Page 11 of Our Pucking Secret (2-Hour Quickies #4)

Logan

We flew into Bellwood Regional Airport around noon. No gates, just a parking lot and the smell of hay. My parents would've sent a driver. Amanda’s dad offered to come himself. I’d said we could Uber, and she just smiled like that was the worst suggestion in the world.

The Collinses' pickup truck rattles down a gravel road, kicking up dust in the late afternoon sun. John Collins drives with one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing as he points out landmarks.

"That's where Amanda learned to ride her bike. Crashed right into old Miller's fence." He chuckles. "And over there's where she used to help me train the hunting dogs."

I lean forward from the back seat, genuinely interested. This is a world away from Manhattan penthouses and private drivers. There's something honest about it. Less plastic. Less performed.

"Daddy," Amanda groans from the front, "please don't tell all my embarrassing stories."

"That's exactly what daddies are for, sugar. "

The house that appears around the bend is modest but well-loved—wraparound porch, flower beds bursting with color, a couple of dogs racing to greet us. Elizabeth Collins appears on the porch, wiping her hands on an apron.

"Just in time!" she calls out. "The pot roast's almost done."

Dinner is nothing like the formal affairs I'm used to. We eat in the kitchen, passing dishes family-style, everyone talking and laughing at once. Elizabeth keeps piling more food on my plate, insisting I'm "too skinny for a hockey player."

After dessert, as Elizabeth starts stacking dishes and Amanda’s laughing at something her mom said, John claps my shoulder. "Come on, son. Let’s walk off some of that pot roast while the women pretend we’re useless in the kitchen."

“Hey,” I say, following him out the screen door, “for the record, I make a mean scrambled egg.”

“Sure, you do. And you’re ‘too skinny for a hockey player,’ remember?” He winks. “That woman’s never watched a hockey game in her life. Probably thinks you all look like linebackers.”

In the backyard, he picks up a baseball and mitt. "You play?"

"Hockey's more my thing," I say, but catch the ball easily when he tosses it.

What happens next feels like muscle memory. The way he sets his feet, the slight nod before throwing—it's like watching myself. When I release the ball, his eyebrows rise. "That's my exact release," he says quietly. "Took me years to perfect that spin."

We throw in comfortable silence for a while, and I find myself matching his rhythm without thinking. Left hand to left hand, the same instinctive movements.

"You know," he says finally, "I almost went pro. Got scouted and everything. But then Elizabeth got pregnant with Amanda, and well..." He shrugs, but there's no regret in his voice. "Some things matter more than baseball."

I look at this man—this version of what I might have been in another life—and something clicks into place.

John and I walk back inside just as Elizabeth bursts out laughing, a photo album open on her lap and Amanda mock-horrified beside her. The sound hits me in the chest—warm, real, nothing like my mom’s measured chuckles.

"Logan, honey, come see this photo of her first rescue," Elizabeth says, pointing to a photo. "Found this mangy mutt behind the grocery store and wouldn't leave until we took him home."

"Mom," Amanda protests, but she's smiling.

"Stubborn as a mule, this one." John settles into his recliner, baseball mitt still in hand. "Gets that from her mama."

I watch them, these people who could have been my parents, who wear their love so openly it almost hurts to see. No careful small talk about European vacations. No polite distance. Just... family.

"Anyone want ice cream?" Elizabeth asks. "Logan, honey, there's chocolate and strawberry, but fair warning—I can never tell them apart in this light."

“Story of my life,” I say without thinking. “Red and green might as well be the same color to me.”

John laughs like he gets it.

Amanda catches my eye across the room. Her smile dips for half a second—barely noticeable, but there. Like she just filed something away I didn’t even realize I gave her .

Unlike at my parents’, where every revelation felt like walking on glass, here it feels... right. Like coming home to a place I never knew I missed.

"Come help me scoop," Elizabeth tells me, leading the way to the kitchen. "Tell me more about your family while we're at it."

And suddenly I want to tell her everything. About growing up in houses too big to feel warm. About learning hockey because it was expected, not because anyone played catch with me in the backyard. About how sitting here in this kitchen feels more like family than any charity gala ever did.

But I can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

So I just help her serve ice cream, letting her motherly fussing wash over me, pretending my heart isn't cracking open with every "honey" and "son" that falls from their lips. Because these people—these warm, wonderful people—they're mine.

Even if they don’t know it.