“Fuck, yeah!” Smitty shouts as he bum rushes me, wrapping his arms around me and sending us crashing into the boards, Sawyer and Gray only a second behind him.
“Beaut,” Sawyer says.
“Sick,” Gray adds.
I’m grinning so damned wide that my face hurts, but I don’t give a fuck.
The crowd is roaring, absolutely roaring. Fans are pounding on the glass behind me. The goal song plays.
But as we break up our celebration and skate to the bench there’s only one person I’m looking for in the stands.
Harper is sitting about ten rows up, wearing a jersey that I know has my name emblazoned on the back, the material clinging to her belly that seems to have grown exponentially in the last couple of months—hell, it’s grown to seemingly astronomic proportions just over the last couple of weeks.
It’s December, our last game before the team’s Christmas break. We’ll have four days off over the holiday and then a short road trip.
Then…it’ll be at our little (or big now, really) potato’s due date.
Harper meets my gaze and winks, mouthing, “Good job.”
I wink back.
A jerk of her chin toward the ice, silently telling me to pay attention.
Grinning, I face forward and focus on the game.
Gotta impress the girl, right?
But I can’t lie—every time I return to the bench after a shift, our eyes connect. And my heart expands.
I’m so fucking in love with her.
Things haven’t been perfect, because neither of us are.
But that doesn’t mean every day hasn’t been better than the last.
I’m literally living the dream.
The final buzzer goes, and we’ve beaten the Gold, something that’s become a lot easier since their former starting goalie, Brit Plantain, retired at the end of last season. They’re in a rebuilding phase, and I’m sure that it won’t take long for them to make us really work for every win.
Right now, though, I’ll take being able to show off handily for my woman.
We do the three stars of the game thing—and as the second star of the game, I sign my puck and toss it over to a girl with pigtails who’s wearing a Grizzlies jersey.
She clutches it to her chest as she smiles up at her mom.
Yeah, we so need to have a little girl.
She can join the duo of Reese and Sophie—Kailey and Smitty’s daughter who’s a couple of months old now—and make a kickass female trio who keeps us on our toes as much as our women do.
Maybe we’ll even get Gray and Faye to join the fun.
I skate off the ice, getting one more wink from my woman who’s going home while I head into the locker room to go through my cool down routine, shower, and change.
I don’t linger and shoot the shit, like I used to—just do the minimum before I leave.
And Aiden, Gray, and Smitty are right beside me.
We have things to get home to.
