.
” His gaze drifts to Monty—who is still standing half a step behind me like a guard dog with a hockey player’s temper—then to Callaway, who’s watching my father like he’s willing to throw hands with God if necessary.
“I never understood why you stopped being close, but . . .” He shrugs, helpless in a way I’ve never seen him. “I’m glad you found each other again.”
His eyes drop to my stomach.
“And,” he adds, quieter now, “I’m glad we have a baby coming soon. This family could use new life. Something good.” His mouth pulls into that almost-smile again, grief threaded through it. “Your mother would’ve been so damn smug about being right.”
A laugh breaks out of me, cracked and wet. “She would’ve.”
Dad steps in closer, and I move forward and let my forehead drop to his chest the way I used to when I was small and the world felt too big. His arms come around me, awkward at first, then tighter, as if he’s remembering how.
“Love you, Dad,” I sniff.
“Love you more, Vessy.” He kisses the top of my head. He looks at the guys. “Why don’t we go inside and have something to eat? Then you can be on your way home so you can rest for tomorrow’s game.”
And it was this simple. I had no idea he would be supportive and loving and . . . it turns out he’s been waiting for years to hear that we’re together. That’s unexpected and good. We just have to make sure that Cally’s family won’t destroy us.