Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Vesper
The Orcas lose the second round in Game Six and, weirdly, the world doesn’t end.
It tries, though. It throws itself on the floor and kicks its feet like a toddler who just got told “no” at the toy store.
Sports channels turn it into a blame buffet.
Social media blames everyone from the safety of their keyboard.
The new guys. The injuries. The coaching.
The goalie. The captain who isn’t captain yet.
Let’s be honest—Cally and Monty did everything short of bleeding on the ice in a ritual offering to the hockey gods, and it still wasn’t enough.
There were too many bodies missing. Too many taped-up joints.
Too many guys playing through pain because pride is a drug and playoffs is its prettiest needle.
Inside our place, it’s quieter than the arena ever was. Not peaceful. Just . . . suspended. Like grief has a countdown clock, and I can hear it ticking from the other room.
Because the season isn’t the only thing that’s been growing.
I’m eighteen weeks pregnant.
Eighteen weeks and we’re expecting a baby girl.
I’m going to be a mother to a beautiful daughter. An actual human being who has decided my body is now her home and my emotions are now her personal playlist—on shuffle, max volume, no skips.
I used to be the woman who could stay awake for twenty-four hours and bounce back with just a shower and a coffee. I used to be the woman who rolled her eyes at sentimental commercials and would rather swallow a thumbtack than admit she got her feelings hurt.
Now I cry because Monty is building the crib or figuring out how to set up the gates in the stairs.
Now I cry because Callaway buys the “good” orange juice without being asked—extra pulp, because apparently he remembers my preferences better than I remember my own.
Now I cry because an ultrasound tech smiles at the screen and says, “Look, she’s waving,” and my entire soul goes feral, like it wants to crawl out of my skin and meet her in person.
She feels so real.
Not just a due date and a list of tasks on my phone. She’s a tiny person in there, doing tiny-person things, and there is no pretending I’m untouched by it anymore.
There’s a part of me that’s thrilled in the way sunlight feels after months of rain.
And there’s a part of me that’s terrified, because love like this doesn’t come with a safe word.
I’m on the couch with my laptop propped on a pillow, watching a parenting video hosted by a woman who looks like she came out of the womb already knowing how to swaddle. She’s smiling into the camera like babies are puzzles and not tiny, screaming gods who can ruin your life with a diaper blowout.
“Your newborn’s sleep schedule will—”
Sure. Great. Love that for her. But will it really be a schedule?
Our place looks like we live here now. Not like I’m borrowing space while I figure out what comes next. Not like I’m passing through.
There’s a throw blanket that never stays folded because Monty drags it from room to room like he’s a large, emotionally constipated housecat who refuses to admit he enjoys comfort.
There are Callaway’s sunglasses on the counter, because he takes them off and forgets they exist the second he’s thinking about something else. Which is . . . frequently me now. Sometimes it hits me, how fast I became his favorite thought. How absolute he is about it.
There’s a little stack of prenatal books I keep meaning to read. They sit there judging me with their cheerful fonts.
My shirt rides up when I shift. My stomach is different. Not the full, round, unmistakable baby-bump moment yet. Just a soft curve that wasn’t there before, like my body is whispering, Something is happening. Keep up.
I slide my palm over it anyway. Skin warm. Mine and not mine.
I don’t feel her move yet. At least, I don’t think I do. Sometimes there’s a fluttering sensation that makes me go completely still, like if I move I’ll scare it away. Then it turns out to be gas and I get humbled by my own digestive system.
This is my life now: trying to decide if I’ve felt my daughter or if it was the bean burrito I craved at three in the morning like a gremlin with a mission.
Thankfully, Cally and Monty don’t follow the don’t feed her after midnight rule. They spoil me and I’m grateful for that.
Family therapy has been even more annoying lately, because now there are two men sitting beside me like emotional bouncers. When I start spiraling, they make eye contact like they’re coordinating a rescue. Like they can tag-team my nervous system back into something functional.
It’s rude.
Also, it works, and that makes it worse.
The front door opens, and I don’t look up because I know them by sound.
Monty’s steps have this blunt purpose to them when he’s worn down. Like he’s pushing through something and refuses to admit it’s pushing back.
Callaway moves quieter than people expect.
He’s six-foot-three and built like a threat, but his feet land like someone who learned early how to keep himself out of the way of other people’s moods.
It’s one of the first things I noticed about him—and one of the things that breaks me open if I let myself think about it too long.
Keys drop into the bowl by the door. A bag hits the floor. The soft scrape of a zipper.
Then Monty appears first.
Hair damp, like he showered too fast and didn’t give himself time to breathe afterward. Sweatpants, plain T-shirt, the uniform of a man trying not to show his insides on his outside. His face is calm in that goalie way—control as religion, restraint as survival.
His eyes find me and the control slips just a little.
He crosses the room, drops onto the couch beside me, and instead of taking my feet, he takes me—a hand catching my waist, the other bracing on the cushion as he hauls me over like he’s done it a hundred times and never once asked permission from my dignity.
I make a tiny, offended sound—pure habit—while my body goes embarrassingly pliant, like it’s been waiting for exactly this.
He settles back and drags me fully into his lap, my side pressed to his chest, my hips angled across his thighs.
His arm locks around me, snug and sure, like he’s building a boundary line the world isn’t allowed to cross.
My back fits against him in a way that makes my pulse stutter, because apparently my nervous system is a traitor who loves being claimed.
“Hi,” he says, voice low, like he’s trying to keep the whole world from hearing it.
“Hi,” I answer, and I put that bright, casual tone on it—my best impression of a woman who has not been watching the clock, counting down minutes while her men are out playing golf for some charity tournament, and pretending she’s fine.
Monty’s mouth twitches like he knows I’m full of shit and finds it charming anyway.
Callaway comes in next, already yanking his hoodie over his head. Dirty-blond hair all unruly from running his hands through it too many times. He pauses and his gaze lands on my hand over my stomach.
His face changes so fast it makes my eyes sting. There’s joy there, raw and simple, like his body doesn’t know how to hide it. Like he can’t believe he gets to have this.
And for one awful, gorgeous second, I see the version of him that would burn down the world if it ever tried to take us.
I pat the seat next to us. “Come here, Captain.”
He exhales a sound that wants to be a laugh. “Not captain yet.”
“Soon,” I say. “Come sit anyway.”
He does, with quiet intensity—eager, almost desperate, like he’s been waiting his whole life for somewhere to put all that love. One arm slides behind me, his palm settling at my side, thumb moving in a slow, absent stroke like he’s reassuring himself I’m real.
We sit like that—three bodies pressed together on one couch, our legs tangled, their heat surrounding me, my palm over our daughter like I’m guarding her from everything with teeth bared and a smile on my face.
Outside these walls, the season is over. Outside these walls, people are writing obituaries for dreams and careers and momentum.
In here, I’ve never felt more wanted.
And that fact scares the hell out of me, because wanting is not the same as staying.
“What’s the mood?” I ask lightly, because I’m me and I cope with jokes and denial.
“Are we sulking? Are we brooding? Are we going full tragic hero tonight? Because I should warn you—I’m pregnant and hormonal and if either of you stares meaningfully into the middle distance, I will throw a pillow at your face—or start crying. ”
Monty’s mouth lifts a fraction. “You’d miss.”
“Rude. I have excellent aim when motivated by spite.”
Callaway kisses the side of my head—quick, like he can’t help it. “I missed you.”
“You were gone, like, two hours.”
“Six, but still.” Monty’s arm tightens, possessive in a way that feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket and also being pinned. “I don’t like being away from you.”
Monty’s gaze slides to Callaway, then to me. His voice is quiet, but it carries that lone-wolf demand, that sense that he expects the truth even if it hurts. “How’re you really?”
There it is. The question that gets under my jokes. The question that says he sees every crack I try to paint over.
My stomach turns—not nausea. Thankfully that’s permanently gone.
“We’re good.” I place a hand on my belly. “Right, baby girl?”
Cally gives me that look that says, Don’t bullshit us.
I let out a breath. “I’m . . . okay. I’m sad for you. But I’m also having this weird reaction where I want to cry and have sex and eat an entire cake, sometimes all at once.”
Callaway makes a sound of approval like I just told him I’m proud of him. “All of that sounds manageable.”
Monty’s eyes drop to my stomach. His hand slides from my thigh to the curve under my palm, and he rubs there with his thumb—slow, careful—like he’s trying to memorize this part of me in case the world ever gets stupid enough to try to take it away.
“She okay?” he asks.