“And you love hockey,” she said.
“I loveyou,” I said earnestly, eyes filling with tears.
“I know you do, Leo. But I won’t let you throw away your dream for me. Which is why we are where we are,” she said sadly, resting her head against my chest.
I kissed the top of her head and took a deep breath. If she was pregnant, it would change everything.Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
When her family had been in town for graduation week, I’d noticed them all watching us curiously, like they wanted to say something but didn’t want to interfere. I saw how they looked at Sophia and her happiness around me and my family, and there was something about the sadness in their eyes that made me think they knew she loved it here almost as much as she loved it in Oahu with them. It was like they knewwe were making a mistake, but they didn’t want to tell her how to live her life.
My family had no such qualms about telling me I was making a huge mistake. Aunt Sloane had been the loudest of them, but they’d all made it clear that they thought I should ask Sophia to stay in Boston with me. I hadn’t had the heart to tell them that I’d follow her to Oahu before I’d break my promise to let her go home where she wanted to be.
“I’m going to go buy a test,” I said, “There’s no point in figuring out how we’ll handle it until we know if there is something to handle.”
She sniffled and I cupped her face, forcing her to look at me. “I love you, Hawaii. No matter what, you and this hypothetical baby are adding to my life, not taking away from it.”
I could see the protest in her eyes as she opened her mouth to object.
“No,” I said. “Just wait here and I’ll be back in an hour with a test and an iced latte. Okay?”
She nodded and lay back down on the pillow as I slipped out of bed and pulled on a shirt that’d been laying on the floor. I gave her one last kiss, my heart surging with hope before I walked out the door to get the answers we needed.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sophia
The pregnancy test satbetween us on the counter while the timer on my phone ticked down from five minutes. I felt a crushing sadness at the realization that my mother had been in the same position when she was my age. Only, she’d been alone, absolutely alone, when she’d taken test after test to confirm she was pregnant with me.
A sob escaped before I even realized I was crying, and Leo wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug. “I don’t want to do this alone,” I said between sobs.
“Oh, baby,” Leo said, squeezing me tighter. “I’ll never let you be alone.”
“Even if I stay here, you’ll be traveling all the time and I won’t have my family,” I said.
“My family is here, Hawaii,” he said, pulling back to wipe my tears with his thumbs. “They’d be here with you every second if that’s whatyou wanted. But if you want to be with your family, I’ll go to Oahu with you, Soph. Hockey isn’t my only option. I got a degree for a reason.”
“But hockey is your life,” I said, staring into his blue-gray eyes.
“I still don’t think you understand how much I love you,” he said, shaking his head sadly and placing a hand on my stomach. “If you’re growing my baby in here, then the two of you are my life. You’ll always come first.”
“You can’t give up hockey for me,” I said again, bringing us back to the same impasse we’d started with. “I’d be happy here.”
“I’m not going to be the thing that takes you from your family. Not when you need them most,” he said.
“You’ve been working toward this dream since you were a little boy, Leo. I won’t let me or our baby be the reason you don’t get that. You deserve to live your dream. You deserve everything.”
He hung his head and his voice cracked. “I’m not getting everything if I don’t have you.”
The chime of the timer startled me out of the moment, and I turned to look at the test on the counter. Disappointment and sorrow washed over me and I collapsed against Leo’s chest, dissolving into a puddle of tears again as he held me tight to his chest, crying nearly as hard as I was.
I’d never expected to be so disappointed at the wordsnot pregnant.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sophia
Leo held my handas we walked through the airport, stopping before security. This was as far as he could go without a ticket. This was it. In front of all of Logan International Airport, what was left of my heart was going to be ripped out right here. We’d avoided talking about this moment for months, but that hadn’t stopped me from thinking about it, and I’d decided the best thing I could do was be strong. Leo had made so many comments about giving up hockey for me over the last few months that if he saw how much it was killing me to leave him, he might just try to do it.
I was pretty sure I could move to Boston, leave my family behind in Oahu, and figure out how to make a life with Leo work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite reconcile the parts of his NHL schedule that would leave me alone in Boston. I’d miss my family when I was with him, so how bad would it hurt when he wasn’t here? Even with his family around I’dbe homesick and he’d feel guilty, and I was pretty sure his guilt and my sadness would ruin everything. It wasn’t the future I wanted for us.
