“Hey.” His voice is tight, stressed. “I’m sorry to call like this, but I need a favor. A big one.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Hannah’s mom fell. She’s at the hospital—broken hip, they think. Hannah had to leave, and I have a team meeting in forty minutes that I can’t miss, and my mom’s flight doesn’t land until tomorrow, and—” He stops and takes a breath. “I don’t have anyone else to call.”
I sink onto the edge of my bed, my heart hammering. “You need me to watch Maisie.”
“Just for a few hours. Three, maybe four. I know it’s a lot to ask, and if you can’t—”
“I’ll be there.”
Silence. Then, “Yeah?”
“Text me your address.”
“Tori...” He sounds like he wants to say more. Thank you, maybe. Or something bigger.
“Just send the address, Zayden. I’ll be there.”
I hang up before I can second-guess myself.
• • •
His townhouse is in a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn.
I don’t know what I expected—something sleek and modern, maybe, all glass and angles like you see in those athlete home tours online or on MTV Cribs. But this is... warm. A brick rowhouse with a blue door and window boxes that probably hold flowers in the spring.
I stand on the sidewalk for a full thirty seconds, trying to remember how to breathe.
This is his life. His real life—not the arena, the training room, or stolen moments in hallways. This is where he makes breakfast, reads bedtime stories, and exists as something other than a hockey player. Where he’s someone’s dad.
I’m about to step inside it.
The door swings open before I can knock.
Zayden’s standing there in jeans and a gray henley, looking harried, grateful, and unfairly attractive. His hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it, and there’s something on his sleeve that might be peanut butter.
“Hey.” He steps back to let me in. “Thank you. Seriously. I owe you.”
“You can repay me in tacos. The good kind, not Tito’s.”
He almost smiles. “Deal.”
The inside of the house is exactly what the outside promised. Cozy. Lived-in. There’s a toy bin in the corner of the living room overflowing with stuffed animals, a stack of picture books on the coffee table, and crayon drawings taped to the refrigerator that I can see through the kitchen doorway.
It smells like laundry detergent and something baking. Cookies, maybe.
“Hannah put cookies in before she left,” Zayden says, following my gaze. “The timer should go off in about ten minutes. Maze knows she’s only allowed two.”
“She’ll try for three?”
“She’ll try for six. Don’t fall for the face.” He grabs his jacket from a hook by the door. “She’s in her room. I told her you were coming.”
“What did you tell her about me?”
He pauses, jacket half-on. “That you’re the person who’s helping Daddy’s shoulder get better. And that you’re nice.”
“Am I nice?”
