“Whatdoyou know, kiddo?”
“That I like her.”
“Yeah.”
“That this ismykid.”
“Yeah.”
“Jeez, Ma,fine!I want to be involved.With the pregnancy and the parenting.I want this baby.”
“And Millie?”
I chewed my lower lip, considering.Alyssa waited, her wheezing less pronounced, which helped me calm down enough to think.
“Yeah, and Millie.I want them both in my life, in my house.”
“Well, now, that’s something!”Alyssa’s cackling turned back into that deep, hacking cough.“All right, bucko, let’s come up with a plan.”
“I can’t do anything—”
“Until the end of the season.I know.But you can put pieces in place now.First thing we need to do is understand where she’s coming from.”
Chapter4
Luka
It took me nearly six weeks, but I was finally able to put the first step of my plan in place.
“I can’t believe you flew all this way for an appointment,” Millie said, awestruck.I wasn’t sure she’d blinked since she met me at the doors to the terminal.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fogginess of traveling for more than twenty-four hours.“I told you, this is important.Coach agreed.”
“You’re missing the game against the Avalanche tonight—”
“Just one game, which Coach approved because, depending how deep we go in the playoffs, I might not pull this off again for months.”I shot her a hopeful look.“Unless you want to come to Houston.”
Millie shook her head once, hard.“No.”
I sighed, but I tried not to get discouraged.I was much, much further along than a few weeks ago when Millie wouldn’t even take my calls.Today, this trip, was about building the foundation for more.We wobble and fall before we skate the full rink.
We talked every day now about the baby, her job, my job, and Colombo, which we were driving through at the moment.Sri Lanka’s capital was larger than I’d expected.It was just as muggy as Houston, and it smelled both exotic and familiar—of exhaust and local spices and sweat.The high rises clustered all the way to the water’s edge, reminding me a bit of Miami, but the roads, crowded with cars and mopeds and bicycles, were distinctly overcrowded and un-American in their traffic patterns.And then there was the way the pedestrians dressed and the signs over the shops and for the streets.I was in a strange new world, in so many ways.
The driver braked hard at the last moment, bringing us within millimeters of the bumper in front of us, much like a cabbie in Manhattan.
“You’re taking a flight out again this evening?”Millie asked.
“Well, like you said, I’m already missing a game…”
Coach had seemed pleased to shift my place with the second-line left winger, Reece Hopper.That guy had been itching to show what he could do.I might well lose my starting spot after this, something Coach and I had talked through after my call with Millie in Cormac’s office.
Coach had congratulated me on my impending fatherhood and helped me find flights.As I’d walked out, Gunnar Evaldson, the owner, had walked in—the second time we’d traded places in Coach’s office that way.There was something afoot with management, and it made me nervous.Something was going on in the organization, and I had enough ego to wonder if it had to do with me.No doubt it had been Coach’s plan to light a fire under my ass when he’d mentioned trades.
My agent claimed I was safe until the end of the season because the trade deadline had passed and I wouldn’t be allowed to suit up for another team’s playoff run, just as the new Wildcatter’s player taking my place wouldn’t be able to play.
But that was a worry for another day.Right now, I wanted to enjoy my sixteen hours with Millie before I headed back to Houston.
“So, I thought you’d like to take a shower and change before we walk over to my appointment,” Millie said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
