Page 49

The living room looks like a baby boutique exploded.

Three baby swings, a mountain of burp cloths, and diapers everywhere.

More baby bottles than I can count in various states of use scattered throughout the living room and kitchen.

The coffee table is now a makeshift changing station and someone’s half-eaten protein bar is dangerously close to a pacifier.

Marlee sits curled on the couch, holding Ellis, who’s finally asleep after what felt like two full hockey periods of fussing.

I’ve been pacing back and forth with Rowan, who has decided he’ll only stop crying if he bounces exactly every three point five seconds.

Juniper on the other hand, is the calmest baby on the face of the earth.

Cradled in Griffin’s arms, the team’s usually unshakable defenseman, dressed in his brand-new pajama pants with pacifiers all over them, looks like he’s defusing a bomb that could detonate at any moment.

“She looked me in the eyes and hiccupped,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “I think we’re bonded now.”

“You know that smile is probably just gas, right, bro?” August says to him.

“Shut your pie hole, Auggie,” Griffin responds, mocking Ella’s nickname for him.

“This sweet baby knows she’s in the arms of the world’s best uncle.

And she’s got me wrapped around this tiny little finger about a thousand times.

” He looks down at a sleeping Juniper and asks, “What’s that sweetheart?

You want a pony? How about six? I’ll buy you the whole damn farm. You just say the words, princess.”

“You better be saying those words when you knock me up with your spawn, Mr. Ollenberg,” Layken scoffs. My eyes skate between my two friends and I don’t miss the dirty smirk that passes between them. I know how much Griffin loves his family. If anyone will be a great dad one day, it’ll be him.

“There’s three of them,” Bodhi says for the third time since he’s gotten here. “You literally made three tiny humans, dude. That’s…” He shakes his head bewildered. “Absolutely wild.”

“No kidding. My dog peed on my rug when he was a puppy and I cried,” Harrison shares. “How are you even still standing?”

I give him an exhausted laugh. “I’m not. My soul left my body at 3 A.M. when Ellis projectile vomited all over me right after Rowan decided the middle of the night was a great time to have a blowout.”

Bodhi looks at me, his eyes wide, and then shudders with sympathy. “Goddamn, I’d have to salt the earth and move out.” He caps my shoulder. “You’re a hero.”

Layken pops the cap off a root beer and perches on the arm of the couch. She takes in the tableau. “So, is it like a contest, or is Ellis always the drama queen?”

“She trains them during the day, then unleashes hell at night,” I tell her much to Marlee’s amusement. “She’s clearly the alpha.”

Marlee smirks over Ellis’s pink-squished head. “She’ll be running the team by next season. Mark my words.”

“You know, if you have three more, you could field your own rookie line,” August points out, poking a burp cloth with his toe.

“First of all, fuck you,” Marlee says pointedly to August but with just enough of a smirk to let him know she’s kidding.

“And secondly,” Bodhi says, raising his hand. “Nobody tell Coach. He’ll get ideas.” He winks at Corrigan who rolls her eyes with laughter but agrees with him.

“Ugh, Bodhi’s not wrong. Dad is so ready for grandkids.”

For a wild second I wonder what Ellis, Rowan, and Juniper’s stats might look like in eighteen years. Tough, fast, tactically devastating. I’d say ‘no way’ but judging by the squawk Ellis gives in her sleep, I’m not betting against her.

Griffin buries his nose in Juniper’s hair. “They smell like powder and hope,” he says. “It’s crazy. I didn’t think I’d get it.”

I look at him, at everyone, and the air feels charged—like game seven just before the puck drops.

There’s a hush, a waiting.

The kitchen pendulum clock ticks, underscoring the silence only infants can conjure, precarious, blessed, brief.

I bounce Rowan with mechanical precision and let my head tip back, eyes tracing the lazy swirl of the ceiling fan.

An empty bottle rolls across the floor, and I try to think of my old tidy single-dude life.

The life pre-Marlee but it’s hard to remember even one memory from life without her in it.

The kids are ten weeks old now, which means they’re about the age and size they should’ve been when they were born.

After five long weeks in the NICU—six for Rowan since he was so tiny—they were all granted their escape papers and we’ve been enjoying our time at home as a family ever since.

Friends and family come and go relatively regularly.

Sometimes to help Marlee when I’m traveling with the team.

Sometimes just to hang out because they’re as obsessed with our kids as we are.

And sometimes to quickly drop off coffee or food because God knows we don’t have time for that these days.

The mess here is a monument to survival and I am proud of it.

This is our life now.

Babies and hockey and us.

And I couldn’t love it more.

Actually…I could love it more.

“Marry me.”

The words slip out, raw and unruly, confusing everyone. Marlee’s arms cocoon tighter around Ellis, and her eyes, those impossible, fierce, tired eyes, widen to let in the moment.

Barrett scoffs silently as he turns another page in the parenting magazine as if I’m just over here telling jokes.

Oliver’s jaw unhinges and his eyes bug like he’s missed a face-off.

And August chokes on a laugh. “Dude, are you serious? Right now? You’re still wearing…

” He cocks his head, staring at me. “I think that’s baby vomit on your sweatpants. ”

Layken whoops and Griffin, one arm balancing Juniper, starts pounding the coffee table like it’s the boards after a goal. Burp cloths tumble to the floor. Bodhi’s half-eaten protein bar actually lands on the pacifier, and neither he nor anyone else cares.

I kneel by the couch. My knees don’t love it, but I’m still moving.

“Marlee.” I take her hand and she lets me, even though it’s sticky with breast milk and the mysterious substance all new babies seem to secrete.

“I mean it. I want to marry you, right now, before one of these little monsters wakes up and we both forget how to speak in full sentences again.”

She’s laughing and crying at the same time, the way only Marlee can.

Her mouth pulls sideways, and she blinks like she’s furious at the tears blurring her vision.

Ellis blows a milk bubble in her sleep, a perfect white marble, and Marlee looks down at the baby, then at me, then at our friends, all eager and expectant.

“We…we don’t even have rings,” she says, her voice a squeaky whisper.

“I’ll get you as many rings as you want,” I promise her, my hands shaking just a little. “All I have for right now is what’s left of me, which is mostly caffeine and a shocking tolerance for baby poop.”

She snickers and shakes her head, smiling through her tears. “That’s all I need.” She sniffles. “Say it again.”

I gaze into her eyes and know that I’m seeing all the way down to the bottom of her soul. Her contentedly happy, beautiful, God-given, I-will-be-in-love-with-her-forever soul. “I want to marry you, Marlee Rose.”

She leans forward, and our foreheads touch, and suddenly the mess and the faces and the whole crazy living room are sealed away. It’s only the two of us, breathing the same air, connected by these three perfect disasters we made.

“I’m in,” she says.

There’s a moment of quiet, like everyone can sense something just shifted, like the world stopped and started again, rearranged in our favor.

And then the silence fractures as Layken “yessssss!”-es so loudly that Juniper snorts awake and gives a little newborn scream.

Without missing a beat, Uncle Griffin lifts her over his shoulder and starts the slow side-to-side football sway.

Marlee wipes her nose on a burp cloth and asks, “Can our honeymoon be a solid night’s sleep?” She shrugs. “Or I’d settle for a cool one-hour nap.”

I kiss the back of her hand, rubbing my thumb over her knuckles. “I love you, Marlee. I promise I’ll give you the world for as long as you’re willing to take it.”

“Bride first, world later,” she says and cracks a smile so huge it breaks whatever tired shell she’s been hiding under for weeks.

August reclaims the crown for Best Supporting Hooligan with a full-on golf clap. “I give it two months before you’re both attending date night in matching spit-up shirts.”

“Three weeks,” Layken bets, reaching across the couch to shake on it.

Barrett leans into the group, eyes shining. “I’ll officiate. I’m ordained.”

“No, you’re not,” Bodhi says from the kitchen, where he’s making grilled cheeses for the squad.

Barrett winks. “But I can be by the internet.”

Marlee lets her head tip back and groans, laughing. “Yes, fine. But unlike the rest of you, I’m actually showering before my wedding.”

“Too late,” I say and tug her hand. “This is the ceremony. You just said yes.”

She rolls her eyes and rests her cheek on the top of Ellis’s head. “Fine. But I don’t want to take the world from you Ledger,” she says, her head tilted, her eyes full of love. I’m about to argue with her when she finishes, “But I’ll share the world with you for as long as we both shall live.”

“Marlee Rose Remington, about to become Marlee Rose Dayne…” I reach up and place a kiss on her soft sweet lips, reminding myself to hold the memory of this very moment in my heart forever and ever. “You’ve got yourself a deal".

Read on for a sneak peek at the next book in the Anaheim Stars series!