Page 29 of Cross Check Daddies (Miami Icemen #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Cam

I don’t think. I just move. The second the door slams behind Ace, I’m right after him, boots slamming down the steps two at a time. He’s already halfway across the lot, storming toward his car. I shout his name, but he doesn’t stop.

“Hey,” I bark louder. “Ace, stop.”

He doesn’t even look at me. I jog to catch up, grab his arm, and yank him back. “Man, what the hell are you doing?”

He turns, and that’s when I see it. His face. The sharp panic behind his eyes. Not anger. Not frustration. Only fear. Pure, deep-seated fear is written into every line of his face.

“Ace,” I say, letting go of his arm, hands open now. “You knew this was a possibility. We all did. So why are you reacting like this?”

“I can’t do this again,” he says. His voice is low, almost cracked.

“What do you mean ‘again’?”

He rubs his jaw, steps away like he’s trying to outrun his own thoughts. “This... this isn’t just about the kid, Cam. It’s about her. It’s always about her.”

“Then talk to me. Breathe. What is this really about?”

His gaze cuts back to me, and when he speaks, it’s not loud.

“It’s just like Daisy.”

I stare at him, confused. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

His eyes are glassy. “I was in love with Daisy’s mom. Before she was married. Before any of this. We were... it was real. Or I thought it was. Then my brother—my own brother—swooped in, married her, moved away, had Daisy. I wasn’t even invited to the damn wedding.”

He laughs, bitter and hollow, and kicks a piece of gravel.

“I never recovered from it. Never let myself get close like that again. And now it’s the same damn story. Different woman. Same ending.”

I open my mouth, but he keeps going. “Brooke’s not just any woman. You and I both know she’s rare. The way she carries herself, the way she loves Jackson, the way she doesn’t ask for more than you’re willing to give—but somehow still makes you want to give it.”

He wipes his face with both hands, pacing now, barely keeping it together.

“She’s weighing her options. I can see it, and I don’t blame her.

Tanner’s got youth and drive. You’re her first love.

There’s a rhythm between you two that nobody else can touch.

And me?” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it.

Just fatigue. “I’m the coach. The grown-up.

The guy with a stocked fridge and probable arthritis in my knee. ”

“Don’t do that,” I say.

“I’m being realistic,” he fires back. “Hell, even Brooke’s probably hoping one of you two is the father. She didn’t say it outright, but I could tell.”

He stops pacing, standing dead still. “I’ve done this before, Cam. I’ve let myself believe I could have something and then watched it fall apart.”

I stay quiet.

“She’s not just deciding who she wants in her bed, Cam. She’s deciding who gets to help raise her kids. And I don’t think I’m the man she sees beside her in all that.”

“I think you’re wrong,” I say quietly.

He turns toward me, frustration sharpening his voice. “She kissed me. Sure. She let me in. But you think that means she sees a future? She’s kind, Cam. She’s considerate. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone.” He exhales hard, eyes raw. “But kindness isn’t the same as commitment.”

This time, I don’t have a comeback. Because I get it. I really do.

He’s not angry. He’s scared. And it’s bleeding out in all directions.

I stare at him, every part of me burning from the tension between us. But something clicks. Something I’ve been circling for weeks but never had the guts to say out loud.

“What if she doesn’t have to choose?”

Ace freezes.

I take a breath. “What if she doesn’t have to pick one of us? What if we make it work... all of us?”

He stares at me like I’ve grown two heads.

“You’ve lost your mind,” he mutters.

“No. I’m just trying to be honest about the fact that none of us is going anywhere. We’ve all been circling her for months. We love her in our own way. She loves us back. Maybe not the same. But it’s there.”

“She has a child, Cam. And is expecting another.”

“I know that.”

“She deserves stability. A partner. Not three men dragging her in different directions.”

“Or maybe we’ve been thinking about this wrong,” I say. “Maybe what she needs isn’t about one person. Maybe it’s about being held together by something that doesn’t fit into a neat box.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I need to get out of here.”

He walks fast, rips the door open, and slides behind the wheel. I back up as the engine roars and the tires spit gravel behind him.

And then he’s gone.

I stand there for a few long beats, watching the taillights fade into the horizon.

When I turn back toward the house, Brooke’s standing on the steps. Her arms are crossed, her expression unreadable. Her hair’s a mess, her shirt wrinkled. She looks like someone who’s trying not to fall apart.

“I need to head to the office,” she says, voice flat. “There’s a code issue. Dev team called.”

“Give me a minute,” I say, walking toward her.

She steps back. “I just need a second to myself.”

“Brooke—”

“I mean it.”

Her voice cuts clean. She grabs her keys from the railing, gives me one last look, and walks down the steps to her car.

I move to follow, but Tanner’s voice stops me.

“Let her go.”

I glance at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, face calm in a way I can’t mirror right now.

“She’s not running,” he says. “She just needs to breathe.”

I turn back toward the driveway, watching her pull out and disappear down the road.

And suddenly it’s just me and my brother.

All alone with a silence full of what-ifs.

My jaw’s locked so tight it aches. The heat of everything that just happened is sitting heavy on my chest—Ace’s panic, Brooke’s silence, the way she wouldn’t even let me walk her to the car. And now she’s gone, and I’m standing here empty-handed again.

Ace might’ve just ruined the one good thing we had. The one impossible, complicated, beautiful thing that made sense even though it shouldn’t have.

I was ready. I was working on making peace with the fact that she might never choose just one of us. That maybe I wasn’t supposed to have all of her. But I could still have some of her. I could still matter. We could still build something that didn’t follow the rules.

Now I don’t know if any of us have that chance anymore.

“She’s gone,” I mutter.

Tanner’s standing behind me, quiet until now. “I know.”

I turn, angry and tight in my chest. “Ace couldn’t even keep it together for five damn minutes.”

“He’s scared,” Tanner says. “We all are.”

“Well, he gets to be scared from a distance. He’s the one who ran.”

Tanner just nods like he understands it better than I want him to. Then he exhales, rubs the back of his neck. “I left my bike at GameHatch. Think you can drive me?”

I nod, jerking my chin toward the car. “Yeah. Get in.”

The ride is quiet for the first few miles. We pass through the industrial section, old brick buildings giving way to glass and steel. I grip the steering wheel harder than I need to, trying to push the thoughts back, but they come anyway. They always do.

Prom night.

Her body under mine, skin so soft it didn’t feel real.

The first time I ever had her. The first time I ever said I love you and meant it.

I remember the way she paused. The way she looked up at me like she was searching for something she couldn’t give back.

She never said it. Not that night. Not after.

And something in me cracked from the weight of wanting someone who couldn’t meet me halfway.

But it never changed the fact that I wanted her. Always. Since that night. Since the very first time I knew what it meant to want .

I pull into the lot and kill the engine. Tanner doesn’t move to get out right away.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

I nod slowly. “About what this means?”

He leans back, arm draped along the edge of the seat, the casual posture not matching the tightness in his jaw. “We used to share women, Cam. Back in college. Even before that. Remember that weekend in Tampa? That girl with the purple hair?”

A memory flashes—sticky heat, music too loud, Tanner laughing his ass off in the hallway while I tried not to trip over my jeans.

“Yeah,” I say. “But that was different.”

He nods. “It was. That wasn’t love. That was beer and boredom.”

I stare straight ahead. “This is Brooke.”

“I know,” he says. “But maybe that’s the only thing that’s changed. I mean, look at Leo. He made it work. Maddie’s in love with all three of them. Ford and Asher figured out how to stop competing. They built something.”

“That took them months.”

“So what? Maybe this takes a while, too. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

I glance at him then, the way his hand curls into a loose fist on the console. The way he’s not even trying to hide that this is messing with his head. “You love her.”

“Yeah,” he says. No hesitation. “I do.”

I exhale. “So do I.”

He nods once. “Then maybe we stop thinking in terms of winning and losing.”

I run my hand over my jaw. “And what? Just share?”

“If she wants all of us... yeah. We show up. We talk. We figure it out like grown-ass men.”

It hangs between us. The silence. The gravity. But under all of it, there’s a sense of maybe . Of we’ve seen this work before . Of what if we can do it too .

He nods again. “What if we stopped making her choose? What if we stopped pretending we’re not all in love with the same woman?”

My throat closes up at that. Because it’s true. We’ve all been circling her like magnets—pushing and pulling and never quite detaching.

“She makes you happy,” he says. “She makes me better. I’ve never wanted anyone like this. And I know you haven’t either.”

I laugh under my breath. “You sure about that?”

“I’m not trying to compete with you.”

“That’s good,” I mutter. “You’d lose.”

He grins. “Probably.”

The air shifts between us again. Lighter this time. We sit there, both of us in our own memories, our own hopes, our own fears. But the one thing we share is her.

“I don’t want to give her up,” I say finally.

“Me neither.”

Silence again.

“What about Coach?” Tanner asks after a minute.

I sigh, tilt my head back against the headrest. “That’s a whole other mess.”

“You think he’s out?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think... he needs space. But we all do. Doesn’t mean he won’t come back.”

Tanner glances over. “Yeah. But why leave now?”

I drag my hand down my face. “Because this isn’t just about Brooke for him.

It’s about all the shit he’s carried for years.

The things he never talks about. An old relationship he lost. He’s been through hell, and now this?

It’s not just a baby. It’s another maybe.

Another chance he’s scared to believe in. ”

Tanner’s quiet, letting me say it.

“He doesn’t know how to stand in the middle of all this and not brace for something to go wrong. So yeah... I think he needs space. Not because he doesn’t care. But because he does.”

Tanner studies me. “Do you want him to come back?”

I close my eyes.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I need a minute to think.”

“Okay.”

And for once, Tanner doesn’t push. Doesn’t joke. Just lets me sit there, breathing in the heavy quiet of wanting the same woman, and being willing to lose a little bit of her if it means we don’t lose her completely.