23. Nora
NORA
The Hartford trip wasn't supposed to happen.
It's an away game, Tyler's got team travel, and normally Harper and I would stay home. But when Emma heard the Falcons were playing the Wolves, she called me with a plan.
"Surprise him," she said. "There’s a Hartford game next Friday. You and Harper take the train up Friday morning and stay with us for the weekend. Tyler will have no idea you’re coming.”
"I don't know if that's a good idea—"
"It's a great idea. Trust me. He'll love it."
So here we are a week later—Harper and I on a train to Hartford while Tyler thinks we’re back home in Ridgeport. He texted me this morning around seven.
Tyler: This team breakfast is boring. Wish you were here.
Me: I hope you have a good game today.
Tyler: Harder without you and Harper there. Hotel rooms suck.
My chest tightens, and I'm still thinking about it as the train rocks through fields and small towns I don't know the names of. Harper's asleep in the carrier on my lap. The train is quiet, mostly empty, with mid-morning travelers and one man at the far end of it, typing on a laptop.
I think about Thanksgiving night.
I shouldn't have been listening. I wasn't meaning to.
I'd been asleep—trying to be asleep anyway—the day having been long in the specific way that days with everyone you love and don't quite know how to be around are.
I woke up to voices through the kitchen wall.
Emma's, then Tyler's, low and serious in a way that pulled me out of sleep before I'd decided to pay attention.
I caught most of what they said before I realized what I was hearing, and by then it was too late to unhear it.
I heard him cry.
I heard Emma say Whatever she feels for you, it isn't going anywhere.
And I lay there in my sleeping bag in the dark living room trying to work out what I was supposed to do with any of it.
I don't know what he did before this. I only have pieces.
I have the shape of it from the night on the nursery floor when he told me about Pinewood, about people he'd hurt, about being forgiven, and not knowing what to do with it.
I now know there are names attached to that shape. Emma. Chase. Jackson. Maya.
The people he hurt, all of them, choosing him. Loving him.
I should be hurt by it. He's been letting me fall for him without giving me the full picture, which is—by certain measures—not fair. I have a right to be angry—maybe, and to tell him I'd heard everything and ask him why he hadn't trusted me with it.
But I kept thinking about his voice when he said I'm not sure I'm a good man, Em.
I kept thinking about how long he must have been carrying that before he could even say it out loud, and how much it cost him to say it then, and how he said it to her because she was the only person in the world he could say it to.
He's not ready. That was the truth of it. He wasn't ready to tell me, and Emma was telling him to do it before he was ready, but that wasn't going to make it land any softer when it came.
So I made a decision, lying there in the dark with him a few feet away in the other sleeping bag, neither of us asleep.
I'm not going to tell him I know. Not until he tells me himself. Because if I tell him I overheard, he doesn't get to choose to tell me—he just has to confirm something I already have. He needs to be the one who decides when I get to know. He needs to be the one who hands it to me.
And I owe him that. I owe him the chance to choose.
I'm good at waiting for things people aren't ready to give me yet. I've been doing it for two years. I waited for my mother's voice to stop being the first sound I expected when I picked up my phone. I know how to wait.
So I'll wait for this.
When he came back into the living room and told me, in the dark, that he meant what he said at the park, I almost said I heard everything. Almost said I love you anyway. Almost said whatever it is, you don’t have to be afraid of telling me.
I said I'm terrified instead, which was also true.
The train slows. We're coming into a station I don't recognize, and the announcement crackles through the speakers in that bored voice train announcements always have. Harper makes a small sleeping noise against my chest, and I press a kiss to the top of her head.
I'll wait. Until he's ready.
And if he never is… well. That's also a thing I'll know. But I don't think that's where this is going.
Emma's waiting at the platform with Ethan and Sofia, both kids bouncing with excitement when they see Harper.
"Baby!" Sofia shrieks, reaching for the carrier.
"Gentle," Emma reminds her, scooping her up. "We'll see Harper at the house. Come on, let's get you guys settled before the game."
Emma and Chase's house is beautiful—a renovated colonial in a quiet neighborhood with a huge backyard and an ice rink. Ethan immediately drags me to see his room, Sofia toddling after us, and by the time we're back downstairs, Emma's got coffee waiting.
"Tyler's going to lose his mind when he sees you," she says, settling onto the couch with her own mug. "He texted Chase this morning, complaining about away games. Said he hates being away from you two."
"He said that?"
"His exact words were, ‘This would be better if my girls were here.'" Emma grins. "His girls, Nora. Not just Harper."
I busy myself with Harper's bottle, not ready to examine what that means.
I look up at Emma, and for a second, I think about telling her I overheard last night. That I know.
I don't.
She looks at me a moment longer than she needs to, like maybe she's clocking something on my face, but she doesn't say anything either. We drink our coffee. Sofia steals one of Ethan's blocks and gets yelled at in the next room.
We head to the arena around twelve-thirty, early enough to get good seats in the family section.
The Wolves’ arena is bigger than Ridgeport's, louder, more intimidating. Emma navigates us through the crowds with practiced ease, Sofia on her hip and Ethan holding my hand. I slip Harper’s ear defenders on her before we get too close to the rink, and she tolerates them with the resigned patience of a baby who has done this before.
"Mama, I want popcorn," Ethan announces.
"After we find our seats."
Once we settle into the family section, Emma’s already digging snacks out of her bag, including the promised popcorn, which Ethan accepts happily.
I’m immediately aware that this is different from home games. Here, everyone knows Emma—she’s Chase’s wife. People say hello, coo over Sofia, and ask about Chase’s injury from a few seasons ago.
And then they look at me with Harper and make assumptions.
"Is this Tyler's daughter?" one woman asks, leaning over. "She's beautiful."
"Yes, this is Harper."
"And you're..."
"Nora. I'm—" The nanny, I should say. Just the nanny. "I'm with Tyler."
It's not technically a lie. I am with Tyler, in the sense that I'm here because of him, and that Harper and I are a unit connected to him.
But the woman smiles like I've just confirmed we're together, and I don't correct her.
Emma definitely notices, her eyebrows raised, but she doesn't say anything.
The teams take the ice for warm-ups, and I immediately find number 17. Tyler's skating hard, warming up his shot, and he hasn't looked up at the stands yet.
"Wait for it," Emma whispers, grinning.
Tyler does his usual warm-up routine—a few laps, some stretches, shooting on the net. Then he glances toward where the Falcons' family section would normally be, realizes he's in the away arena, and starts to turn back.
That's when he sees us.
He stops skating so abruptly that he nearly falls over, standing there on the ice, stick in hand, staring at us like he can't believe what he's seeing.
Then his whole face breaks into the biggest smile I've ever seen.
He skates toward the glass as fast as he can without actually sprinting, stopping right in front of our section.
Then he does it again, a full loop, stick raised, grinning like an absolute idiot, and Liam's laughing at him from the blue line.
He taps his stick against the glass, mouthing, "You came? "
I nod, holding Harper up so he can see her better.
He presses his glove against the glass, and I press Harper's hand against it from our side. The barrier between us feels simultaneously massive and insignificant.
"Told you he'd lose his mind," Emma says, laughing.
Tyler's still staring at us, and I can see Liam skating over, saying something that makes Tyler shake his head. He can't stop smiling, looking back at us even as he has to return to warm-ups.
"He's got it bad," Emma murmurs.
"What?"
"Tyler. He's head over heels for you."
"We're not—it's not like that."
"Nora." Emma shifts Sofia to her other hip. "I've known Tyler for years. I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. And the way you look at him? That's not just professional."
I don't know what to say to that, so I focus on Harper, who's awake and looking around at all the noise and color.
The puck drops at 2 p.m. sharp, and the energy is immediate and intense. This is the Wolves' home ice and their crowd. They're loud and passionate in a way that makes Ridgeport games seem tame.
The first period is fast and physical. Tyler's on the ice for his first shift, and I watch him line up against Chase at the faceoff.
They're grinning at each other through their cages.
It's strange to watch the easy familiarity between two men who used to be teammates, both of them Bears once, before everything changed and Chase ended up a Wolf and Tyler ended up a Falcon, and somehow they all ended up in my life through Emma.
Now they're on opposite sides of the ice, fighting for position at the faceoff dot like they're trying to prove something just for the fun of it.