Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
We didn’t get the ending Carter dreamed of. The Ospreys lost in Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the entire city felt the ache of it. But there was pride split right down the middle of that ache. The boys had played like men possessed, Carter most of all. He was incandescent on the ice— stronger on the puck, calmer in the face-off circle, feeding passes like a conductor. His name was on lips that had never said it before. Broadcasters said “what a season” about him with reverence.
He was a revelation to the league.
And a revelation in my life.
At twenty weeks, I’d popped past the point of ambiguity; there was no mistaking who I was carrying with me everywhere I went. Our little girl announced herself in everything I wore, from the soft white dress I’d chosen tonight to the big Ospreys t-shirt I slept in most nights, one I stole from Carter.
It was wild now that we were in the part of pregnancy where movement was a thing. I laid awake most nights struck with wonder, my hand on my belly, feeling my world flip along with her. And when Carter talked, she stretched and kicked, as if she already knew his voice, as if she already adored it.
He followed me around the party with one hand tethered to me, unable to help himself. It would have been ridiculous if it weren’t so sweet. The man had been shameless in his advances with me since the day I met him, but he was full-on obsessed now.
I couldn’t even pretend like I didn’t love it.
“You good?” he murmured for the third time in ten minutes, palm warm against the small of my back, thumb sweeping idly. His hair was tousled, his jaw clean-shaven after he and the rest of the guys let their beards grow all through the playoff run. He’d put on a linen shirt for me and left the top few buttons undone because he knew I liked to kiss the notch of his throat.
“I’m perfect,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. Considering I’d had two Fruity Pebbles cookies from Bake’n Babes, a delightful little mocktail, my feet were bare, my friends within arm’s reach, and my man glued to me? Perfect was the only way to describe it.
On the other side of the deck, Aleks and Mia held court at the long picnic table, her laughter ringing out like a bell every time he leaned in to whisper something at her temple. They were leaving for their honeymoon at last, bags already packed and waiting at the door, and the way they couldn’t stop touching each other told me they were both over the wait.
Chloe and Will had claimed the hammock like a pair of teenagers, swaying gently, a newly married glow radiating off them both. Will still looked at her like he couldn’t believe she’d said yes. Ava wore an Ospreys cap backward and was making her rounds to anyone who would listen to her discuss why our loss in the fifth game had been complete bullshit and all due to mistakes by the refs.
Maven and Vince were on the stairs just inside, heads bent together, whispering and giggling like kids. Vince had one hand splayed over Maven’s barely there bump and the other braced behind her on the step. Every few minutes, Maven shot me a look that said can you believe this? and I shot one back that said not even a little.
She’d just found out that she was having a girl, too.
We’d giggled all night together, dreaming about how our daughters would be best friends. They didn’t have a say in it. It was just how it would be.
It was a good night. The kind of night I wanted to bottle for our daughter and say, This. This is your family. This is what love feels like.
Grace breezed onto the deck in a sundress and bare feet, cheeks sun-kissed from a day on the water. She pressed a cold beer into Jaxson’s palm and stole his snapback, tucking her platinum hair up under it with a grin. “You look sappy,” she told him, tilting her head at him like she was suspicious. “Is this what retiring your bad boy era looks like? Concern and a wrinkled brow?”
“I’m just tired,” Jaxson said in way of explanation, his hand floating to her hip like it always did. “And talked out. I lost my voice yelling at refs, that’s all.”
“You always lose your voice yelling at refs,” she said, stealing a sip of his beer. “Even when we watch from a bar.”
“Some of us are passionate, Little Nova.”
“Lucky me,” she murmured, bumping his shoulder with hers.
I watched Jaxson a beat after Grace had turned away, and the second she wasn’t looking anymore, he paled like he was nervous, like he was about to play a game instead of go into the offseason.