“She wants her dad,” Nat murmurs.
“He’s working,” I sing, showering her sweet face with kisses. I walk her over to the glass, rocking her in my arms. “Can you see him down there?” I point to the ice, where Hudson stands with his players, entirely wrapped up in the game.
Stevie spots her dad—and only cries harder. Nat sighs with exasperation, falling into one of the plush chairs facing the arena. Seattle is up 1-0, but that’s no surprise. They’re having a phenomenal season.
“What happened with your patient?” Nat asks as I continue to settle our daughter, running my palm over the top of her dark-haired head.
“Oh… Nothing crazy. Just a couple of interns with questions, and I was lead resident on duty,” I lie.
Truth be told,Iwas the patient in question. Kind of. When I finished my shift, I stole a pregnancy test from one of the stock closets at the hospital and took it in the bathroom. Three more stolen tests later, and…I’m pretty certain I’m pregnant.
Now would be a terrible time to inform Nat about it, though, considering how overstimulated she seems to be from Stevie’s tantrum. I don’t think she wants to imagine handling two at the moment.
At the very least, I’ll be the one carrying baby two. Natalia had a tough pregnancy, and she vowed to never go through it again. It was hard to watch her so uncomfortable, and when her pregnancy turned high risk after she developed gestational diabetes…that was terrifying. Despite it, though, I was admittedly a little envious.
We never sat down and decided exactly which one of us was going to carry or how many we’d have. After Nat finished college, ultimately not qualifying for the Olympics, she found a new passion for coaching, and she stopped taking birth control. Turns out, after years of insisting she hated children, all sheneeded to do was work with them to realize she truly wanted nothing more.
We didn’t necessarily seek out pregnancy, but the three of us decided if it happened, it was meant to be. I wanted to finish medical school first, and while I’ve just entered my second year of residency, I can’t say I’m upset about this twist of events.
I peer down at Stevie, and my heart bursts at my baby with Nat’s eyes and Hudson’s nose. She’s my daughter—our daughter—in every way that counts, but I’m elated at the thought of adding to our family with my own DNA. I love the idea of watching Natalia love my child the same way she loves her own, of watching Hudson find out he’s going to be a dad for the second time.
It’s enough to overpower the horrendous morning sickness I’ve been experiencing every day for the past week, or the fact that the smell of Nat’s vanilla body lotion I normally love so much makes me want to vomit now too.
I didn’t speak to my mother for years after she found out about me and Hudson, but when we found out Natalia was pregnant, I called. I told her we were having a baby, holding out some kind of final hope that perhaps it could be the bridge needed to mend our relationship.
I knew from the moment I walked in on her and Bodhi in bed together, we’d never again be functional. She’d never be safe for me, never again a place of comfort. From the moment I kissed Hudson, I knew I’d played a part in solidifying that reality for us, but…I hoped. Hoped that, someday, we could be better, that she may get to at least know her grandchildren. Know me, even if just on the surface.
When I called and told her about the baby, she scoffed. Said it wasn’t my child, wasn’t her grandchild, and she had no interest in meeting them.
Tears sting the back of my eyes even now, as I stare down at my sweet girl. She may not share my blood, but she has my sense of humor. My favorite color. She says she wants to play hockey—just like I did before I started medical school. She calls me Mommy and prefers my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over those of either of her other parents.
She’s mine in as many ways as she is Hudson’s and Nat’s, even if they’re different.
But my mother didn’t want to know her, and I’ve come to realize she didn’t want to know me either. Not unless I was willing to be what she wanted.
I never spoke to my mom again after that call, and I won’t call her this time around. I’ve come to terms with a life she’s not part of. I’ve learned that blood is indeed thinner than water, and that Hudson, Nat, and the babies we create together are all I’ll ever need.
We survive the remainder of the game with Stevie sleeping soundly in my arms; we opt not to meet Hudson out on the ice following their win for risk of waking her. When he looks up at our suite in search of us, I hold our daughter up to the window to show him she’s snoozing while Nat shoots him a text to meet at the car instead.
A camera pan briefly pans from Hudson’s grin-split face waving up at us to Nat, Stevie, and me in the box, and the arena goes wild. Hudson is in his fifth season now, and our relationship is adored by Seattle’s fan base—and tolerated through the rest of the hockey world, though we were quite the scandal at first. An investigation at Westgate was launched, but they found no wrongdoing. So, while Hudson’s relationship with us both was definitely considered a conflict of interest, the worst they could’ve done was fire him—and he’d already quit. Seattle wasn’t thrilled about their new coach being part of a salaciousthrouple, but an older man with a younger girlfriend is hardly news, and all he had was two of them.
The news cycle moved on quickly enough, and so did we—together.
My tuition was no longer covered, but the student loan I took out to pay for my last year of undergrad was a small price to pay for all the years of happiness Hudson, Nat, and I have experienced without fear of our relationship suddenly becoming public knowledge.
Nat and I get Stevie buckled in the back of Hudson’s Range Rover, our favorite playlist softly playing while we wait for him to finish up with his players in the locker room. When he does, I greet him briefly, kissing them both before I find my own car and promise to meet them at home.
By the time I pull into our driveway and make my way inside, Hudson has already put Stevie to sleep in her room, taking his quiet moment with her as he likes to do after late games. Nat has the shower in the master suite already running—we had it custom built to ensure there was more than enough space to accommodate the three of us, and the occasional guest too.
San Francisco’s head-coach is another longtime friend of Hudson’s and a terminal bachelor, so he says. He fits perfectly in our shower when their team visits.
To the surprise of us all, Garrett settled down a few years ago. His girlfriend, Hazel, is a fierce mother of two who swept him off his feet in an instant, and they’re Stevie’s godparents now. They live in Boston full time, but we make an effort to see them at least once a year.
I slowly strip out of my clothes, and Nat watches me the entire time, her bare breasts pebbling with desire behind the beaded water dripping down the glass. When I slip behind that glass with her, she makes quick work of dropping to her knees and showing me just how much I was missed today.
Hudson joins us not long after, watching raptly until Nat has me breaking apart on her tongue. We wash each other’s bodies languidly before falling into bed together. I return the pleasure Natalia gave me, and Hudson takes turns fucking us both. We have to be quieter now than we were years ago, for fear of waking a sleeping baby, but the lust remains fierce, the love all-consuming.
When we’ve all lost ourselves entirely, we lay collapsed in the sheets—sweat-slicked and satisfied.
