The Secret Baby Power Play (That Steamy Hockey Romance #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

BEATRICE NIX

Six months ago…

My big brother’s getting married.

My wild, party-loving, only-dates-cougars-on-the-rebound-due-to-suspected-commitment-issues brother is going to marry an amazing woman and live happily ever after.

I’m so happy for him.

So, so happy!

So happy that I haven’t stopped crying since he called me to tell me that Charlotte said yes…

What’s wrong with me?

I sniff, speeding my steps down a quieter street in the French Quarter, grateful for the spring breeze on my face. I have no idea where I’m going. I just had to get away from the noise, the people. Away from all the shiny surfaces outside the bar, reflecting what a mess I am.

I love Charlotte. Seriously love her. If someone told me I had to choose between Baylor, the brother who’s had my back my since the day I was born, and this woman, who came into my life just a few months ago, I would struggle to decide where my loyalty should lie.

She’s been ten toes down for me from day one, even when things with my ex got seriously ugly.

She never wavered or made me feel like a burden.

She simply opened her heart and her home and took me in.

Charlotte is an incredible human being who loves my brother with every bit of her big, beautiful soul, and he feels the same way. Thanks to the love they’ve found, Baylor is an even better man than he was before. There’s no doubt in my mind that their marriage will be one for the ages.

So why is there a boulder in my throat?

Am I jealous? Is that it? Deep down, am I that petty?

“If so, then you’re a horrible person,” I mutter, words slurring as I swipe at the tears still leaking from my eyes.

I’m tipsier than I almost ever get, but a hurricane on an empty stomach will do that to a girl.

Food was on the way to the table, but I left before I could take a single bite of my fish tacos.

Thank God.

Thank God, I stepped outside the bar to take that call. Thank God, I texted my friends an apology for bailing early when the sniffling began, and started walking. If anyone else had seen me like this, I would be even more ashamed of myself.

Seriously, what is wrong here?!

Baylor and Charlotte basically saved my life. Not only did they help me escape Kai with minimal fallout, but they also provided shelter, support, and connections to the New Orleans music community. Hell, Charlotte even sang backup on the first solo release of my career.

They did everything in their power to smooth my transition from dysfunctional coupledom to peaceful single lady life.

From a member of a mid-list band to a potentially mainstream solo artist. My first single, The Labor of Leaving, is still charting months after its release, and my forthcoming solo album has been named one of the year’s most anticipated releases by several well-respected industry publications.

If I don’t seriously fuck something up, I’m on the verge of being famous.

Only I never wanted to be famous.

I wanted to make amazing music, live a happy life, and find someone incredible to share it with.

And so far?

Well, so far, aside from the new album, I’ve made formulaic music, lived under the thumb of a controlling asshole, and what I know about “true love” could fit inside a thimble.

I know it’s precious.

I know it’s rare.

And I know I might never find it.

Since the split with Kai, I haven’t been able to get laid, let alone anything more. I only started dipping my toe into the dating pool a little while ago, and meeting people is next to impossible when you spend most of your time in a recording studio, but still…

I’ve been on enough dates to know that men feel as foreign to me as the opposite sex did when I was a teenager.

That’s how I ended up with Kai in the first place.

He was problematic, yes, even back then.

But he was also the first boy who seemed to “get” what it was like to be a woman, to see me as a main character, too, not a sidekick in his dude-centered adventure.

I thought maybe that was because he was older than the other boys I’d dated—twenty-one to my seventeen.

Over a decade later, the hypothesis gave me comfort on my way out the door. Maybe finding connection would be easier the second time around, now that my dating pool was full of proper adults.

But after six months of disastrous first dates, I now suspect most men are simply dumb.

No, not dumb. That isn’t quite right.

They’re not dumb, they’re…willfully ignorant. Most haven’t bothered to educate themselves on what it’s like to navigate the world as a woman because they don’t have to.

They don’t have to be afraid of walking outside at night, or losing control of their reproductive systems, or being told they’re inherently inferior because they were born with girl parts. So, they don’t care.

And most don’t want to learn to care. Caring would be too much effort.

It would mess up the good thing they’ve got going, what with all the not caring and refusing to admit that it’s insane that news outlets are covering the “male loneliness epidemic” one hundred times more than the epidemic of men literally killing women.

Murderous dudes are the leading cause of preventable death for women all over the world, but it’s super bad in the U.S.

A pregnant American is more likely to be murdered by her baby daddy than to die from pregnancy complications.

I mean, what the fuck?

People always say that people kill people, not guns.

I get where they’re coming from with that, I guess.

I mean, it seems logical on the surface.

But easier access to guns is the simplest explanation for why men in the U.S.

kill their partners so much more often than men from say…

Uruguay or the Czech Republic, where domestic violence is also a leading killer of women.

If the guns aren’t the problem, I guess men in my home country are just bigger dickweasels than men in the rest of the world?

Which, after my last few dates…

And yes, there are some wonderful men out there, but they all seem to be in a serious relationship or gay.

The straight male gems have all been snapped up by women smart enough to see the writing on the wall and lock those keepers down ASAP.

Do not pass Go, do not let that one-in-a-million guy escape before you’ve bagged and tagged that sucker.

I, however, didn’t see the writing on the wall.

Hell, I didn’t see the “Your Man is a Dangerous Sociopath” neon sign flashing directly into my face. Despite my alleged intelligence—according to those standardized tests in school, anyway—I’m a fool. An idiot. A woman living in a broken world with a broken picker, who might always be alone.

I exhale a shuddery breath as the tears come faster.

I tell myself that being alone is fine. I tell myself that being alone can be fantastic.

I remind myself of all the impressive, happy, well-adjusted women I know who are spending their lives alone.

I assure myself that if they can do it, I can do it, too.

I’m one of the lucky ones, after all, who has family and friends to fill my life with warmth and connection.

So many people don’t have that. So many great people, who have done nothing to deserve pain or isolation, but are getting a heaping helping of it anyway.

I am so lucky. So, so lucky.

So why does my heart feel like it’s being raked across a cheese grater?

Why does the thought of never being held or kissed or told I’m someone’s favorite ever again make a piece of me want to shrivel up and die?

Why does the sight of that couple holding hands as they hurry down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street—laughing and chatting, with eyes only for each other—make my throat close up so tight that, by the time they pass, I can barely breathe?

Seriously, I can barely breathe, and thanks to the tears pouring down my cheeks, I can also barely see.

Still, as I turn the corner onto a small side street, I know where I am immediately. My feet have taken me to the last place I should be right now. To the only single man who’s made me feel anything but annoyance, fear, or “ew” in so, so long.

To the only man in this city who’s completely off-limits…

Blue has made it clear in a hundred subtle, unspoken ways that he cares for me, but that friendship is as far as this goes. He’s my brother’s teammate, soon to be my brother’s captain, and dating a teammate’s family member is, apparently, against his code.

Or maybe he just thinks I’m a mess, and he isn’t looking for that kind of energy in his life.

He’s a very grounded, evolved man.

Probably too evolved for a woman who spent most of her twenties screaming into a microphone until midnight and sleeping until noon.

A woman who wasted so much energy managing her toxic partner’s emotions and ignoring the red flags in her love life, that she’s only just now beginning to figure out who she truly is.

I don’t know who I am.

How can I know what I want in a man or anything else?

It’s a valid question, but it doesn’t stop me from climbing the steps to Blue’s back porch, to the door of his modest two-bedroom apartment. His home is adorable, historic, smells like old books, and is one of my favorite places on earth.

I always feel so peaceful here.

Whether we’re listening to records or hanging out with a glass of port after a show, I treasure every second in Blue’s inner sanctum. It isn’t just a home; it’s a haven from the chaos of the outside world, a place of tranquility that’s a perfect reflection of its owner.

As I ring the bell, I tell myself a longing for peace is why I’m here. It has nothing to do with the longing for other things.

Things I feel every time this fine-as-hell man fixes me with his pale blue eyes…

Eyes like a clear spring sky. Eyes, I’ve dreamed about staring into my soul while he pins me to the mattress beneath him more times than is healthy or decent.

I am ridiculously hot for this man.

Sooner or later, I’m going to do something I’ll regret. Then, our friendship will be ruined. Even worse, I will have disrespected the wishes of a wonderful guy who has made it clear that he has zero interest in boning me.

I shouldn’t be alone with him right now. Tonight is not the night for this. I am way too close to the edge.

I’m about to turn and leave.

I’m about to do the right thing instead of the needy thing, I really am.

Then, Blue opens the door, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans and a tight black tank top and…

Well, that’s that. My fate is sealed.

“Bea. Hey…” His surprised smile fades as he gets a good look at my face. When he speaks again, his register has dropped to a decibel that makes my ribs vibrate as he asks, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I shake my head, the truth spilling out before I can stop it, “No, not really. I’m… I’m a horrible person, I think. Like, really horrible.”

He frowns. “No.”

I gulp in a breath and add in a wobbly voice, “Yeah, I think so… I think…” I trail off, willing myself to leave again, but my willpower is apparently a thing of the past.

Later, I’ll blame the alcohol on an empty stomach.

Later, I’ll realize this was it, the moment my timeline split into two radically different directions.

But right now, all I know is that I can’t stand the thought of being alone or of walking away from this man who makes me long for him like a gothic heroine wandering the moors.

So, I whisper, “Can I come in?”

And, of course, he says, “Yes.”