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24

Natalie

T he next morning, Natalie woke up, and she felt like she was hung over, even though she hadn’t had a drop to drink. She groaned at the sun coming in through her window. Last night, everything had gotten so messed up. She was still angry at Sven for being an ass at the escape room, but she was also mad at him for telling her he had feelings for her. And she was aware that it made no sense. He couldn’t help how he felt, and he didn’t come onto her.

It was just the fact that she could very easily ignore her feelings when she thought they were one-sided, but knowing he felt the same way had her head all confused. Everything she had learned about him with the research she did showed him as a lovable playboy—maybe a bit cocky but a decent guy. And until the night before, that’s exactly who she thought he’d been.

Yes, he was flirty, but she had chalked it up to the fact that it was just who he was. Knowing he had feelings for her complicated things. Even though she was still angry with him, whenever she thought about who he was around the house and with Winnie, she was incredibly attracted to that guy.

She made her way out of bed and headed into the kitchen to make some coffee. Then she remembered she was out of it. She was going to stop on her way home from the escape room to pick up a few things from the grocery store, but clearly, her mind had been elsewhere.

She got her mug and made her way to the house to steal some coffee from Sven. It was the least he could do after last night.

As she opened the back door and headed to the kitchen, there was Sven. He was standing at his sink, shirtless, washing bottles. And if that wasn’t enough, he had Winnie in a baby carrier on his back fast asleep.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mumbled.

Maybe being angry at her hot boss making her ovaries explode didn’t make complete sense, but she was well past making sense these days.

He turned as she shut the door.

“Good morning,” he said.

“I’m just getting some coffee,” she said, raising her mug.

“Help yourself. I’m about to make a second pot.”

As she got closer, she could see bags beneath his eyes. On top of that, his eyes were red and puffy. He looked bad. She wasn’t ever sure that was possible.

“I needed lots of coffee this morning. This one,” he said, motioning to a sleeping Winnie on his back, “was up all night. I’m not sure what’s going on with her.”

Natalie gave him a small smile, anger waning. “Yeah, I think she might have some molars coming in. She was having a hard time sleeping on your last road trip.”

“You think?”

“I think so.”

She poured herself coffee as he finished up the last bottle.

“Do you want any breakfast? As long as I keep moving, she’ll stay asleep. Might as well make the most of it.”

“Oh, umm . . .”

“Come on, Nat, just let me make you come eggs and toast. I even got some bacon.”

“Well, who can say no to bacon?”

She pulled out one of the tall chairs by the island and sat while Sven made her breakfast... shirtless... with his baby on his back. Crossing her legs, she squeezed her thighs together. This was damn ridiculous.

Before long, he passed her a plate of eggs before he paced the kitchen.

“Do you want to try and lay her down?” she asked before taking a bite of her eggs.

Sven just shook his head. “No, she’s finally sleeping, and she hardly slept at all last night.”

“When I’m done, I’ll take her, and you can get some sleep.”

“It’s your day off,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Yesterday was my day off.”

“Yes, but I was just gone for a week. You deserve another day off.”

“Sydney is working, and I have no plans, really. It’s no problem. You look like you could use some sleep.”

He gave a rough chuckle. “I look that bad, huh?”

“Well, I’ll just say you don’t look fresh as a daisy.”

“That sounds like a Southern way of saying I look like shit on a cracker.”

“I would never say that about anyone,” she said, trying not to grin.

She had been so angry with him, but she was having trouble holding onto that anger.

As she finished eating her breakfast, Sven cleaned the kitchen to keep moving and to keep Winnie sleeping on his back.

When he took her plate and put it in the dishwasher, there was a knock at the door.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

He shook his head and checked the doorbell camera.

His face went white as a sheet and eyes went wide with panic. “Oh, fuck.”

“What is it? Is it Winnie’s mom? Is she back?” Natalie asked quickly.

“No. Worse,” he said as she started undoing Winnie’s sling. As gently as she could, he got her off his back as she gave sleepy groans of protest. “It’s my dad.”

“It’s your dad?”

“Yes, can you please take her. I haven’t told him about her yet. I just... Fuck. I can’t believe he just showed up.”

She had never seen him like this. He looked like he was about to have a panic attack.

“Hey,” she said as she took him by his shoulders. “Breathe.”

He listened, stopped, and took a breath.

“I’ll take Winnie,” she said. “We’ll hang out in the pool house until the coast is clear.”

“What about all this stuff?”

He tore apart the room, gathering baby stuff and shoving it into the pantry, when there was another knock at the door.

“Sven, you better not still be in bed,” his dad called in his Swedish accent.

He looked at her with pure panic.

“Hey, listen to me. Just tell him that the housekeeper had been bringing her grandkids. That’s why there is stuff around?”

He nodded.

“Go answer the door and come get us when you’re done.”

He nodded as Natalie slipped out the back door and heard him opening the door for his dad.

She made it back to the pool house with a sleeping Winnie and laid her down with a sigh of relief.

She was pacing. She had no idea what was going on because she had never seen him like that. He was panicking. His dad had put pressure on him being a Hall of Famer himself, but that seemed like more than pressure.

As she paced, she noticed the intercom on the wall. She was tempted to listen to him, but she wouldn’t. After last night, everything had gotten messed up, and she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to work for him anymore... Okay, that was a lie, but it did leave her with a lot of questions.

Questions she should get the answer to by talking to him, not by eavesdropping... but even as she thought that she found herself walking over to the intercom and pushing the button. She wasn’t even sure how to work it, but she pushed it, and the sound of Sven and his father filled the room.

“What are you doing here?” Sven asked his father.

“You stopped answering my phone calls,” his father answered in a low, dominant voice.

“I’ve been working on stuff.”

“Well... your last few games have been better, but there is still room for improvement. Why aren’t you on the top line with Conner and Wes anymore?”

“Coach is just trying for more depth.”

Natalie didn’t like the sound of his voice. As much as she pretended to not like Sven’s swagger, she loved it. Here, it was all gone. He sounded like a scared teenager rather than a cocky professional hockey player.

“Well, you need to be scoring more if you ever want to catch my record. It looks like your teammate might do that before you.”

“It doesn’t have to be a competition, Dad,” Sven said quietly.

The intercom squealed as Winnie stirred. Natalie moved back to the monitor to shut it all off.

“I brought some game tapes. We are going to sit down and talk about it. Then I have some trainers to meet with you this week.”

“Dad, I’m not allowed to work with other trainers.”

“I think your agent should put in for a trade.”

Natalie’s hand stopped over the button. Did Sven want to be traded?

“I still have another year on my contract,” Sven protested.

“I need you to trust me, son. Have a seat.”

She knew she should turn this off and stop listening.

“Why do you have all this baby stuff?”

“Oh, umm....” Sven paused, and Natalie’s heart stopped.

Come on , she thought, just tell him it’s the housekeeper’s .

“Ummm... my housekeeper has been bringing her granddaughter sometimes.”

“You’re too soft with the help. She should not be allowed to do that. And if she does, she should clear away all the crap.”

God, this guy was an ass. Natalie pushed the button to turn off the monitor, but as she pushed the button, it did nothing to stop the sound.

“No,” she said, pushing it again, realizing it was stuck.

“First thing I think we need to address is your sloppy skating.”

“My skating is not sloppy,” Sven said, but it seemed like he was mumbling it.

“Oh, yeah, what do you call this? If you had been where you were supposed to be, then you wouldn’t have gotten stripped. This was going to be a shutout until you pulled that crap.”

Natalie didn’t want to listen to this anymore. She had gotten the feeling from Sven that his dad was kind of a jerk, but she didn’t know it was this bad. She pushed the button a little harder, trying to get it to pop back out.

“And look at this bullshit. Sven, you’re better than this.”

She tried to get her fingernail under the button to push it out but nothing.

“You’ve got to get your fucking act together or just quit.”

“What?” she and Sven both said at the same time.

“At this point, if you can’t manage to pull your head out of your ass—I mean look at the sloppy pass. What were you doing looking at some bunny in the stands?”

“No.”

“Oh, stop. You look like a pouting kid. You’re a grown man. Act like it. Speaking of bunnies, how are your extracurriculars?”

Natalie shook her head in disgust at the voice coming from the speaker.

“I’ve stopped. I’m leaving the bunnies alone this year.”

“Well, that’s your problem. You gotta keep the energy moving. No wonder you’re stagnant on the ice.”

Natalie’s mouth dropped open as she gave an indignant huff to the intercom.

“I don’t think it works that way.”

Finally, Natalie remembered she could just turn the volume down. She turned it all the way done and went and sat on her couch. She was fuming. His dad was such an ass. The idea of Sven sleeping with other women made her angry, irrationally so. He was a dad. He needed to stop sleeping around. That was the reason she was upset.

It had nothing to do with having feelings for him. She got up and started pacing around her little pool house. There was a bit part of her that wanted to march right into Sven’s living room and give his dad a piece of her mind. That thought was so far from who she had been and how she had been raised. In fact, when she thought about a lot of the feelings Sven brought out of her, they were not the feelings she’d been able to express before.

Thinking about that, she stopped pacing. She was from a proper Southern family. Not only that, she was a Roper. That name came with lots of expectations and preconceived notions. Never had she yelled at anyone before. Even when she got fired, she did so with grace. She had accepted being turned away with grace, too. Anger was not an emotion she ever expressed because of her upbringing.

The night before, when Sven had made her so angry, she had told him. She had let him know in the moment she was mad at him and then, when they got back here, she had been openly mad at him. She had expressed it to him, and everything was fine.

At that moment, all the wind went out of her sails, and she plopped down on the couch. She was so angry at Sven for being an ass last night and angry at Sven’s father for being a diabolical asshole. But when she started to feel it, there was so much more anger inside of her. Anger at the school board, anger at the Moms Fighting For Freedom, anger at a foundation her family had founded who would not take a stand, and anger at the world was in such a state that these things were even allowed to happen.

The anger swirled in her as she took a deep breath. She was raised to be a blessing to those around her, which she was realizing meant she had never been comfortable letting out emotions deemed negative. She so very clearly remembered her mama’s words.

You catch more flies with honey .

And those were bad enough, but the words that rang in her head more that she cared to admit were when she would stand up for herself and she would get in trouble for it. She remembered, one time, there was a boy who tried to push her off the swing at church. Little Natalie, mad at the injustice of it all, stood up with her hands on her hips and yelled at him to back off before getting back on the swing.

Her mother had called her over and given her a lecture about sharing and then had said, You really need to watch how you treat people or else they might say, “Here comes that mean Natalie Roper, and we don’t want to play with her.”

Those are the words that had shaped her response to anger. Those are the words that taught her to accept bad behavior. It had been so deeply ingrained in her she didn’t even realize it was a problem until this moment.

When she let Sven know she was angry, nothing bad happened. In fact, he had come here and apologized. She had told him she was still angry, and he had validated her and told her he still liked her. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had expressed that rage to him multiple times. She had even called him a baboon’s ass, and it was fine.

All of the sudden, tears were streaming down her face. She was a swirl of emotions she had no idea how to process. As much as she loved her grandfather, being a Roper meant her behavior was always on display, and part of that was knowing how to put a check on your emotions. She was taught to be a charming Southern lady, but what good did that do? It made her sweet and docile and took her ability to fight back. And, sometimes, things needed to be fought back against.

She needed to do something. She couldn’t just sit here and spiral. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t march in there and tell off Sven’s father either. So, instead, she started unpacking her bag.

After about thirty minutes, she checked on Winnie, who was still sound asleep. It was almost noon. Winnie would probably be waking up hungry, and she didn’t have any bottles in here. All she had was some puffs and maybe some crackers but nothing substantial.

She walked over to the wall and turned the volume up just to see if he was still there.

“Did you see that? Where is the follow-through?”

They had been reviewing game videos for over an hour.

“Did you move my puck?”

“What?” Sven asked.

“My winning puck from game seven. I thought you kept it here on your mantel.”

“Oh, I’ve been doing some redecorating.”

Natalie’s face scrunched. What was he talking about? She turned the volume back down and decided to clean her little kitchenette just for something to do.

Almost an hour later, there was a knock at her door. She pulled back the curtain to reveal a Sven, who was trying to look easy and breezy.

“Hey, I can take Winnie back,” he said, standing outside of her little house.

“Come on in. She’s actually still sleeping.”

Sven walked in and quietly walked over to peer down at Winnie in the Pack ’N Play. “I see how you are, you little traitor. Up all night for Daddy, sleeping for Natalie.”

Natalie walked over to him and ached to put her arms around him. Even this morning, the residual anger was still there, but after hearing the way his dad talked to him, all that anger had melted. Sven was a wonderful father and listening to the one he’d grown up with it seemed almost like a miracle.

“How’d things go with your dad?” Natalie asked carefully.

“Good. He was just stopping by,” Sven said, trying to brush her off.

“Does he do that often?”

Sven shook his head.

“And you haven’t told him about Winnie?”

Sven took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“Can I ask why?”

Sven ran his hand through his hair and went and sat on the couch. “I don’t know.”

Feeling an almost magnetic pull to be close to him, Natalie joined him on the couch. When she sat, a loud squealing came through on the intercom, and she hopped up, trying to shut it off before it woke up Winnie.

She started pushing buttons, trying to make the squealing stop, but nothing seemed to help. Soon, she was joined by Sven, who took over and managed to turn off the whole thing.

“Thanks,” she said barely above a whisper.

“Could you hear my dad?”

“What?” Natalie squeaked in a tone about three octaves above her normal voice.

Sven’s eyes pinned her in place. Natalie deflated.

“Okay, I may have listened a little because I was still so angry about last night, and I wasn’t sure why you didn’t want to tell him about Winnie. I know I shouldn’t have.”

Sven chewed on his bottom lip as he looked at his feet. “What did you hear?”

“Just him being a total asshole to you. I’m sorry if I’m out of line, but you didn’t deserve any of that,” she said, gesturing to the house. “You know that, right?”

Sven closed his arms and kept his eyes on the floor.

“I mean it,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, choosing to completely ignore the zip of desire that shot through her at the feel of his bicep.

“He was just trying to help,” Sven said quietly.

Natalie cocked her head, taking him in. She wanted to yell You don’t really believe that do you? and That is all about his ego and nothing to do with you . But that wasn’t her place, and this didn’t quite seem like the time, so she bit her tongue.

“Is he always that intense?” she asked quietly.

Her hand was still resting on his arm. She couldn’t bring herself to break the contact and rubbed her thumb back and forth on his arm, unconsciously letting Sven know she was here.

“Yeah,” he said as he moved back to sit on the couch. “That was a bit more intense than normal because I have been dodging his calls.”

“You’ve been dodging his calls?”

He turned away as a stormy expression covered his face, and he nodded. Natalie didn’t like the look one bit. She loved his smiles and his cocky smirks. This was dark and dejected, and she would do just about anything to wipe it off.

“I don’t know... It’s like ever since I found out about Winnie it had changed some of the way I think about it.”

She sat next to him and put an encouraging hand on his knee. Maybe she was crossing the line she had just stated last night needed to be put in place, but all she could think about was comforting him.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said, turning to face her. His knee rested against her thigh, and she tried her hardest to ignore the shivers this contact sent through her entire body. “It’s like the moment I found out I was a father, my world shifted. Yes, hockey is still my focus and my job, but it doesn’t revolve around me anymore. It all revolves around her. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“It makes complete sense. That’s how it should be.”

“Yeah... well, I’m kind of realizing that. I mean, I always knew my dad was an ass, but now that I have Winnie ... I don’t know how to explain it. She’s just a baby. But it’s like I would never put that pressure on her. All I want is for her to be happy and never hurt. I know I can’t do that, but it is at the core of what I want... It’s not like that with him.”

He dropped his head in his hands, resting on his knees. Without even thinking about it, she started rubbing his back.

“I guess I always thought that’s what it was like being a dad... but now, I know different. I can’t help but wonder what I did wrong. What was wrong with me?”

His voice broke on the last question, and before she knew what she was doing, she was pulling him into a hug as he cried on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him. Her heart broke for him. Certain things about his cockiness and his pride made more sense. She had not been giving him enough credit. He had no right being as well adjusted as he was. The fact that he had instantly stepped in to take care of Winnie with the male role model he had was a miracle.

After a moment, she pulled away from him. His stubble was rough under her hand as she cupped his face. “There is nothing wrong with you,” she said firmly. She held his gaze because she needed him to believe her. “You are a wonderful father and person despite him. He is the one that is missing out on the amazing person you are.”