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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MARLEE

T he sound of the Zamboni hums faintly through the concrete walls of the arena.

It’s almost comforting…like a sound machine or a fan in the bedroom as I sit at my desk working on final schedules for the next few weeks.

I want to get as much done as I possibly can before the babies come so I’m not leaving the team in a lurch with my absence.

I’m fully aware there are other staff members who can adequately do the job, but I like to think I’m one in a million around here and without me, the guys on the team would be lost. My enormous belly moves under Ledger’s soft hoodie, which is now stretched to its limits, as I hold a clipboard in my hands reading through the latest equipment inventory.

“New sticks will be delivered from?—”

A sharp cramp stops me mid-sentence and I freeze.

I inhale a deep breath, releasing it slowly while waiting for the pain to pass.

“Okay…rude,” I mutter, brushing myself off when the pain finally subsides. “Probably Braxton Hicks again.”

I’ve had them for weeks.

Doc says it’s no big deal.

I stand to grab a file from the cabinet and that’s when it hits me. Only this time…it’s different. Pain wraps around my stomach like a belt cinching too tight, leaving me breathless and gripping my desk.

Shit. That hurts.

Then something else happens. Something new I’m not ready for. A gentle trickle of warmth spreads down my legs.

“Oh fuck. Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I look down, oddly hoping that maybe I just peed my pants, but nope. It’s water. Not a ton, but enough.

“NOPE.” I shake my head squeezing my eyes closed as if my water breaking is just an ugly monster under my bed that will go away. “Nope, nope, no?—”

This is not an emergency.

This is normal.

You can do this.

You can handle ten world-class athletes acting like children every day, so you can handle this.

You. Can. Handle. This.

“Lake?” I shout in hopes Layken might still be in her office. She’s supposed to have a meeting with Anaheim General Hospital today but maybe I’ll get lucky and she won’t have left yet. “Layken?”

But my shouts are answered with silence.

Shit.

I grab my phone, hands shaking, because now all the Braxton Hicks have ceased their little charade and are being replaced by the real deal, straight from the fiery forges of hell.

With every fractional movement, some crucial ligament I’ve never met before is being ripped apart like Velcro.

I punch in Ledger’s number but it goes directly to voicemail.

Of course it does.

Prison, dummy.

He can’t have his phone while he’s in there.

Okay. Try not to panic, try not to panic, try not to panic.

The inhale-exhale mantra I’ve read about a thousand times floats through my head on repeat.

In. Out. I am an ocean.

Out. In. But the ocean is on fucking fire!

I let the phone ring four more times knowing he will get the missed calls, and he’ll freak out, and we’ll laugh about it later, before hitting End.

With nobody near my office at the moment, I half-shuffle, half-waddle my way to the locker room in hopes of finding one of the guys.

Clutching the wall like it’s the edge of a mountain I’m about to tumble off, I push through the locker room door.

The world is quiet in the way it only is when a place built for chaos is suddenly empty.

The collective musk of sweat and soap, the echo of a towel snapped in some former moment, the ghosts of last night’s playlist skipping around.

The Zamboni’s furious hum is gone, replaced by distant voices from the ice and a coach barking at someone.

Yes!

They’re still practicing.

Ledger really fought with himself over skipping practice today in order to meet with his father at the prison, but Coach Hicks and the team assured him they would be okay without him for one practice. They all knew this was something Ledger needed to do.

But now I need him and he’s not here.

He’s not within easy reach.

And that feeling of helplessness is beginning to overtake my everything. Trying to catch my breath and remain as calm as humanly possible for a woman who might shoot three babies from her vagina at any moment, my instincts win out, and I poke my head into the rink anyway.

The team is doing suicides on the ice. I assume nobody will notice me but then Harrison sees me the second I step up the tunnel to the ice. His hand lifts in a wave, his smile as bright and easy as a summer day until he sees me gripping my stomach.

“Marlee?”

He skids to a stop, confusion playing across his face before horror sets in.

Then, in a single fluid movement, the other guys spot me too, and the mood in the rink shifts from the usual practiced chaos to a stunned, silent suspense.

Even Coach Hicks, usually a human bullhorn, is rendered speechless.

“Uhh, Darius,” Harrison calls, voice unsteady, “I think you should come here.”

Darius, the team’s trainer who, to be clear, is not an idiot, but has little to no experience in childbirth of one baby let alone three, takes in my situation and immediately adopts the seriousness of a field medic.

“Hey, Marlee.” He smooths his hand down his face and approaches me slowly as if I’m a wild animal about to attack him if he tries to touch me. “Okay, we got you, we got you, just breathe, just—” He’s forgotten how to breathe himself, his face matching the white of the boards.

Someone shouts for towels, and someone else for a car, and suddenly nine highly trained athletes are skating around with all the strategic focus of startled ducklings.

I want to laugh but my abdomen threatens mutiny.

Trying to act casual, like the lower half of me isn’t actively being claimed by aliens, I give a thumbs-up, then thumbs-down, then a wobbly, indecisive, both-thumbs-alternating gesture.

“I’m fine! I’m gooo—ooh!” I croak, but the effect is ruined by the little moan I let slip when another contraction throws a punch right under my ribs.

Coach skates over, his old knees creaking with each stride. “Ledger!” he shouts into the herding panic of twenty men converging toward me. “Somebody find Ledger!”

“He’s with his father, Coach,” Griffin reminds him so I don’t have to speak actual words.

“I’m sure the prison has a fucking phone!” Coach barks. “Someone call him. Now!”

A tornado of towels surrounds me as if the unholy trinity in my uterus could be safely delivered onto a nest of team-logo terrycloth. The guys crowd protectively around me like offensive linemen blocking a quarterback.

And here I thought they were professional hockey players.

I bring a towel to my lower half, dabbing at the spreading wet with mortification while Harrison—sweet, terrified Harrison—offers his arm for me to lean on.

“You’re going to be okay, Marlee,” he coos as if telling me that everything will be fine will keep the three crotch goblins clawing their way out of me inside just a little while longer. He swipes some of the sweat-soaked hair off of my forehead. “I promise you. Everything is going to be okay.”

“We gotta get her to the hospital,” Darius instructs.

“Like, now. Right fucking now. I could possibly deliver a baby, but three?” His horrified expression when he locks eyes with Harrison is not lost on me.

“That comes with all kinds of…” He doesn’t finish his thought, but he doesn’t have to. I already know.

Three babies equals three times the risk.

Three times the complications.

Three times the fear.

“Ledger,” I moan loudly, biting down hard as the next rolling wave of pain crests and subsides, leaving me feeling hollowed out and raw. “I need Ledger!”

“I’ll get the car!” Griffin yells, and the others scatter for keys, for bags, for the kind of direction that only appears in emergencies and military maneuvers.

“Ambulance!” Darius and I shout at the same time. No way in Hell am I delivering three babies in the back of Griffin’s car no matter how badly he would kill to be able to tell that story.

Harrison steers me gently to the bench. The cold leather bites through my leggings and I notice, with shame and some pride, that I haven’t cried yet. I’m a professional. Even in this.

Coach kneels in front of me, his brows furrowed so deep they nearly touch. In another life, he could be my father, the way he takes my hand and tries to steady my breathing with his own.

“You’re doing great, kid,” he says, voice gruff, the encouraging sort of lie coaches are trained to tell. “Just keep breathing.”

I nod, but the tears come anyway, smarting and hot, mortification finally replaced by fear.

The cold is everywhere, in my hands, in the sweat slicking my back, in the rink, in Coach’s calloused palm around mine.

Harrison has my other hand, his skin clammy against mine.

It’s sweet that he’s still holding my hand, until I notice my fingers have gone numb from his grip.

“Sorry,” he says, releasing me. He looks as if he expects a baby to pop out and start skating in circles.

“I mean—maybe don’t push yet, okay?” His face crinkles as he rubs the back of his neck with his hand just like Ledger does when he’s stressed or worried.

“Or maybe do? Fuck, Mar, I don’t know the protocol here. ”

“Me either, Harrisoooooon.” I grab my stomach and wince at the next wave of pain and agony that continues to tear apart my insides.

Then I grab Harrison’s jersey and pull him as close to my face as I can get him so I know he hears me.

“But please don’t let me have these fucking babies in a hockey arena because the very last thing I want to do right now is rip off my already soaking wet pants in front of all of you and introduce my children to a literal fucking slip and slide at the ripe old age of thirty seconds!

For fuck’s sake they’re only thirty weeks old! It’s too early!”