There it was. Earnest, not pushy, and infuriatingly hard to resist.
“I’ll text you the date.”
He let out a slow breath, like he’d been holding it since I’d opened the door.
“Thank you,” he said, and then, just before he turned to go, he leaned in—hesitating, checking my expression—and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my forehead. “I don’t know if I said it before,but I’m really excited about this. I, uh, would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about you having my baby once or twice.”
Thatstunned me into stillness.
He didn’t linger. Didn’t ask for more. Just gave me one last look—one full of longing and gratitude—and walked back toward the elevator. I must’ve stood there for a full minute, forehead tingling, heart confused, stomach doing Olympic-level flips.
He slowed a step, glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, and kitten?”
“Hm?” I choked out.
“I love the pajamas.”
His eyes flicked to the cartoon cats in witch hats covering my pants.Kittens.The corner of his mouth curved up before he turned away again, leaving me with an open mouth, racing pulse, and the unsettling feeling that maybe—just maybe—trusting him wouldn’t be as impossible as I had thought.
Brooks
Nongame days were supposed to be quiet, dull, reserved for reviewing scouting reports, analyzing game footage, and catching up on my endless stream of emails. And yet here I was, on my hands and knees, crawling around my office, desperately searching for Mr. Chomp, my daughter’s favorite toy.
When we’d stepped off the plane from Chicago two nights ago, the first thing waiting for me hadn’t been a good night’s sleep, but rather a voicemail from my ex-wife.
Carolina’s stuffed dinosaur was missing.
I had barely made it to the team bus before being informed—in long, grueling detail—that bedtime had been a disaster. I was on strict directives to“locate the blue, one-eyed menace before Friday.”
Because for a six-year-old, losing a stuffed dinosaur wasn’t just an inconvenience. It was an existential crisis. Mr. Chomp had been with our family since Allie’s baby shower. He had survived juice spills, airplane turbulence, and one unfortunaterun through the dryer that had left him looking like he had been to war and seen some shit.
Which meant if I didn’t find him, I wasn’t just letting my kid down. I was breaking an unspoken father-daughter pact.
“I gotta give it to you, man. This pregnancy stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.”
I looked up from beneath my desk, narrowly avoiding knocking my head against the heavy wood. Brock Heller was parked in a chair across from me, legs crossed as he flipped through one of the pregnancy books I had picked up this week like it was theGuinness Book of World Records.
“Did you know some pregnant people can develop a weird craving to chew ice, clay, or even laundry starch?” he read, eyebrows climbing. “It’s called pica.”
“Sounds like a choking hazard,” I muttered, running a hand along the back edge of the credenza. “In the event that Dani starts eating laundry starch, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
After a trip to the emergency room.
Brock smirked, flipping to another page. “Oh, here’s another one. How many weeks is she?”
I did some quick mental math. “About nineteen.”
“Your baby has fingerprints by the end of the first trimester.”
“Huh,” I said, crouching to check under a filing cabinet. “A tiny, wrinkly criminal.”
“Dude, don’t mock the fetus.”
I grunted in acknowledgment, reaching behind the cabinet, springing up with excitement when my fingers brushed something lumpy and suspiciously fuzzy. One victorious tug later and I emerged holding the battered, one-eyed dinosaur like it was a trophy.
“Mr. Chomp, reporting for duty,” I cheered.
Brock arched a brow at the frayed blue fabric. “That thing looks like it’s been through a woodchipper.”
