Page 18

Chapter 18

Tank of Strollers

Nora

I plucked at a loose thread on my pants while the air fryer hummed in the background, the smell of heating mozzarella sticks filling my apartment. Mozzarella sticks he’d somehow known to bring, like he had access to some pregnancy cravings radar I wasn’t aware existed.

Dominic stood at the kitchen island, transferring brownies from their plastic containers onto a plate that was much too small for the mountain he was creating. His tall frame looked comically out of place in my kitchen, like watching Godzilla try to maneuver through a dollhouse.

“You know we don’t have to eat everything tonight,” I called from my nest on the couch. While he’d been arranging food, I’d changed into my comfiest pajama pants covered in clouds. Not exactly seduction attire, but I was way past trying to be sexy for anyone.

Not that I was trying to be sexy for Dominic.

Dominic glanced over his shoulder. “Challenge accepted.”

The air fryer buzzer went off, and he pulled out the mozzarella sticks with the expertise of a man who’d heated many frozen appetizers in his lifetime. He carried the plates to the coffee table and set them down with the flourish of a five-star chef. “Your feast, madam.”

“You’re ridiculous.” My words came out softer than intended, more like a caress than the exasperated eye roll I’d meant them to be. I blamed the pregnancy hormones. Had to be the hormones because the alternative was admitting that watching Dominic fuss over my comfort sparked feelings.

“I’m thorough.” He settled onto the couch, leaving a foot between us. Not so close as to be in my space and not so far as to be awkward. The sweet spot of couch proximity.

I reached for a brownie, trying not to notice how he watched me. “So...” I bit into chocolate heaven. “This is weird, right?”

“Definitely weird.” He grabbed a mozzarella stick, stretching it until the cheese created an impressive gooey bridge. “Top five weirdest weeks of my life, and that’s saying something considering one time I opened my gear bag and found a live chicken dressed in a tutu.”

I nearly choked. “That’s a story you can’t just drop and walk away from.”

His lips twitched into a half-smile. “I’ll tell you someday.”

Someday. The word hung between us like a promise neither of us was qualified to make. We were about to spend at least the next eighteen years—and let’s be honest, probably more—co-parenting a human being. It was difficult to even imagine how my life was about to change.

I tucked my feet under me, accidentally brushing his thigh with my knee in the process. He didn’t move away, and neither did I. “You’re handling this better than I expected… well, right now you are.”

He popped an entire brownie into his mouth, looking thoughtful as he chewed and swallowed. “I’m still processing. My brain keeps cycling between holy shit, I’m going to be someone’s father, and I should probably learn how to change a diaper.”

The mental picture of this giant of a man getting sprayed while fumbling with a diaper had me fighting back a laugh. “Do you even know how many diapers a baby goes through in a week?” I could already imagine the look of horror that would cross his face when he discovered the answer was somewhere between way too many and how does something so tiny produce so much?

His face scrunched in concentration, and I tried not to find it adorable. I failed miserably. Watching Mr. Tough Guy puzzle through basic baby facts hit me right in my weak spots. I failed miserably at keeping my composure, biting my lower lip to hold back the grin threatening to take over my face.

“Twenty?” He sounded so proud of his guess that I almost felt bad for what I was about to tell him.

I snorted, unable to contain my amusement. “Try sixty to eighty, rookie.”

The look of pure satisfaction on his face melted into something between disbelief and dawning comprehension. I savored the moment, mentally adding it to my collection of what I would call Daddy’s Greatest Hits of Reality Checks.

Scratch that. I did not need to start calling him Daddy.

“Per week? That can’t be right.” His fingers twitched like he was counting it out. “That’s like... ten a day on average.”

“Someone’s been practicing their division.” I picked up another brownie, letting the chocolate melt on my tongue while watching the way his expression cycled through denial, bargaining, and finally acceptance. It was better than any premium streaming content.

“Fuck off.” He playfully shoved my shoulder, but his hand lingered there a second longer than necessary, warm through the fabric of my sweatshirt.

I reached for my glass of water to hide whatever my face was doing. “What’s your stroller philosophy? Designer or practical?”

“Is this a test?” His eyebrows drew together. “Because I didn’t study.”

“Just curious about your parental instincts.”

“I...” He paused, looking genuinely thoughtful. “Practical, I guess? But safe. Really safe. Like, whatever the tank of strollers is.”

“The tank of strollers,” I repeated, fighting a smile.

“You know what I mean. The one that could survive if someone accidentally drove over it. Our child would be fine, but the car would be totaled.”

I watched his eyes widen slightly, my stomach twisting at him saying our child. I reached for the Oreos, needing something to do with my hands. Dominic passed me the package, our fingers brushing. The small contact shouldn’t have sent electricity through my arm, but my body was apparently a traitor to common sense lately.

“What about you? Designer or practical?”

“Practical, but it needs a cup holder.” I twisted an Oreo apart, focusing on scraping off the cream with my teeth. “For my coffee.”

“Can you have coffee while pregnant?”

I froze mid-scrape. “First off, I wouldn’t use the stroller while pregnant, and secondly, if you take away my one allowed cup of coffee per day, I will end you, Wilson.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “I know nothing about pregnancy. Less than nothing. I have negative knowledge.”

“Join the club.” I slumped back against the cushions. “I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to avoid getting pregnant, and now...” I gestured at my stomach.

Dominic’s eyes followed the movement, and he cleared his throat. “Yeah, wild how that works.”

We fell into silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, which was somehow more unsettling than if it had been. We shouldn’t be comfortable together. At least not yet. Just when I was about to turn on my TV, he turned toward me.

“What sort of parent do you think you’ll be?” He asked the question casually, like he was asking about the weather, not cracking open my chest to expose all my insecurities.

My automatic response bubbled up, some witty deflection about how I’d either be amazing or they’d need extensive therapy when they were older. Instead of saying that, though, I fidgeted with the hem of my sweatshirt, suddenly very interested in the rough texture.

“I honestly don’t know, but I hope I’m half the mom my mom was.” The raw honesty in my voice surprised even me.

“Tell me about her.” His voice held genuine curiosity rather than pity, which was the only reason I didn’t immediately change the subject.

“My mom was...” I fumbled for words that would adequately describe her. “She was everything you’d want in a mom, you know? She’d show up to every competition with these ridiculous, over-the-top signs that she and my sister would make. It was so mortifying when I was thirteen, but secretly the best thing ever.

“And she was so supportive of my dad but also kept his head on straight.” I smiled, memories of their playful bickering washing over me. “She’d call him out whenever he got too intense about the season, but then she’d be right there next to him at nearly every home game. She balanced out his seriousness.” I absently traced the pattern on my pajamas, remembering how she’d dance with him in the kitchen while making breakfast, pancake batter forgotten on the counter.

“She sounds amazing.” He put his hand over mine, and I didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry you lost her.”

I nodded, emotion clogging my throat. Everyone knew about my mom’s tragic death. We had been coming back from a regional competition, and a semi-truck had veered into our lane. I don’t remember anything else because I woke up in the hospital with my dad at my side, looking like a man who had his soul ripped from his body.

“What about your mom?” I was genuinely curious about the woman who’d had three children with his father.

He sighed heavily. “Well, as you can imagine, life with my father was tough… she divorced him as soon as my sister went to college. She lives in Spain now and is on what she calls her healing journey, which involves sending a single email on Christmas every year with a photo of a sunrise and signs it ‘With love and light.’” His voice cracked slightly on the last word. “She left, and it was like… we stopped existing.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. There wasn’t a pep talk or apology in the world that could fill the space a parent had the ability to stay in but didn’t. So, instead, I turned my hand over and threaded our fingers together. Not in a romantic kind of way, but in a comforting way.

His fingers tightened around mine, and I wondered if he’d ever talked to anyone about this before. Hockey players weren’t exactly known for their emotional vulnerability, and Dominic doubly so.

“You deserve better than sunrise emails.” I immediately cringed at how utterly useless that sentiment was.

“Yeah, well, I deserve a better father too, but we don’t always get what we deserve.”

My eyebrows shot up. “That’s surprisingly self-aware.”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I occasionally have thoughts that aren’t about hockey or food.” He released my hand to grab another mozzarella stick, but the absence of his touch left an unexpected emptiness.

“Why do you still talk to him if he’s so awful?” The question tumbled out before I could stop it.

Dominic froze mid-bite, cheese stretching in a sad, droopy string. The question hung between us like a live grenade with the pin pulled.

He stared at the mozzarella stick as if it might contain the answer. “It’s complicated.” He set the half-eaten stick down, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “He’s still my father.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“What do you want me to say?” His voice wasn’t angry, just tired. “That I keep hoping one day he’ll wake up and be proud of me? That some pathetic part of me is still a kid desperate for his approval?” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it in a way that made him look even more vulnerable. “I’m terrified I’ll turn into him.”

This massive man with his perfect jawline and NHL contract was sitting on my couch, terrified of becoming like his father.

“You won’t,” I said with more certainty than I had any right to feel.

His eyes met mine. “You can’t know that.”

“Actually, I can. You bought three different kinds of brownie bites because I was sad about running out. Your dad would never.”

His lips quirked up in the ghost of a smile.

“The fact that you’re worried about it at all means you’re nothing like him.” I nudged his knee with mine. “You get to choose what kind of father you’ll be. What kind of family we’ll make.”

Family. The word settled between us, heavy with meaning. We weren’t a family yet, not in the traditional sense, but in a few months, we would be connected in the most permanent way possible.

Dominic looked like he wanted to say something else, emotions warring across his face, but instead, he reached for the remote. “Mind if we watch something? My brain needs a break from the seventeen different feelings going on right now.”

I nestled deeper into the couch cushions as he flicked through streaming options before settling on a mindless action movie with explosions and improbable physics.

The first twenty minutes of the movie passed in comfortable silence. I was acutely aware of how Dominic’s body heat radiated toward me across those careful twelve inches of cushion. Then, without warning, he reached behind him and pulled the throw blanket from the back of the couch. “Cold?”

I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway. “Thanks.”

He draped it over both of us, his arm coming to rest along the back of the couch. On screen, a car flew in slow motion. Dominic’s arm slid from the back of the couch to my shoulders, and he tugged me gently against his side. A move so smooth it had to be practiced.

I should’ve tensed up. Should’ve maintained some distance. Instead, I melted against him, my head finding the perfect nook between his shoulder and chest.

“This okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” I was too comfortable to form actual words, the weight of the day finally catching up to me.

Dominic’s thumb traced small circles on my shoulder, and the steady rhythm of his breathing lulled me deeper into relaxation. My eyelids grew heavy as the movie’s plot became increasingly irrelevant.

The last thing I remembered before drifting off was the gentle press of what might have been lips against the top of my head and the quiet murmur of words I didn’t quite catch.