Page 17

Chapter 17

Snot-Sucking Device

Dominic

I ’d never been the type of guy to pace. Never understood why people couldn’t just sit the fuck down when they were nervous. Yet here I was, wearing a damn groove in my hardwood floors like I was training for some Olympic pacing event.

My phone buzzed with a notification that wasn’t a text from Miles or Nora, and I nearly threw the thing across the room.

“Fuck,” I muttered, slumping onto my couch and refreshing my messages for what had to be the hundredth time in the last hour. Nothing.

How long did it take to have one meeting? They should’ve been done by now. I’d been sitting here spinning like a fucking top since Miles had texted that they were heading into Lovell’s office. That was forty-five minutes ago.

Forty-six, now.

I opened a browser on my phone, not really sure what I was looking for until my thumbs took over and typed “baby stuff” into the search bar. The screen filled with an overwhelming array of tiny clothes, safety gear, and shit I didn’t even recognize.

What the hell was a nasal aspirator? I clicked on it and immediately regretted my decision. Who the fuck designed a snot-sucking device that required parents to—nope. Hard pass.

Despite that horror show, I kept scrolling, adding a few things to my cart without overthinking it. A onesie with “Future Hockey Player” printed on it. A tiny jersey. A stuffed penguin because, well, it was cute as hell, even if I’d never admit that out loud.

My finger hovered over the order button.

Was this weird? Probably. But it felt like something I could control in this clusterfuck of a situation. I couldn’t control Nora’s career being in jeopardy. Couldn’t control the fact that Miles was now pretending to be dating the woman carrying my child.

But I could buy a stuffed penguin, damn it.

I hit the order button right as a knock came at my door. Finally. I tossed my phone aside and crossed the room in four long strides, yanking the door open.

“What took you so?—”

The words died in my throat because it wasn’t Miles and Nora standing there.

It was Carter fucking Campbell.

I stared at his perfectly tailored suit and that perpetually charming smile that made me want to introduce his face to a brick wall. And behind him was Miles looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere else on the planet.

“What the actual fuck?” I looked between them, then over their shoulders, scanning for Nora. “Where is she? What happened?”

A cold spike of dread shot through me. Why wasn’t she with them? Was she okay?

“She’s fine,” Miles said quickly, obviously reading the panic on my face. “She needed some space.”

“Space from what?” I didn’t move from the doorway, blocking their entry like my threshold was some sacred ground they couldn’t cross. “And why the hell are you here?” I directed that at Carter specifically.

Carter maintained that infuriating calm. “We should have this conversation inside. Unless you want your neighbors to hear everything?”

I reluctantly stepped aside, letting them into my apartment. The second the door closed, I rounded on Carter. “I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

Carter surveyed my living room with interest, like he was some kind of home appraiser. “Nice place.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

He turned to face me, all traces of small talk gone. “I bought into the team. As of today, I’m one of the Titans’ owners.”

My vision blurred for a second as rage surged through my system.

“You did what ?” I advanced on him, and Miles quickly stepped between us.

“Easy, Dom.”

“Easy? Are you fucking kidding me?” I tried to sidestep Miles, but he was too good at defense even off the ice. “You bought the team to what? Control her? To force her to be with you? That’s some next-level stalker shit, Campbell.”

Carter didn’t even flinch. “I bought in to protect her and to make sure she doesn’t lose her job over this situation.”

“How noble of you,” I spat. “A real fucking hero.”

“Look, I didn’t know about this whole...” He gestured between me and Miles. “Whatever this deception is that you two cooked up.”

Miles stepped forward again, positioning himself between us like a tired parent separating two bickering children. “Can we all just take a breath? We’re not getting anywhere like this.”

I ignored him, my focus tunneling until Carter’s smug face was all I could see. His carefully calculated expression of concern made my fingers twitch, and I clenched my fists. “And now what? You think buying into the team gives you the right to show up and judge what we’re doing?”

“I think it gives me the right to care.” Carter’s tone of voice was flat, like we were discussing the weather instead of my entire life imploding. “You might have bailed on her, but I didn’t.”

That was it. The match that lit the powder keg of everything I’d been suppressing, and my vision went red.

“You don’t get to throw that in my face.” My voice cracked under the pressure of what was happening. “You don’t get to pretend you’re some fucking savior because you didn’t run.” My hands were shaking, and I shoved them in my pockets before anyone could notice.

Carter’s perfect mask of composure wavered slightly, revealing something raw underneath. “Then why did you?”

Silence. That awful, heavy kind that made everything too loud.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. How could I explain what I barely understood myself?

Miles finally spoke, his voice quieter than before, gentle in a way that made me feel pathetically transparent. “Dom...”

“I ran because I was scared, okay? Because I’m a screwup. Because I already know what kind of father I’d be, and it’s not the good kind.”

I sat down in a chair and slumped forward, elbows on my knees, the admission hanging in the air like a bad smell. The silence that followed was almost worse than the angry voices.

My apartment suddenly felt too small for three grown men standing around like emotionally constipated toddlers, none of us knowing what the hell to say next.

Carter stood there, his perfect suit suddenly looking less like armor and more like a costume. His eyes darted to the window, his jaw working like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite swallow. For once, the golden boy looked completely out of his element.

Miles leaned against my kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching us both like he was trying to decode some complex play on the ice.

I needed to break the silence before it suffocated me. “I fucked up, I know that. But showing up with your wallet and buying into the team? What the hell were you thinking?”

Carter didn’t immediately respond. His shoulders dropped a fraction, the smallest surrender I’d ever seen from him. “I don’t know. I wanted to help, and that’s how I’ve always solved problems.”

“By throwing money at them?”

“Yeah.” He looked at me directly. “It’s what I know how to do.”

The honesty caught me off guard. I’d expected him to double down, to come at me with some self-righteous speech about how much better he’d be for Nora. Instead, he looked lost.

“I’ve never done this before.” Carter gestured vaguely between us. “Any of it. I don’t know how to be with someone who doesn’t want me to fix everything. I don’t know how to be a potential father figure. I don’t even know if I belong here, but I know I can’t walk away either. Well, unless Nora asks me to.”

My chest tightened with a feeling I didn’t want to examine too closely. Something uncomfortably like recognition. “I don’t plan on walking away either.”

Carter sank down onto my couch, his usual grace abandoned. “She doesn’t need both of us making everything harder.”

I snorted. “Or all three of us.” I glanced toward Miles, who’d been quietly watching this whole exchange.

Miles shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I’m the fake boyfriend caught between you two emotional disasters.” The way his eyes darted away from me told a different story, but now wasn’t the time to ask him about it.

Under any other circumstance, I might have laughed. Instead, I stared at the floor, tracing the grain of the hardwood with my eyes.

“She’s the one who matters in all this,” Carter said after a moment. “Whatever happens... it has to be what’s best for her. And the baby.”

The baby . There was a tiny human growing inside Nora. My tiny human.

“I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know how to be what she needs.”

Miles finally moved from his spot, coming to sit on the arm of the couch. “None of us do, man.”

The three of us sat there, surrounded by the wreckage of whatever the hell this situation had become. No one had a plan, no one knew what came next, and we were all caught in a mess that none of us knew how to clean up.

* * *

I wished I could say Miles, Carter, and I had a concrete plan on how to do whatever it was we were doing, but after my meltdown, I think we’d all hit our emotional limit. The conversation sort of... died. No yelling, no game plan. Just three guys sitting in silence, avoiding eye contact like it was contagious. Carter eventually left. Miles gave me a look that said get your shit together and followed. I’ve been sitting on my couch ever since, staring at my phone like it might text Nora for me until my thumbs finally flew over my screen.

Me: Are you okay?

Nora: I’m fine.

Me: Isn’t that woman-speak for not fine?

Nora: If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me if I was fine in my life, I’d be chilling on a beach somewhere.

Me: On a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is your head right now?

Nora: A solid nine. You?

Me: A six.

Nora: I don’t know if I should laugh at that like a thirteen-year-old or cry.

Me: Why would that make you cry?

Nora: I don’t know. I cried earlier when I realized there was only one brownie bite left.

Me: That’s very cry-worthy. Want some company?

The three dots appeared, disappeared, and reappeared several times, and I ran my hand down my face, wondering if I should go over there. We hadn’t really had a chance to talk alone after she told me she was pregnant a few days ago. The team had an away series, and then today was our first full day back.

Nora: Yes.

Me: Send me your address.

I let out a sigh of relief and got my ass up off the couch where I’d been parked for the last several hours watching games.

I scanned my fridge twice before accepting the sad truth that I had jack shit to take over to Nora’s place. Throwing on a baseball cap and a dark hoodie, I grabbed my wallet and phone and headed out, my mind racing with everything I probably shouldn’t say when I saw her.

The corner market was only two blocks over. I walked quickly, hands jammed in my pockets like I was trying to hide from paparazzi instead of avoiding eye contact with the occasional late-night dog walker.

The fluorescent lights inside the store made me squint as I grabbed a red basket and headed straight for the dessert aisle. Brownie bites. The woman was upset about brownie bites, so clearly that was the minimum requirement for this visit.

I stood there like a moron, staring at approximately seventeen different varieties of brownie bites. Chocolate chunk? Triple fudge? Mini? Family size? What the fuck was the difference between fudgy and chewy? Who designed this hellscape of confusing dessert options?

I decided to get several, sweeping three different packages into my basket. Ice cream seemed like a logical next step. I wandered to the freezer section, where my indecision reached new, impressive heights. Did pregnant women even want the same things as usual? Was there some secret pregnancy flavor I was supposed to know about?

My basket gradually filled with three pints of different flavors, a package of Oreos (because why the fuck not), salt and vinegar chips (a guess), sour gummy worms (a prayer), and a box of frozen mozzarella sticks (because I’d want them).

“Holy shit, are you Dominic Wilson?”

I turned to find a kid who couldn’t be more than sixteen staring at me with wide eyes, a slushie clutched in one hand.

“Uh, yeah.” I shifted my basket behind me like I was hiding contraband instead of junk food.

“Dude, you’re having the sickest season! That goal against Cleveland? Amazing!” His enthusiasm practically vibrated the frozen food doors. “Can I get your autograph?”

“Sure.” I set my basket down, suddenly very aware that it looked like I was either stocking up for the apocalypse or planning to eat my feelings into oblivion. I signed the receipt the kid thrust at me, hoping this would be quick.

No such luck.

The kid peered into my basket, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “Damn, big party or big problems?” He laughed, completely unaware of how close to home he’d hit.

I searched my brain for a believable lie. “Carb loading.”

“With three kinds of ice cream?” His eyes narrowed skeptically.

“Don’t judge me.” I snatched up my basket, desperate to end this conversation before I had to explain why a professional athlete was buying enough sugar to put an elephant into a diabetic coma.

“And brownie bites and Oreos? My mom would never let me?—”

“Great meeting you, big fan of your... enthusiasm.” I backed away, nearly tripping over a display of protein bars that would have been a much more reasonable purchase.

After adding an overpriced bouquet of flowers because, shit, was that appropriate? Too romantic? Not romantic enough? I dumped my haul on the checkout counter. The cashier, a woman old enough to be my grandmother, scanned my items painfully slowly.

“Someone is a lucky lady,” she observed, holding up the triple chocolate brownie bites with a knowing smile.

“Uh, no.” I pushed my credit card at her. “Just treating myself.”

“Mm-hmm.” She packed everything into bags with the painstaking care of someone who had all night to tease me. “You did good, kid.”

I mumbled a thank you, grabbed my bags, and practically sprinted from the store, wondering how a ten-minute shopping trip had turned into an interrogation from a fan and a granny.

The walk to Nora’s apartment building seemed much longer than it should have. Maybe because I kept rehearsing what to say, then immediately discarded every opening line as too casual, too serious, too everything. By the time I reached her building, I’d mentally written and shredded an entire screenplay of potential conversations.

Standing outside her door, I suddenly felt like a complete jackass. I’d bought enough food to feed a small army, plus flowers? Was I trying to look desperate?

Before I could overthink myself into a cardiac event, I knocked, shifting my weight from one foot to the other like some nervous teenager instead of a grown-ass professional athlete.

The door swung open, and fuck .

Nora stood there in black leggings that hugged every curve and an oversized sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. She looked soft. Touchable. Like everything I shouldn’t want but couldn’t stop thinking about.

Her eyes widened at the multiple bags dangling from my hands.

I realized I’d been standing there gaping like a fish, and I held up the bags. “You said there was only one brownie bite left. I, uh, got more. A few more. Different kinds.”

The corner of her mouth twitched upward. “I see.” She stepped back, gesturing for me to come inside.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want.” I set the bags on her kitchen counter. “So I went with the everything approach.”

“Flowers too?” She reached for the bouquet, and I watched her throat work as she swallowed. “That’s... unexpected.”

“Bad unexpected?” I was suddenly aware of how close we were standing in her narrow kitchen.

“Just unexpected.” She filled a vase with water, and I didn’t miss how she wiped at one of her cheeks. “No one’s brought me flowers in a long time.”

“Well, that’s fucked up.” The words escaped before I could filter them. “You deserve flowers.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, then pulled them out again, feeling completely out of my element. “And brownie bites. And whatever the hell else I panic-bought.”

A genuine laugh bubbled out of her, and something in my chest loosened at the sound.

“Ice cream melts. I should put it away.” I was desperate to do something other than stare at her.

She reached for the bags at the same time I did. Our hands collided, and we froze, eyes locked on each other. I swallowed hard, my eyes following the line of her throat as she took an almost imperceptible step closer.

“Dom...” Her voice was so quiet I almost missed it.

“Yeah?” My own voice came out embarrassingly rough.

“Are we going to talk about...” She gestured vaguely between us, her hand stopping halfway to rest on her stomach.

The gravity of what that simple gesture meant hit me like a blindside check. This woman was carrying my child. My child.

“I don’t know how to do this, but I’m not running again. I need you to know that.”

Her eyes widened, glistening slightly. For a horrifying moment, I thought she might cry, which would officially make me the biggest asshole on the planet because who makes a pregnant woman cry while holding three types of brownie bites?

But then her lips curved into a small smile. “Good start,” she whispered. “Now pass me that ice cream before we have soup instead.”