Page 36 of Sexting the Coach (Pucking Daddies #6)

Elsie

“Ican’t believe you’re coming.”

“Well, Dad would kill me if I skipped.”

“Would that really be the worst thing?”

“My counselor says suicidal ideation isn’t productive.”

“It’s not suicidal,” Drew says, smirking at me from the back of the Uber. “It’s murderous ideation.”

I roll my eyes at him, shifting in my dress and glancing down at my stomach for the hundredth time. I keep expecting it to be bigger than it is, for my secret to be so obvious. Like my own little tell-tale heart, right in my belly.

“Relax,” Drew says, “Mom always said she didn’t show until right up at the end.”

“Yeah, but I’m half-Dad,” I say, knowing as we turn the street that we’re getting closer to our destination. “And he seems like the kind of guy to have a huge belly.”

Drew is the only person, other than Mabel and Hattie—who are still pissed at me for leaving—who knows about the baby.

For the past five days, we hunkered down in our childhood home, playing Mario Kart and talking about our lives.

Mom and Dad saw us both arrive on the cameras, and were surprisingly chill with us hanging out for the week before the ceremony.

Me wanting to work with kids. Drew’s art, and the fact that his career has been so much more successful than he ever would have imagined.

When Mom did text me, asking what I was doing at home, I told her that they hadn’t selected me to go on with the program in San Francisco, and that it was okay with me.

She was surprisingly quiet with her disappointment.

The car comes to a stop, and Drew, properly raised by my parents, circles around the car and opens the door for me, reaching out a hand and helping me to my feet. The wind whips around us, just as cold—if not colder—than back in Denver.

We’re in Canada for our father’s induction to the NHL Hall of Fame. People mill around us, lots of them seeming like the cold doesn’t bother them in the slightest.

Occupational hazard of spending half your life on top of a block of ice.

“You good?” Drew asks, tapping the back of my elbow as we walk up to the door. I suck in a deep breath of the frigid air and nod at him. Yes, I’m good.

As good as I can be right now, in this in-between place. Realizing that all this time, I thought my brother was furious with me, though that wasn’t true. Avoiding the issue to the point of completely misconstruing it myself, and living inside that false reality.

Weston was right all along.

That all I needed to do was talk to Drew. Trust him to tell me the truth and take it from there. Now, I can’t stop thinking about how that advice worked out.

And how it might be what I need to do with Weston himself.

“Elsie!”

It’s the sound of my father’s voice booming through the large antechamber—somehow louder and more boisterous than even all the other hockey players in this room—that jolts me out of my thoughts.

There they are, my parents. My dad, with his gleaming bald head, his thick arm looped through my mother’s. She’s radiant, as always, in a blush pink dress that hugs her body perfectly. Her gaze zeros in on me instantly.

The room itself is breath-taking, a large domed ceiling with stained glass, letting in the dim light from the moon above us and the stars twinkling through the clear night.

Candles—I hope not with real flames—twinkle throughout the room, and waiters dance between the guests, offering up chutes of champagne.

“Don’t worry,” Drew whispers, taking a glass of the stuff for himself. “We’ve got this.”

“You’re a traitor,” I whisper, from the side of my mouth. “You know I can’t have any of that.”

“I’m a tortured artist, Els, you have to allow me this.”

Our conversation is cut short when we get close enough to our parents that I catch them sharing a look, their eyes darting between Drew and me. It’s obviously weird to see us as a united front, and I think about everything Drew told me over the five days we spent together at home.

How our parents don’t take his art seriously, keep dropping hints that they want him to get a “real” career, despite the fact that he’s doing just fine for himself and is already selling out galleries.

“Drew,” Mom says, when we get close enough, her eyes darting between the two of us, narrowing. “Elsie. You’re—together.”

“What, like it’s weird?” Drew asks, raising an eyebrow at her. Mom clears her throat, raising her eyebrows at him.

“You guys finally got past all that?” Dad asks, and to my surprise, when I look at him, he has real moisture in his eyes, glancing between Drew and me.

Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones, or maybe it’s the weight of everything that’s happened to me, but I instantly burst into body-rocking sobs.

“Oh, my God,” Dad says, putting his hands up in that fluttery way he always does the moment someone cries.

“Deep breaths,” Drew says, his hand landing on my back like a solid anchor to the earth.

“Hey,” Mom snaps at someone who walks past, “mind your own business.”

The combination of the three of them pulls me out of it just as quickly as I went in, but it’s too late.

It’s like this sudden show of emotion has broken something between us, the pretense that everything is okay.

Or maybe I’ve imagined that pretense all this time, and the others have just been waiting for a moment like this.

“Elsie,” Dad says, his deep voice thick with confusion. “What’s going on?”

“I thought you hated me.” The words come out of me so clear there’s no mistaking them. And the surprise on my father’s face quickly turns to guilt, then to shock, and back to something bordering on hurt and shame.

Without warning, he steps forward, wraps his meaty arms around me, and draws me in for a hug like I’m a little girl again.

“Elsie Montgomery,” he says to the top of my head. “You’re my girl. How could you ever think I’d hate you?”

I’m back to crying, and when I step out of his arms, I wipe the backs of my hands over my cheeks. We’re in the middle of the room, practically a show, but to my surprise, nobody is really paying attention to us. They’re probably afraid of my dad.

“For what happened to Drew,” I say, sucking in a breath. “I thought you hated me.”

“Baby,” Mom says, stepping forward, too, and wrapping her arms around me. “I’m so sorry.”

I feel completely lost. All this time, all these years, and maybe my family weren’t the ones dancing around having this talk.

Maybe it was me. Punishing myself for what happened long after they blamed me.

“We were upset after the accident,” Dad says, shaking his head. “But that’s all it was, El. An accident. You thought we were mad at you?”

I nod, numb.

“Group hug,” Dad says, gruffly. While we’re in it, Mom says, “Baby, we all just thought you needed your space. That you were healing in your own way.”

When the hug breaks apart, Mom takes my hand and pulls me to the bathroom so she can fix my makeup. It’s mercifully empty, and she gets her bag out, working quickly since the ceremony is set to start.

“Now,” she says, clearing her throat and pulling out a makeup wipe. “Tell me what the other thing is.”

“Other thing?” I question, swallowing through the rawness in my throat. After years of saying nothing, it’s all come out at once. One revelation after another, and it’s a lot to deal with.

Mom looks up at me through her lashes, a point-blank glance. “You may have squirreled yourself away the past couple of years, but I know you better than anyone. What else is bothering you, baby?”

I swallow again, and while she’s reapplying mascara and smudging with her thumb, it all comes out. I tell her about the stupid text I sent to Weston—which feels like ages ago now—and Karlee finding us behind the lodge.

Then I tell her about kissing him at the game. A brief, bland note about what happened in the elevator. Falling in love with him.

And finally, I tell her the worst part. All the pregnancy tests, Mabel and Hattie talking to me about it. That conversation with Weston, in which he told me that he didn’t want kids. That there was a reason why he and Leda had never had them together.

“So, you’re planning to have kids?” Weston asking me the question, his eyes so deep and serious. For some reason, the sound of it from his mouth sends a thrill through me.

I laugh, shrugging, trying to play off just how much I want kids. How much I think being a mother will enrich my life. It’s always something I’ve known I wanted—I’m organized and careful, patient and kind. “I mean, yeah, eventually.”

“Just seems like you enjoy working with them.” Even as he says it, it’s like there’s something else there, beneath the surface that he’s not saying.

“I think I’d make a good mom,” I say it before I can draw it back into my mouth, and I flush at how silly it sounds out loud.

But the look Weston gives me doesn’t make it feel silly at all.

In fact, if I didn’t know better, I might categorize that look as envy.

I tilt my head and ask, “Why didn’t you and Leda have kids? ”

Weston answers automatically, like he doesn’t even have to think about it. “Didn’t want them.”

If he didn’t want kids with a movie star, with someone beautiful and capable and basically perfect, why in the world would I think he would want that kind of future with me?

“Oh, honey,” Mom says, glancing down at my stomach as she stashes her makeup back in its bag. “Are you in love with him?”

“Yes.” I don’t have to think about it. I wish I wasn’t in love with him. Maybe then, this wouldn’t be so painful. “I am.”

“First,” Mom says, stepping close to me and taking my face in her hands, purposefully so she doesn’t smudge my fresh makeup. “You need to tell him. Men can be disappointing, but you have to give him the chance to come through.”

“But I don’t want to force him into something he doesn’t want.”

“Of all people, you should know that one conversation—or one text—doesn’t communicate everything you’d like to say.

” Mom pauses, pulling her hands back and brushing her hair over her shoulders.

“I’m glad you and your brother are talking again.

I wish you’d never kept how you were feeling from us.

And it would be a mistake to do that with this man. ”

“But you said it yourself.” A pair of ladies step into the bathroom, looking surprised to see us, and Mom ushers me toward the door. I drop my voice. “He’s too old for me. You assumed he was a phase.”

“What do I matter?” Mom quirks an eyebrow at me, turns, tilting her head. “If you’re in love with him, then that means you go and get him. I never meant to raise you to run away so much, Elsie Montgomery.”

With that, she sweeps out of the bathroom, leaving me feeling confused and strangely light. On top of all that is a slow-building kind of electricity, fizzing through my veins.

Drew is right. Mom is right.

I can’t just run away from Weston. I have to talk to him about this, tell him about the baby.

Tell him that I’m in love with him.

I’m only hoping that it’s not too late.