Denny presses his lips together and glances at me. “A month.”
“A fucking month?” Zenia hisses, leaning in. “We’ve had like three groupies in the last—what, seven months!”
“Eight and yeah, I know.”
“Not to mention the chicks you hook up with when we’re on the road!”
Denny looks at me and I have a feeling that look says he’s also maybe been working on his research. Has he solo fucked a man? The way the corner of his lip quirks in my direction, I think maybe he has. I raise an eyebrow as he turns back to Zenia.
“Look. It was an accident. Everything about it was an accident. Not only do I not love her, but I don’t want to get married. She’s a smart girl; I’m sure she knows that. I’m sure she knows that I’m not…” Denny huffs. “This is temporary.”
“A child is permanent,” I deadpan.
He waves his hand. “I can be a father and not be married to their mother. Coming from a household where your parents very clearly hated each other, I can say with quite a bit of confidence that I don’t want to raise a child in an environment that could lead to that. And if I go through with this marriage, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Neither of them deserves that.”
“How the hell do you panic propose?” Zenia asks, shaking his head in disbelief.
“When she says, ‘I’m carrying your baby’ and the first thing you think is thateveryoneis going to expect you to get married and raise that child in aproperhousehold. So I said, ‘we should probably get married.’” He shrugs.
“The fact I understand that is sick,” Zenia says.
Denny shrugs. “But like, when is the right time? Right before Christmas? Right after? Right before, during, or after she givesbirth? In those first months when she’s postpartum?” He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking know what to do right now to fix this.”
“I’m disturbed that you’ve been cheating on her,” I say.
He shrugs again. “Yeah, so am I. But I’m horny, I have questions, and I’m not interested in being with her. Shitty excuse or not, here we are.”
My gaze travels to Felton and Denny’s words drift through my head.Here we are.The difference is, I’m excited to be where I am right now. I’m excited about starting this relationship with Felton.
He glances up and a smile flashes across his face. The knowledge that I put it there simply by looking at him has me feeling all kinds of sappy.
Yes indeed, here we are.
TWENTY-TWO
FELTON
I’m notin the net on the last game before the break against St. Louis. We lost the previous three games, two of which I was in the net for, so I was relieved when Coach called for Marion to be in the crease tonight.
It was a good game, and Marion did a great fucking job. I’m so fucking proud of him. Not that I watched him much. I was too busy staring at Ren.
Have I ever noticed how much of a wall that man is? I swear, he blocks half the shots all on his own. I’ve never been prouder of someone than when I’m watching Ren on the ice. He’s just… impressive. Magnificent. I could watch him all day.
The rest of our team was great too. There were some amazing plays, both that I saw and missed and had to catch it on the screen as they were replayed.
Hockey has always been something I love to get lost in. Whether I’m playing or watching, hockey has just been something fun for me. Yes, it’s work. Both mentally and physically, not to mention it is my actual job. But when your work is your passion too? It makes your days enjoyable.
I remember the first time I saw hockey. Even my father’s remark of ‘maybe you’ll actually be good at this’ didn’t dull my fascination. In that moment, nothing he said had the power to bring me down. I fell more in love with the sport every single day. Especially when it turned out that I had some talent.
At the time, I didn’t recognize my coach’s praise for what it was. It wasn’t a secret that he encouraged me and told me how much I’d been improving much more than the others. At first, my teammates were angry about it.
Then they stopped being angry. Hell, they even told me how proud they were after a while.
I thought I must be the luckiest person in the world to have such a supportive team. How much they encouraged and supported each other. How much they thought I had skill. It was probably them that made me strive to be better. To always perform. To improve.
Looking back, I think I know exactly what happened. First, my coach must have witnessed my father berating me. And then later, my teammates did.
Still, even knowing this, I’m convinced that I had the best team in the world. My teammates, and even my coach, could have been bullies and treated me just like my father did. They could have hopped on the bandwagon and, seeing that someone else was tearing me apart, decided that it gave them permission to tear me apart too. Especially since that someone was my father.
