Page 34

James

___________

Landon and Nolan’s phones are going insane. We’re on the bus heading to the stadium in LA for hopefully one of our last away games. It’s not going to happen though.

We’ll probably be traveling for another two weeks if we keep winning like we have, but my heart just isn’t in the game.

“What the fuck is going on?” I grunt and glare at them.

Nolan and Landon share a look and shrug. “Marie is having the babies today.”

I jolt, my spine straightening as I feel my entire body drain of blood. “What? Why? She still has four weeks left.”

Nolan sends me a look and shakes his head. “She’s thirty-six weeks. With twins. She was already dilating and Brenton said her waters were about to break. She’s going back for a c-section soon. Alyssa is promising to send us photos.”

I feel like my lungs deflate of all air, my heart rate speeds up. I’m sweating. I feel sick.

I haven’t spoken to Marie in… weeks. More than weeks. Months? It feels like years. Holy shit, what day is it?

I’ve been in therapy, busting my ass to become a better man for her and before I knew it…

weeks and months passed. I was just needing some distance to sort myself out.

Playing hockey and sleeping, healing, going to therapy.

I even have his number in my phone to call every chance I get when I feel like drowning or booking a flight to Germany to hide from the world.

What the fuck have I done? What if something happens?

What if I never see her again?

I stand up and hold onto my seat before shakily making my way to the coaches sitting up front. The owner’s daughter, Charlie is sitting primly in her seat in the front row, glaring out the window.

“Sirs… ma’am… I need to go back home. Marie… She’s having my babies. She’s about to go in for a c-section.”

I feel like every person in the bus turns to stare and glare at me.

“Your… babies.” Coach Williams repeats slowly, as if I’m speaking another language.

I nod and close my eyes. “I didn’t know they were mine until recently...”

They stare me down and Charlie chuckles, throwing her head back and laughing out loud so hard I’m afraid she might choke.

“Oh, this is gold. We’re in the fucking playoffs and our own team captain, our best right winger, is about to fly back to bum fuck Minnesota because he finally wants to step up and be a daddy?

” She snorts and shakes her head. “Marie is too good for you, you fucking pig.”

I stagger back and nod, leaning against the seats to my right and stare down at my feet. “I agree.”

My coaches sigh and glance around. “Xavier, you’re moving up to first line, taking James’s place.

As soon as we park, everyone is heading straight to the ice.

We will be skating, training, fucking pushing ourselves harder than you ever have before.

Apparently we have to send a prince back home to his princess.

” Coach Williams rolls his eyes and points to the seat across from him.

“Sit your ass down. I want a phone call as soon as you land. I want pictures of those babies. And I want you to man the fuck up. You’re an embarrassment to not only the entire team, but I hope that whatever good ancestors you have are rolling around in their graves.

Fucking little jackass running away from a pregnant woman to cry onto the ice across the fucking country without saying a word to us. ”

I blink at him and he flips me off.

“You’ll understand when you’re a father… oh wait. Fuck off. As soon as we park you take your ass back to the jet and have the pilot call me. I’ll get your pansy ass home.”

I nod shakily and keep my mouth shut, pulling out my phone to text Alyssa and Caroline for updates.

The photos start rolling in without question. Do they know that Marie’s babies are mine?

The girls are on either side of a glaring Marie, she’s flipping off the camera in several of the photos, but so far she looks great. Rosy cheeked, swollen, and pregnant. Still pregnant.

Beautiful.

As soon as we park, I jump off the bus and dig through the compartments for my bags. The taxi is already waiting for me. At least Williams works quickly. I wave off my team, wishing them luck, and leaving the playoffs behind. Fuck. Daniel is going to fucking kill me.

I’m a mess of nerves, my entire body is strung so tight I feel like I’m going to snap.

I tap into the WIFI once I’m in the air and I feel my eyes tearing up the first time in what feels like decades.

Alyssa is in the operating room with Marie, two tiny babies on her naked chest.

They’re here. And I’m a coward, not there.

I race to the bathroom, dropping to my knees and expelling everything I’ve eaten today. I feel sick, and not just from my stomach and stress, but deep into my bones, my cells, my everything.

What have I done?

I’m sick with myself. I haven’t spoken or even looked at Marie since the day she told me the truth.

That smart, gorgeous, kind woman told me the truth.

She was terrified, and she still did it.

My therapist has been busting his ass with me, several hours a week, helping me through my childhood traumas, on how to be a better man, a good father.

She could have hidden it for the rest of her life. I would have stuck around, played happy Uncle with continuing to fuck her to kingdom come. Preferably for the rest of my life, if she was going to have me.

I had a taste and there was no way I was going to stop, I’m still not going to stop. It was like everything clicked into place after I touched her, tasted her.

She became mine.

I was going to beg her for me to move into her bedroom, letting me love her and cherish her. Making her mine, but not as a parent.

But now I don’t have a choice.

I do, I guess? But I don’t want the choice. I want to be a father. I want to be their father.

I want Marie to be my wife. I want Marie to adopt the girls and have our names on their birth certificates. I want nothing to do with our old lives, aside from the good memories, no matter how miniscule they were in the grand scheme of the bullshit surrounding our old lives.

I stare at the photos as they pour in until I finally touch down a few hours later.

I’m shaking, trembling as the taxi takes me to the hospital.

I walk on autopilot through the halls, reading the signs as I head towards the maternity ward.

I step up to the front desk, clearing my throat as I stare down at the nurses around the station, all busy and tapping on their keyboards.

“Are you here to check in as a visitor?”

I nod and lick my dry lips. “Yeah… For Marie Edwards.”

I hand over my ID and fill out a sticker with my name on it, signing a form that I haven’t had a fever in the last twenty-four hours. “Room three-oh-eight down the hall.” She smiles at me and I feel her burning gaze in my back.

I can’t even tell you what the woman looked like… Marie is the only woman on the forefront of my mind right now.

Her door is open and I find the room filled with Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Brenton is holding a baby in his arms, sitting in a chair right beside Marie’s bed. Alyssa and Caroline are snuggled up on a couch in the corner of the room, sleeping with their phones still in their hands.

Bianca is in the bed with Marie, rocking the second baby in her arms as Marie sleeps.

Her brown hair is in a messy bun on her head, she’s still in a hospital gown, it’s completely open in the front and she has a towel over her chest. She has several blankets covering her feet up to her stomach. She’s hooked up to an IV with a few different fluids pumping into her.

She’s pale, but still as angelic as she’s always been.

My angel. If she’ll have me. If she can forgive me.

I step further into the room and collapse down on a lone chair beside Bianca.

I stare down at the baby in her arms, itching to hold him or her.

Has she chosen names? I place my head in my hands and rock back and forth…

remembering at the last moment to send photos to my coaches.

I’m sure that Landon and Nolan already have more than enough.

Me: I made it to the hospital. Marie is sleeping, unsure of names.

I send them the photos that the girls sent to me while I was on the jet and sit and wait.

Bianca winks at me and holds out her arms, the tiny baby in a pink hat begins to stir. “Just rock her… Marie will wake up to feed them again in a few. They’ve been nursing every hour on the hour.”

I nod and take her into my arms, cradling her head and neck on one of my hands. I bring her to my nose and breathe her in.

God. I fucked up. I will never abandon them again. I let the tears fall from my face, splashing down my chin.

My daughter. I feel like absolute shit. I can only make it up to all of them from this day on.

Marie blinks her eyes open and jolts when she sees me sitting beside the bed holding our daughter.

She rubs her palms into her eyes and glances around the room, finding Brenton still rocking our son in his arms. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here for, but the babies are still delightfully asleep.

“What are you doing here?” She whispers and I see the tears filling her deep brown eyes. My heart breaks and I lick my dry lips.

“I’m here… I’m here, Marie. I’m so fucking sorry.”

She sniffs and holds out her arms for our daughter and presses her against her chest, snuggling the baby under her chin. She frowns and blinks at me, probably still making sure I’m real. “Don’t you have a game?”

I nod and blow out a deep breath. “I needed to be here.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “You can spend the day and night with us, but you need to get back out on the ice, James. You win that cup, bring that shit home, then figure out what you want to do from there. I don’t want you to be here just because you feel like you have an obligation to be. ”

I sigh and glance down at my lap. “I’m stepping up.

I’ve thought about it for weeks, I even worked with a therapist. I swear.

I fucking swear that time just got away from me.

I don’t know why I had it in my mind that I had enough time to deal with hockey, with playoffs…

to winning and coming back to you. When Landon and Nolan told me that you were in the hospital I hopped on a jet back home.

I want to be here. I want to be a dad, at your side. I want us to be a family.”

She glances away and tightens her lips, pursing them to the side. “I can’t take it if you walk away again. It broke me. I can do this all on my own.”

I shake my head and glance around the room, nodding a thanks when Mr. Evans slowly gathers everyone out and offers my son to me before they all step out and close the door.

The click of the latch forces me to snap my gaze to Marie’s eyes.

Bianca finally hops off the bed to give us some privacy, following the group out the door.

“I’m here 100%, Marie. Always and forever, just like our friendship and everything else we’ve been through.

I think I knew I always loved you, I guess…

I just had no idea how much. Every time someone mentioned kids, you always popped up in my mind.

If I ever did decide in the future, on my own, it would have always been you.

I’ll beg and plead, on my hands and knees for you to give me, us, a shot.

I want to watch these kids grow, knowing they have both parents under the same roof.

I want a ring on our fingers. I want you forever. ”

She stares down at our daughter and her gaze softens. “Are you sure?”

I nod and kiss my son’s head, breathing him in.

“I swear. On everything I am. I was just so fucking scared… I felt everything. I wasn’t abandoning you, I just had so much shit to go through.

Patterson set me up with a therapist and I poured everything, everything out, heart and soul over these past several weeks.

I was terrified of turning into our parents.

Abandoning my children, drinking and doing drugs, making their lives a living hell. Neglecting them.

“I still have a way to go… probably another lifetime of therapy until I’m ‘normal’ but I made my decision from the moment it fell from your lips that these babies are mine.

I just didn’t want to drag you into hell with me while I sorted out my addled mind.

I was so angry with myself that I put you in this situation and how alone you must have felt. Never at or with you. Never.”

She rolls her eyes and glares at me. “I’ve been in hell with you since the day I was born, James. We grew up as neighbors, our parents were one and the same. Don’t give me that shit, we’ve always walked hell together.”

I nod. “But you moved past it, Marie. You’re so fucking strong.

I threw myself into hockey, traveled, partied, and drank.

I did everything I could to erase my mind, hardening myself so much that nothing outside of you or the girls could touch me.

Look at you… You always put everyone ahead of yourself.

You’re surrounded by people that adore you, cherish you just for being you.

My team loves you more than they ever would me.

They all showed up to the gender reveal party without ever slipping a hint my way.

Everyone chooses you, for good reason. Hell, even my sisters chose you all those months ago.

And now? I choose you, too. I choose our children. Us. Please.”

She shakily nods and shushes our daughter when she wakes up and begins to cry out.

“They’re little demons already, needing to nurse every hour…

The nurses say it’ll get better when my milk comes in.

” She pulls up the towel and sets the baby on her breast, nodding to our son so that I can hand him off.

I look down and my brows jump when I notice his dark blue gaze blinking straight at me.

Well, more like my chin.

“He’s so quiet.”

She snorts and I lean down, setting him on her free breast so that they can both feed. “You should have heard him when he was born. Screamed the whole place down. He was obviously comfy in there.”

I smirk and settle back in my chair, staring at my children eating. Damn her breasts are massive.

“They’re going to get bigger.” I furrow my brows as I move my gaze to Marie’s eyes. “My boobs. They’re going to be even more massive once my milk comes in.”

I hum and bite my lip. “Even better.”

She rolls her eyes and nods for me to get closer. “Come sit with me, let’s name these babies. Then we can talk more about these feelings you say you have.”