Chapter 26
It was probably dramatic to say that the progress Shannon and I had made in the last few months was gone in seconds, but that was what it felt like. She offered me generic platitudes while I’d shown her around the house, but with each passing moment, I knew I’d fucked up.
“Tell me what’s going on in your head,” I said once we were back on the road, headed toward Linwood. Thank you, Kevin, for encouraging me to say it when I was feeling anxious.
Snow was coming down harder now, the headlights cutting through a near whiteout. I tightened my hands on the steering wheel, hoping we’d make it over Vail Pass before it closed due to weather.
Shannon shook her head, looking out the window. “Nothing important.”
My teeth ground together, my focus on the road, even as my mind went a thousand miles an hour. But between the road conditions, a phone call from my parents to wish us a Merry Christmas, and Shannon putting in her headphones to listen to an audiobook, I let it drop.
For now, at least.
Tonight, I’d ask again.
She dozed off before we reached the Eisenhower Tunnel, head leaned on the window and one leg curled up under her. The car was quiet, only the sounds of the windshield wipers and Christmas classics playing on the radio. Leena slept almost the entire ride, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Which was the last place I wanted to be.
By the time we made it to the Linwood exit, I’d convinced myself that Shannon hated the house and that I’d overstepped yet again in the name of future planning.
I’d also reminded myself a hundred times that those same conclusions were my mind being mean to me, and that nothing Shannon had said or done until today had ever made me feel that way.
The truth was probably somewhere in the middle, and I needed a chance to talk to her.
After three months with Shannon at my side, I couldn’t picture a life without her anymore. I wanted to wake up to her in my bed, watch her play with my daughter, make her dinner, then strip her naked and fall asleep holding her every night, for the rest of my life.
This marriage my subconscious created wasn’t temporary to me anymore.
I wanted forever.
The car slowed as we exited the highway, then meandered through the sleepy streets of Linwood. Twinkle lights hung in every tree lining River Street, washing the small town in golden light.
I passed Emmy and Beckett’s house, the lights dark except for the glow of a Christmas tree through the front window.
Lori’s house was outside of town, an old farmhouse set back against the Gore Range mountains.
String lights lit up the pond behind the house, frozen over for the winter and ready to skate on.
The moment the tires went over the cattle guard at the front of the property, Shannon jerked awake.
“Oh,” she said, taking in the picturesque scene. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep the whole way.”
“You were tired.” The words sounded clipped, my anxiety rising in me with every minute I let these worries fester.
I parked moments later, Beckett and Jace walking up from the pond to greet us. Beckett’s younger brother Mason walked a step behind them, skates slung over his shoulders. He played for the Dallas Outlaws and reminded me of Logan—an overly-excited puppy in human form.
“Mikko!” Beckett called the moment I opened the car door. “Glad you made it!”
I held a finger over my mouth, then circled the car to fetch a sleeping Leena.
Beckett followed me to the passenger side, giving Shannon a hug when she climbed out.
Emmy came outside, next in line for greetings. “Merry Christmas, Shannon.”
“Merry Christmas,” Shannon answered, her voice still sounding off. “Thanks for the invite.”
Leena stirred in my arms at the sound of Shannon’s voice, head resting on my shoulders but eyes taking in everyone here.
Beckett waved, grinning at my little girl. “Merry Christmas, Leena. I’m going to be your favorite uncle in about 12 hours.”
I squinted at my old teammate. “What did you do?”
“He went overboard.” Emmy stood on tiptoes to give me a hug. “Glad you made it, Mikko.”
Together, we all walked toward the house, Shannon the first one up the stairs.
“Where’s Lori?” Shannon said from the front porch.
“She went to lay down,” Emmy answered. “We took her to the evening church service, but with the snow coming down, it was a lot.”
Shannon let herself into the house and she slipped into the first-floor bedroom, then shut the doors behind her.
I watched the closed doors, the perfect analogy for how I felt right now.
“She left her phone in the car,” Jace said, handing me Shannon’s phone. “You want your luggage upstairs in Beckett’s room?
“Thanks. And sure.”
I glanced down at the phone in my hand, smiling at the picture of Leena, kicking her feet in her stroller and waving at the ducks floating by in the pond in Central Park.
I’d seen the picture a hundred times but seeing it on Shannon’s phone felt different.
It was a quiet declaration that we’d weaseled our way into her heart, same as she had ours.
Before I clicked the phone off, a text message came through, the preview showing on the lockscreen.
Dickwad: After everything we’ve done for you, you’re so ungrateful. Merry Christmas to you too, sis.
“Everything okay?” Emmy asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to answer when my pulse hammered in my ears. Snooping through her text messages was a huge invasion of privacy, and I wasn’t about to do it. But I couldn’t help but wonder what else her asshole family had said to her.
Was that why she was so off today?
Or were the holidays an exceptional reminder of everything her childhood had never been?
Had every present we’d purchased and wrapped together been like a stab to the heart? A vivid reminder of the fact that Shannon’s childhood was stolen by people who never fucking deserved her?
I glanced back at Lori’s doorway, but Shannon hadn’t come back out yet.
Beckett slapped me on the shoulder, carrying in the portable crib I’d brought with us. “Man, I’m glad you’re here. We’ll have the whole gang together.”
Beckett, Emmy, and Jace filled me in on the plans for the Mayhem Christmas party tomorrow. I tried my best to listen, my attention split between Leena playing with the basket of toys in the corner someone had put out for her and staring a hole through Lori’s bedroom door.
But no amount of wishful thinking made Shannon emerge. I wanted a chance to remind her that her past could stay there. That what we had was a future, one she could rewrite as many times as we needed until she healed the wounds left by a family that wasn’t good enough.
Beckett nudged me toward the living room, where Mason sprawled across the couch, Jace sitting at his feet. Mason pointed the remote at the TV and turned it up. “Did you hear the news about the expansion team?”
NHL Tonight was on, Jace’s biological dad, Ryan Meyers, delivering the news.
“With the Austin expansion team officially approved, I’m looking at teams like Denver.
Mikko Laaksonen takes up a significant portion of their cap space and had a rough start to the season with his personal leave.
A player like him could be a win-win for both teams.”
The analysts went back and forth discussing me like I was a pawn on the board while the visions of my life disintegrated like a sandcastle in high tide.
Austin.
Not Denver. Not a short drive from Linwood where the only family that had ever mattered to Shannon still lived.
Our original arrangement was clear and only worked because she was also working in Denver: she helped me through the season and finished her clinical hours debt-free.
Moving with me if I got traded was never part of the deal.
And after the way she’d shut down at the house this morning, I had no idea if she’d even want to come.
I liked plans. Needed them. Schedules, routines, knowing what came next—that was how I kept the noise in my head from getting too loud.
But an expansion draft was the opposite of a plan.
It was a black hole where someone else decided my future without my input, and right now it felt like the ground was shifting under everything I’d built with Shannon and Leena.
If I was sent to Texas, would she even consider it? Or would this temporary marriage finally hit its expiration date the way we’d always said it would?
My pulse kicked harder. Not full panic yet, but the spiral had started, and I could feel it pulling.
“Man, your dad really is a prick.” Mason kicked Jace in the shoulder. “I can’t believe Meyers is out here naming names like that on Christmas Eve.”
Jace shook his head. “I don’t claim him. Don’t put that on me.”
Beckett looked over at me while Leena climbed into my lap. “You okay, buddy?”
I didn’t answer, because no. I wasn’t okay.
And the only person I wanted to talk to was my wife.