Page 77 of Don't Puck Up
“I’m not giving you up, Locke,” Chris continued. “I don’t care what anyone has to say about it. It’s the three of us. Together.”
“Looks like I’m their boyfriend,” Locke said to Dad and laughed happily again.
Warmth infused my bones, happiness lifting me like a helium balloon floating in the breeze. I looked across at Chris, and he wore a lopsided smile, the swelling and bruising on his cheek pronounced. But his eyes were bright and filled with adoration. Yeah, boyfriend indeed.
twenty-four
Minns
The flight back to San Diego had dragged. I’d been loopy from the painkillers the doctor insisted I take. He’d said it would be six hours of agony if I didn’t. I should have gone with my gut and not taken anything. I’d had broken ribs before. Games could be brutal, and injuries happened. I’d dealt with those using icepacks and a shot or two of whiskey.
We’d laid low since getting home, and the rest had done me a world of good.
I looked at my cell phone on the coffee table and thought about the irate message Coach had left in response to my text message. He was pissed that I missed the games and ordered me into his office the moment they flew in after the San Francisco trip. I was expecting a fine for missing the games, but I’d wear it without argument. I should have been there for the team, and my injuries meant I would miss a few more weeks yet.
“When should we leave for the training rink?” Kam asked as Locke ran his fingers through my hair, gently massaging my scalp.
We were watching the press wrap-up while the journalists waited for the team reps to come into the interview room. I wasn’t driving yet, and I needed to see the team physio before I did any kind of exercise, so I was stuck being a couch potato until then. It was no hardship tonight—Locke had sat with me for the entire game, caressing me gently until I was a puddle of relaxed goo under his fingertips.
“The game’s just finished,” Locke supplied. “It’ll be late when they get back.”
“Yeah, at least a few hours.”
“Your Coach seriously wants you to meet him there tonight?” Locke asked, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, the nerves sitting like lead in my gut. I’d asked Keeley Fisher, the Seals’ PR manager, to be there too. At least if any negative press came of this clusterfuck, she’d have a heads-up.
“I can take you if you’d like,” Locke offered.
Kam’s cell phone vibrated, and she checked the message. “Oh my God,” she murmured, excitement permeating her voice. “We’re going to the hospital, not the rink.”
“Huh?” I asked, unsure I’d heard her correctly. I shifted, suddenly preoccupied by the television. Gauthier had jogged into the room, his tie crooked and the buttons on his shirt not lined up properly.
He bent over, leaning close to the microphone so everyone could hear him. “Sorry folks, we won’t be answering questions tonight. My wife is in labor, and I’m needed at home for my baby’s birth.”
I choked out a laugh and gripped my ribs. They were already healing, but it still hurt to laugh and cough as well as twist. Gauthier’s statement had shocked the reporters silent for a moment, but he’d also given them a scoop, and I watched as an excited ripple spread through those present.
“I want to be there for Carina in case Jacques doesn’t get back in time,” Kam stated. “She’s got Rusty and Travis, and Cara, too, but I need to be there.”
“Should I take Chris, and you go to the hospital?” Locke asked.
“Nah, Coach will order the bus driver to go straight to the hospital,” I said. He was a family man. There was no way he’d risk Gauthier missing his baby’s birth if he could just redirect the bus to the hospital, and not one of the guys on the team would have a problem with it, road trip or not. “We can all go to the hospital.”
Locke hesitated. “I think I should probably stay here. Tonight isn’t about me. I don’t want to take any attention away from Gauthier’s family.”
I sat up slowly and dragged his lips to mine. “As long as you stay here while we’re gone so we can come home to you.”
“I will.” He smiled and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
We went straight to the hospital and headed to the maternity waiting room. Gauthier made it back—barely—and the whole team crashed out in the waiting room while he rushed inside the delivery room.
I stood out like a sore thumb, but I somehow managed to sink into the background. Everyone was too damn exhausted after a few days on the road and back-to-back games in the thick of the season that they hadn’t been paying Kam and me much attention. I leaned against the wall, my hoodie up over my face, and tried to delay the inevitable twenty questions I knew would follow if they saw my black eye. Coach spotted us and nodded in our direction. I needed to speak with him first, and then I’d tell the boys on the team, but now wasn’t the time or the place.
Travis and Rusty walked out into the waiting room only a few minutes after Gauthier and the team arrived, and Cara rushed over to them. “How’s Mum?”
Rusty said something I couldn’t make out, and Cara squealed, then threw herself at them, hugging them tight and whispering something back.
When she let them go, Travis announced, “Jacques and Carina had a baby girl a couple of minutes ago. He made it just in time, so thank you for rushing home. Peanut is healthy and is just beautiful.”