“Different,” he repeats.“We can figure it out.We’ll hire help if we need it.And once we get to the off-season, I will be Captain Cutie’s personal chauffeur.We can tag team.Whatever it takes so you don’t feel like you’re drowning.”
I stare at him, because he says it so simply you could miss the enormity of it.
We.
Tag team.
Whatever it takes.
“That’ll be months from now,” I manage.“If I even get an interview.”
“You will.”He reaches over and taps my leg.“And I’ll be obnoxiously proud.”
I look away before my face betrays me, and Grayce chooses that second to plant a damp hand on my mouth like a tiny censor.I kiss her palm and she chortles, delighted.
Atlas’s expression shifts.The lightness stays, but there’s a new line between his brows.“There’s something I need to tell you,” he says, and my stomach drops.
“What?”I ask, almost like a harsh demand.
“Reporter caught me leaving the arena.”Grayce now stands wobbly between us with a hand on his knee, as if participating in the meeting.“Someone posted a picture of us from yesterday when we were shopping.It started making the rounds.There’s a ‘secret baby’ rumor.”
The world narrows to a pinpoint.“Oh,” I say, and then realize how useless that is.I try again.“Okay.What… what did you say?”
“The truth.”His voice is steady.“Told him about Gray and his request for us to raise her.That we’re going to adopt her.”
A wave of competing feelings hits—relief and gratitude and a hot lick of panic at the idea that strangers will be discussing Grayce like she’s a riddle to solve.“Okay,” I say again, and find a better word.“Thank you for handling that.”
He nods.“Then they asked if we were together.Married.Engaged.You know how it goes.”He flexes his jaw.“I shut it down.Said no—we’re co-parents, that’s it.”
The smile I manufacture is serviceable.The quiet crack I feel inside is not.“Good.That’s… good.”
It is.It’s the right answer.We wrote that script together.
So why does it feel like the closing door echoes like a boom?
Atlas watches me.“You okay?”
“Yeah.”I reach for a block and palm it.“Just bracing for the noise.People have opinions about things that are none of their business.”
“They can have them,” he says, a thread of steel in the words.“We’ll live our lives anyway.”
We.The pronoun again.I’m not ready to accept it but can’t quite step away from it, leaving me to wonder… where do I belong?
“Right,” I say, too briskly, because if I linger here I’ll say something I can’t take back.
Grayce loses interest in standing, plops onto her butt, then toys with the rabbit’s ear.
Inside my head, a film plays.It’s short, silent and cruel—a looping montage of an impossible life.Thanksgiving with too much pie, Christmas light strands tangled around Atlas’s arms while he swears cheerfully, birthdays with messy cakes and cheap crowns, fights about nothing and everything that end with both of us laughing into each other’s shoulders.We would argue about paint colors and compromise on soft blue.We would teach Grayce to skate, pack school lunches, buy soccer shin guards, attend parent-teacher nights, forget it’s a miracle because it would be ordinary and ours.
I close my eyes, just for a heartbeat, and kill the projection.
Atlas shifts slightly and my gaze focuses in on him.“I saw Brienne at the arena and she asked if you’d come to the game tomorrow,” he says casually, but his eyes are steady on me.“Sit in the suite with her.”
My heart trips because it’s decision time.“I want to… I really do.But I don’t think it’s right to drag Grayce out that late.It’s just too long a night for her.”
His brows lift, like he expected me to say exactly that.“So, don’t.Will you come if I find us a babysitter?Someone I trust?”
I tuck my hands under my thighs to stop fidgeting.“I don’t know…” The words are automatic, stalling, but the truth is, I want to.
