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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lars

Crackkk!

The sound of Kershaw’s stick striking a bench reverberated through the Edmonton visitors’ locker room. In the five years I’d played with him, I had never seen him so pissed.

Our third straight loss.

Theo and I were back on the first line together, though I had to wonder if something had broken, the Dream Defense turned nightmare. My suspension was over, his injury was healed, and MacFarlane was keeping his distance, but we were abruptly out of sync.

“Listen, guys, it didn’t go our way.” O’Malley had seen that Kershaw wasn’t in the mood for a post-game debrief, so he was stepping up to the plate. “Sometimes the other team has a better night.”

“Yeah, we’ll get ’em next time.” Cody patted my shoulder clumsily, making it clear where the blame lay, but being nice about it as was his way.

We had a plane back to Chicago to catch, so everyone made quick work of the clean-up. A subdued Kershaw sat beside me on the bus to the airport while I texted Janet to check in on Mabel. She sent me a picture of her sleeping and a thumbs up.

“Button okay?” Theo asked.

“Yeah, she’s fine.”

“And the new nanny?”

“No complaints.”

Janet had moved in a week ago, and we were finding our way with each other.

She treated Mabel as a job, not that there was anything wrong with that, but I was used to getting more updates about Mabel’s welfare.

What she had eaten, how she had enjoyed her bath, how cute she looked in her fifty-fifth Rebels onesie.

The discussions with my new nanny were purely baby logistics and travel schedules.

No songs filled the air.

Last week, while I was at practice, Adeline collected her stuff from my place and left her key on the kitchen counter. Janet had already moved into a different room, further down the hall, so Adeline’s room remained empty, a void I tried my best to pass without remembering.

“Adeline’s in a funk.”

Swallowing hard, I turned to Theo. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I think she misses Mabel.” He frowned. “It was a good gig for her.”

“For me, too. But I needed to get Mabel settled, given that there’s still no sign of Vicki. Adeline can come see her any time.”

He nodded abstractly. “I’ll let her know.”

I moved on to another tricky topic. “About tonight … Sorry I wasn’t on my game.”

He gave me a long, hard look. Didn’t deny it. His next words offered me an out. “You worried about Mabel with this new girl?”

“A little.”

Still lying to my friend. But once I started this thing with his daughter, there was no going back to the honesty of before. I wanted to say this shift in my relationship with Theo was twisting me up, making me lose my edge, fucking up my game. But that wasn’t it.

I missed Adeline.

Not the woman who cared for my child, but the woman who made my life a million times better. She had told me she loved me, then told me I was a coward. She was right. Once Elle knew, I had a chance to come clean. To proclaim from the rooftops that I loved her daughter and to hell with the Rebels.

To hell with Theo.

But my feelings of self-loathing at what I’d done to this man, my identification with Sven, would always win out. Adeline loved me, but my love wasn’t pure enough for her. It was tainted with my betrayal.

I had never resisted touching someone as much as I had the moment the words of love left her lips. Instead, I balled my fists and denied that love. Told her how she felt because it was easier than admitting how I felt. I was a dick and every word out of my mouth that day only confirmed it.

Adeline was better off without me.

Adeline

Zara Jacobs led her two-year-old, Jane, to the big rug in their living room and set her down in the front row. The birthday girl wore a neon-green tutu, a bubblegum-pink cardigan, and silver Wicked-themed slippers that matched her sparkly tiara.

Her mom grinned at me. “Sorry, she needed to potty.”

“Not a problem.” The delay gave me time to run through my set list for the zillionth time.

As if this audience cared about whether I sang Itsy Bitsy Spider before the Hokey Pokey (though Hokey Pokey’s dance moves made that number a good closer).

Gazing out at the crowd, ranging from infants to four-year-olds, I caught my mom’s eye.

Tilly, elder stateswoman among her peers, waved regally. I waved back.

“Hey, guys! Are we ready for a song?”

None of these kids had become jaded yet, so only toothy grins and dancing eyes shone back at me. As long as I kept their interest, we should be good.

I stroked the strings and launched into If you’re happy and you know it .

Zara had seen my performance on Halloween and asked me to entertain the kids for Jane’s party ( I’ll pay you, of course! ). As I had recently been fired from my nanny job and had no career prospects, I immediately agreed, then whined to Rosie about what a huge mistake I’d made.

But it wasn’t a mistake. I’d loved planning the set, practicing with Tilly as my test audience, and learning from Aurora that the classic, Alouette , was a touch too gruesome for inclusion at a children’s party (it might be sung in French, but I drew the line at lyrics about plucking out a lark’s feathers and eyes).

Focusing on this new phase also kept my mind off what I’d lost.

Fifteen minutes later, we had covered the classics and were in the exercise portion of the session. The more coordinated kids were sticking their left leg in, the less coordinated were opting for both legs. That’s when I spotted him.

He was at the back of the room with his daughter, his hands under her arms, holding her upright. Mabel, nightclub aficionado and music lover, danced with her daddy’s help. I had to blink away, or I would have strummed a bum note.

Once the song finished, everyone headed to the other room to light the birthday candles. Songs and dancing before cake and ice cream ensured less likelihood of the party turning into a pukefest.

“Amazing, Addy, so much fun!” Zara gushed. “I’ve Venmoed your payment. Don’t forget to grab a slice of cake!” Off she went to manage the Happy Birthday chorus and a crowd of dessert-ravenous ankle biters.

I placed my guitar in its case and tried to hold onto the good vibes of happy children and the joy I’d just created. My heart had never felt emptier.

“Hey, Adeline.”

Lars stood before me, his arms full of his daughter, who looked delightful in a green jumpsuit with a tartan belt.

“Hi, there.”

“Mabel insisted on congratulating you herself. She loved the set.”

I smiled and rubbed her tummy. God, I missed her like she was my own. “I saw you dancing out there, Mabel. You have amazing moves.”

“She does, but then she’s been to the club.” He smiled at me. “Lars thought you were great as well.”

“Lars has started talking about himself in third person, huh?”

His brows drew together. “He finds it helps him achieve distance, so he doesn’t have to examine himself too closely.”

Amusing but not enough to make me feel better. So he knew he was a dick. Good for him.

“This is a good move for you,” he said after the silence had gone on too long. “You’re where you’re meant to be.”

He made it sound like I wouldn’t have made it this far if I had stuck around in his life.

“You think you did me this big favor?”

“Not what I meant.”

“You’re probably right.”

He got that wrinkle between his brows, coupled with a note of suspicion in those navy-blue eyes. “I am?”

“I was getting kind of settled as Mabel’s nanny. I needed a push to get me thinking about what came next.”

As long as we talked about this in terms of my career plans, then we could avoid the rest. The hole in my chest where my heart should be. I had offered him that heart and he turned it down.

His brow furrowed. “I was too abrupt. I could have been … kinder.”

“Lars, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t, but I could hardly argue the point at a children’s birthday party. Lars had his chance to claim me. I’d made my own mistakes, for sure, but once it was out there, I had hoped he might choose me.

That he didn’t broke me in half.

A small hand clasped mine. I looked down at my little sister. “Hey, Tilly-Billy, where did you spring from?”

“A tadpole pond. I’m going to be a frog when I grow up.”

“Cool! I have a song about tadpoles.”

Tilly grinned. Her mouth was rimmed with pink and white icing. “Sing it!”

“How about when we get home?”

She tugged on my hand, my cue to leave. Thanks, sis. I smiled at Lars and Mabel. “See you guys.”

Lars nodded and stepped aside to let me through.

“Bye, Duckman! Bye, Mabel!”

“Bye, Tilly,” Lars said.

I closed the gap between us and my mom.

“We’re gonna sing about tadpoles, Mommy!”

My mom smiled at Tilly. “That’s exciting.”

She met my gaze, her own filled with concern. She knew I’d lied about it being merely a fling, but she had never pressed or talked about her conversation with Lars that day in the hospital. And I hadn’t asked.

“Are you okay, sweetie?”

“I will be.”