Page 17 of The Pucking Date (Defenders Diaries #3)

SHIT YOU CAN’T UN-PEE ON

JESSICA

S ophie arrives in record time, letting herself in with the spare key and stepping inside like she’s expecting to find a crime scene. Which, given my frantic text, isn’t entirely unreasonable.

“Okay, I’m here. Who died?” she asks, kicking off her heels. “And if you say you ran out of dry shampoo again, I swear to God?—”

Seeing me hold up the test without preamble, Sophie stops cold, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as understanding dawns.

“Oh.” Her voice comes out small, uncertain. “Is that...?”

I nod, watching her process what she’s seeing.

Her mouth opens, then closes. Then she says, very calmly, “You peed on that.”

“Wow. We’re starting there?”

She holds up both hands in surrender. “I’m saying. You waved it around like it’s Excalibur or something.”

I glance at the plastic stick, then back at her. “Well, it did just slay my entire life plan, so the comparison’s not totally off. ”

Sophie gives me a look that could cut glass. “You’re holding your own urine, Jess.”

Chucking the test onto the coffee table, I groan and collapse onto the couch like my uterus betrayed me personally. Which, frankly, it did.

My sister perches on the edge of the ottoman. “So. You’re…pregnant.”

“Apparently,” I mutter, staring at the ceiling, hoping it might spell out a game plan.

She blinks. Hard. “Wait— how ? Did you hook up with someone in Shanghai?”

I throw her a look. “Seriously? Wow. Rude.”

“Well, you were halfway around the world and totally off the grid! I thought maybe there was a sexy dumpling chef or a hot Mandarin tutor with really strong forearms?—”

“No dumpling chef,” I cut in. “And no steamy classroom fling. It wasn’t in Shanghai.”

She narrows her eyes. “Then who?”

I hesitate. Long enough for the silence to turn sharp.

Her head jerks back slightly. “No.”

Still no reaction from me.

“Jess,” she gasps. “ No. ”

“…Yes.”

Her jaw hits the floor. “Oh my God. O’Reilly ? You finally let him climb Mount Novak?”

I groan. “Sophie?—”

“Don’t you ‘Sophie’ me. That man has been mentally undressing you since last year, and now he’s gotten all the way to the finale? I need details.”

I grab the nearest throw pillow and chuck it at her head.

She ducks, giggling. “So? Was it everything I’ve been rooting for? Did he ruin you? Did he do that smirky thing while?— ”

“ Sophie. Focus.”

She sobers instantly, blinking like she’s resurfacing. “Right. Sorry. Hormones. Shock. The combination is…potent.” A pause. Then, softer: “Are you okay?”

My throat tightens. “I don’t know.”

She stares. Then lets out a strangled sound. “When did you manage to escape the Novak Surveillance State?”

“Montreal. That night after the charity game. Don’t look at me like that!”

“I’m not judging,” she says, totally judging. “It’s just, I thought you were immune.”

“I wasn’t immune. I was avoidant. But then he turned on that devastating Southern charm, showed me Montreal like it was his gift to me, and without Dad or Adam monitoring my every breath, I just..

.surrendered. For one night, I let myself want something without calculating the cost. He looked at me like I was the only woman in the world, like everything he’d been searching for was right there in front of him.

And suddenly I couldn’t remember my own name, let alone all the reasons I was supposed to keep my distance. ”

She clutches her head. “Jess. That man is six feet two of chaos and thigh muscles!”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Intimately.”

Sophie groans and flops dramatically onto the couch. “Alright. Rewind. Montreal, sexy chaos, mind-blowing hockey-player sex— and now you’re pregnant? ”

I nod. Miserable. “Apparently I skipped the chapter in your future OB rotation where they remind you birth control is only 99% effective.”

Sophie makes a face. “Hey, don’t blame this on me just because I can diagram your reproductive system from memory. ”

I jab a finger at her. “You’re sleeping with a professional athlete too. Don’t get all smug about life choices.”

“Liam and I use protection,” she says primly. “Also, I track.”

“So do I! Apparently, that’s necessary but not sufficient.”

She sobers a little. “Okay…but seriously. What now?”

I scrub my hands down my face. “God, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far. I haven’t even processed anything beyond ‘holy shit, I’m pregnant,’ and now you’re here, and there’s two pink lines sitting on my coffee table like a tiny nuclear device.”

Sophie stays quiet.

“And what am I supposed to do? Call Finn and be like, ‘Hey, remember that night where we didn’t sleep for six hours and my thighs were shaking for three days? Surprise! You knocked me up.’”

Sophie winces. “Maybe not like that.”

“I have a career I’ve spent years building, brick by careful brick. I have a summit in Park City that could make or break not just Finn’s contract, but my own reputation. And now I’m supposed to manage sponsor optics while hiding the fact that I’m carrying the star player’s baby?”

“You’re not?—”

“I’m a walking headline! Coach’s Daughter Pregnant with Star Forward’s Baby While Repping Team Sponsorships. I mean, Christ, do you know what the New York Post will do with that?”

“I think you’re catastrophizing.”

“I think I’m being realistic,” I snap. “And what if he freaks out? What if all that Southern charm disappears the second things get real? What if he pulls a Chad—says all the right things, then quietly starts planning his exit strategy?”

She’s quiet again .

“And it’s not just him. It’s Dad. It’s the team. It’s the optics. My entire job is built on control. On clean image management. This?” I gesture wildly at the test. “This is not clean. This is messy and complicated and unplanned, and I do not do unplanned.”

My breath comes hard now, shallow and tight.

Sophie gets up, walks over, and puts both hands on my shoulders.

“You do real, Jess,” she says, soft but firm. “Better than anyone. And you don’t have to figure it all out tonight. Have you spoken to him?”

I scoff. “Yeah, I texted Finn right after I peed on a stick. Sent him a GIF of a baby and a cowboy hat.”

“You know what I mean,” Sophie says, her voice gentle but unshakable.

“No. I haven’t told him. I just found out.”

She leans back, arms crossed. “Fair enough. So what’s the plan?”

“The plan ,” I say, dramatically flopping into the cushions, “was to stress-shop with my sisters, eat frozen yogurt, and keep pretending I’m not still hung up on a guy who wrecked me in a Montreal hotel room.”

Sophie smirks. “That plan seems to be going great.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious! You’ve been a walking complication since you got back from Shanghai.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She nudges my leg. “You know I love you. But babe, you’ve been dodging Finn like he’s made of landmines and unresolved feelings. And now…boom. Baby.”

“I know.”

“So again, what’s the plan?”

I drag a throw pillow over my face. “I don’t know! I don’t have one. I haven’t thought this far ahead. I didn’t expect to be pregnant! I’ve been on birth control since I was eighteen!”

“Yeah, but you also had very loud, very memorable sex with a six-foot-two Irish god.”

I groan. “Not helping.”

“Just saying. The man is potent. That jawline alone could knock someone up.”

I peek at her. “Are you…joking right now?”

“Would you rather I panic?”

“Yes! A little! This is huge, Soph. This changes my whole life.”

She tilts her head. “Okay, true. But also, it doesn’t have to change who you are. You’re still Jessica Novak. You’re still a PR shark. You’re still scary good at your job and terrifying in heels.”

My throat tightens. “I can’t do this, Sophie.

I can barely handle my life as it is, and now I’m supposed to figure out how to be someone’s mother?

How to tell Finn he’s going to be a father?

How to explain to Dad that his carefully protected daughter went and got herself knocked up by the exact kind of player he warned me about? ”

“You can,” she says, instantly fierce. “And you don’t have to do it alone.”

I blink fast. My throat’s starting to burn.

“I was going to go to Park City and get these guys sponsor deals,” I whisper. “Control the narrative. Bat off that sleazy ex of mine who’s trying to tank Finn.”

Sophie softens. “You are still the same person. You will still go and do all those things. If that’s what you want.”

I shake my head. “I don’t even know what I want.”

“Then let’s figure it out.”

Sophie watches me as I sit up slowly, arms wrapped around my knees. Then she quietly adds, “Do you think he’ll be…happy?”

I open my mouth. Then close it again.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Finn’s…complicated. He’s all charm and chaos and jokes, but under that, there’s an ache. Like he’s waiting for something, but he doesn’t know what.”

“Maybe it’s this,” Sophie murmurs, pulling me into a hug that smells like safety and certainty—two things I desperately need right now. “Maybe this baby is exactly what he’s been waiting for, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”