Page 144 of Daddies on Ice

She smiles then, the first real smile I’ve seen from her since I walked in, and it’s like the sun coming out after a storm.

“I was so worried you’d changed your mind about us,” she admits, snuggling closer.

“Never. You’re stuck with me now, beautiful.”

We sit in comfortable silence for a while, just holding each other. Then Tish’s expression grows serious.

“Jake, I’ve got some great news! Mica’s back in prison!”

It’s like someone put a pin in me and the last bit of tension and concern flows out of me. Everything is starting to come together.

“Have you heard from Ash?” I ask after a while, though I’m pretty sure I know the answer from the way her face falls.

She shakes her head sadly. “Not since that night. I think…I think this might be too much for him. The pregnancy, the sharing arrangement. His religious upbringing.”

My jaw clenches. Ash is my teammate, my friend, but if he hurts Tish by walking away now, we’re going to have words.

“Give him time,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe it myself. “He’ll come around.”

But as I hold Tish close, feeling the slight changes in her body that hint at the life growing inside her, I can’t shake the feeling that our perfect foursome might be about to become a threesome.

54

ASH

The ice beneath my skates feels like the only solid thing in my world right now.

Everything else—my thoughts, my emotions, my entire damn life—feels like it’s spinning out of control.

I slam another player into the boards harder than necessary, earning a warning look from the ref, but I don’t care.

The physical contact is the only thing keeping me sane.

Tish is pregnant.

The words keep echoing in my head like a broken record. She’s carrying a baby.

Maybe mine, maybe Jake’s, maybe Carl’s, and she refuses to find out whose.

She also refuses to choose between us, which was fine when it was just about her happiness, but now?

Now there’s an innocent child involved who deserves to know their father.

My moral compass, already spinning wildly since I fell for my best friend’s sister, is completely shattered.

Everything I was raised to believe about right and wrong feels meaningless when it comes to her.

The woman who’s turned my world upside down with her dark blue eyes and stubborn streak that rivals my own.

After another particularly brutal game where I earned two penalties for unnecessary roughness, I know I need space. Distance. Time to think without Jake’s easy grin or Carl’s knowing looks, without Tish’s presence making my chest tight with want and confusion.

I drive for hours, finally stopping at a small hotel two towns over.

The room is generic and sterile, exactly what I need. No reminders of hockey, of the guys, of her. Just me and the mess inside my head.

For three days, I pace the small room like a caged animal. I order room service, ignore calls from the team, and try to make sense of everything.

The pregnancy changes everything, doesn’t it? A child should be raised by their parents, not in some unconventional arrangement that goes against everything I was taught growing up.