Chapter 18 #2
“But if you need a little mile-high action, I can hold Leena for a few minutes. I don’t think it’ll take you long, right, buddy?”
Shannon laughed under her breath, shaking her head as she buckled Leena into the little belt extender Nolan had brought over. After she’d been quiet the last two nights, it was nice hearing her laugh again.
The engines rumbled to life beneath us, the familiar vibration settling through the cabin as we taxied toward the runway. Leena buried her face against Shannon’s shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” Shannon murmured, rubbing slow circles across her back. “You’re okay, sweetie.”
The plane surged forward. Leena peeked one eye open, then another. We lifted off the ground a minute later, and she craned her neck toward the window, completely forgetting she’d been nervous moments before.
Shannon wasn’t much different. She leaned toward the glass while the morning sun caught the gold hoops lining her ear, her entire expression softening as Denver shrank beneath us.
“Wow,” she breathed.
Leena had one chubby hand pressed against the window while Shannon pointed out the tiny roads disappearing below us, both of them completely captivated by the clouds outside.
I pulled my phone from my pocket before either of them noticed and snapped a picture.
It wasn’t perfect—Leena’s hair had come undone from the style Shannon arranged it into this morning, and Shannon had her hair in a ponytail, not curled like she normally wore it. But it was real, and they were mine.
I saved it as my lock screen before I over thought it, then leaned back in the chair.
Once we reached cruising altitude, I took Leena from Shannon, and she pulled out her tablet. Just like at home, she contorted her body into a little ball, legs up on the chair. “I ruined myself for life by flying on a private plane first, didn’t I?”
“Oh, for sure,” Logan answered, once again turning to face us.
His arms rested across the seat, head propped on his fists.
“It would be hard to do your little pretzel moves in the main cabin. Meeks here hardly fits in a standard seat, and I’m not talking about those thighs. He needs room for all that—”
“Quit talking.” My hand rubbed up and down Leena’s back as she settled against my chest, already dozing off. “Let her sleep.”
“Fine,” Logan whispered. “But only because she’s cute and we don’t need two grumpy Giants.”
Shannon chuckled under her breath. I wasn’t sure if it was at her book, or at Logan’s comments, but this was all going smoother than I expected. Right until Richard stood in the aisle, asking to trade seats with Carter.
“Can’t put ‘em off any longer, Mikko,” he said before he’d even sat down across the aisle from me. “You have to do an interview tomorrow.”
“No media.”
“I get it, man. I do. You’re a private guy. But the number one defenseman in the league disappeared, and they have questions.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“It’s not that simple.” Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you don’t say something, someone else will, and then we lose control of the story. So, I think we go with the truth. We say you have a kid—”
“No.” I cut him off, my pulse rising. “Leena stays out of it.”
“Kids aren’t their business,” Carter said in my defense. “Nobody else blasts their kids on the news.”
Richard threw his hands in the air. “Then what do you want me to tell them? How do we spin this?”
“Me,” Shannon said. “Blame me. New wife and all.”
I turned to look at her, but she didn’t even bother taking her eyes off her tablet. She did, however, flash her left hand to show off the glittering ring she wore.
“Really?” Richard scoffed. “You want the media to believe you took time off during the regular season for a woman?”
“My woman,” I growled, hating the way he continually talked to and about her. “And it would serve you right to remember it.”
“Yeah, Dick,” Logan said.
Shannon held her fist up, and they bumped knuckles.
“Does he need to say anything?” Carter asked, always more levelheaded than me in press interviews. “What are they going to ask?”
“Everyone wants to know where he’s been,” Richard said, his voice more than a little exasperated now. “You’re lucky this hasn’t been an internet sensation with the amount of speculation going around.”
“We say nothing.” Hopefully, I conveyed how serious I was. “I’ll talk about hockey. I’ll talk about the importance of mental health if I need to. But we’re not mentioning Shannon or Leena. End of discussion.”
“And you expect everyone else on the plane to keep their mouths shut too?”
Logan stood up and let out a loud whistle. “Dick here thinks we don’t have Mikko’s back. That we can’t keep it quiet about his wife and kid. But I think we can, eh, boys?”
A chorus of yeah and hell yeah went around the plane.
Sensing he’d lost this battle, Richard let out a long sigh, then got up and returned to his seat at the front of the plane.
“If it keeps you from having to mention Leena, say my name instead,” Shannon said, voice low enough for only me to hear. “You did get married, and the legal documents are there to prove it. Maybe they won’t dig much further than that.”
“No.” I shook my head. “This isn’t about you. If they want to talk to me, then we talk about hockey. You didn’t ask for the spotlight, and I’m keeping you out of it.”
“I’m a big girl, Mikko. I can take it.”
I knew it, but hearing her say it made me realize how much this woman sacrificed time and time again. For Lori, for Leena, for me. And yet, I’d never heard her ask for anything in return.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning far more than this one instance, and saying a silent vow to myself to make sure she knew I’d take care of her too. “For all of it.”
Her dark eyes found mine, and she gave me the smallest nod. “Anytime.”
The rest of the flight passed quietly. Leena dozed through most of it, curled against my chest, only waking long enough to steal half my pretzels before Logan convinced her that an excited scream with her hands in the air was the proper way to handle turbulence.
As we began our descent, Shannon glued herself to the window again.
The skyline slowly came into view, buildings rising higher and higher until they filled the horizon.
The wheels touched down a few minutes later.
We taxied toward the private terminal, Shannon still watching out the window, taking in yellow taxis and skyscrapers that somehow looked even taller from the ground.
“I’ve seen the city in movies a hundred times,” she murmured. “It doesn’t even look real.”
I smiled, happy to have given her this first taste of the world.
Once the seatbelt sign switched off, everyone stood at once, reaching into overhead bins. I waited until the aisle cleared before standing, balancing Leena against my hip.
“So tomorrow,” I said. “It’ll be like a normal day. Morning skate at eight, meetings after. I should be back at the hotel around lunch, then I’ll head to the arena around four.”
“Okay,” Shannon answered. “I figured we could hang out at the hotel.”
“You should go explore.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “With Leena?”
“Of course. We brought the stroller.”
“But I’ve never been here.”
“And neither has she.”
She chewed on the corner of her lip. “You trust me to take her around the city?”
For once, there was nothing to overthink. “I trust no one more.”
“Okay.” She looked back out the window one more time. “I think I’d like that.”
The team buses rolled beneath the awning of the hotel an hour later, and within minutes the lobby was filled with suitcases and players stretching stiff legs after the flight. Coach Tremblay stood near the front desk with a stack of key cards in one hand and a rooming list in the other.
“Kozak. Parrish.”
Logan let out a deep sigh. “I got demoted.”
Kozy caught his key card before Logan could. “I’m the one who’s stuck with you now that the Giant’s taken.”
“You’re proving my point.”
“Aren’t you the one who climbed into bed with Mikko and claimed you were sleepwalking?”
Logan frowned. “That happened one time.”
“Three,” I corrected.
Kozy rolled his eyes. “This is going to be a long season.”
Coach didn’t even glance up from the remaining keys.
“Novak. Sullivan. Bennett. Nyberg. Madsen.”
He tossed room keys out one by one until he looked up.
“Laaksonen.”
I stepped forward, shifting Leena a little higher on my hip. Instead of one key card, Coach handed me two.
“A suite for the three of you.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
His eyes drifted to Leena, who was rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Get her upstairs before she mutinies.”
“That’s the plan.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow.”