"I know."
"Do you?"
He looked down. He didn't know.
I moved through the room the same way I moved through it every Saturday. Chinstrap on Finn, who was seven and hadno natural sense of self-preservation. Laces retied on Sofia, who had the determination but not the fingers for a proper knot. The Delaney twins were fighting over a roll of tape—I confiscated it, handed them each a stick, and moved on. I knew their names, their parents, their weak spots, and which one of them was going to cry first if practice ran long. Four years of Saturdays had given me that.
Practice was short drills on center ice. Crossovers at the blue line, most of them turning into controlled crashes. A passing drill that was more suggestion than execution. Sofia got her edges under her for three full strides before she went down, and I told her that was the best three strides I'd seen all season, and she got up with her chin set like she was going to do four. Finn skated into the boards twice. Wes figured out how to stop without hitting anything, which for Wes was a breakthrough. I blew the whistle, ran the drill, and reset the cones.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I wasn't supposed to check it during practice. I checked it because I was a parent now, and parents check their phones.
A photo from Audrey. Taken from the bleachers.
Nova in the carrier, wrapped in the gray-and-white blanket my mother knit, the fox onesie underneath. Her eyes were open. She was staring at the ice with the focused expression of a two-month-old who had opinions about what she was seeing and no words for them yet.
I looked up. Audrey was in the bleachers, three rows up, near the corner. She gave me a small wave. I gave her one back. Finn skated into the boards, and I was back in practice mode.
But the thing landed while I was resetting the cones. My daughter was in the bleachers. In four years, I never once looked up at those seats and saw someone who was mine. The seats were for parents. I was Coach D. Now there was a baby in the third row who had my dimple, and the woman holding her was awoman I'd spent almost a year falling for. The two of them were watching me teach a seven-year-old how to stop.
I ran the next drill.
Practice ended. The kids hit the bench, parents started down from the bleachers, and the locker room was about to become the usual post-practice disaster. I was pulling cones off the ice when Finn pointed at the bleachers with his stick.
"Coach D. Is that baby yours?"
I looked up. Audrey was coming down the steps with the carrier in her hand, Nova visible under the blanket.
"Yeah," I said. "That's my daughter."
I said it without thinking about it. Plain. Owned. Finn nodded like that was reasonable information and skated off toward his mother.
I stood at center ice with my stick across my knees, and the interior caught up a beat late. That was the first time I'd said it outside the firehouse, outside my family. And the saying was the easiest thing I'd done all week. No performance in it. No charm. Just the fact, and the fact was mine.
I looked up at the bleachers. Audrey was at the bottom of the steps, the carrier in her hand. She'd heard me. I could see it on her face, the small thing her mouth was doing that wasn't quite a smile.
I skated to the boards. "Hi."
"Hi."
Nova in the carrier between us, eyes still on the ice, waiting for the practice to start again.
We had lunch on Main Street with Nova in the carrier on a third chair between us, both of us eating burgers, and then drove to my place with Audrey in the passenger seat and Nova in the back.
She'd been here twice now. She pulled her boots off at the door this time without thinking, which I noticed and didn't sayanything about. The house was the same—the small kitchen, the framed firehouse photo, the coffeemaker on the counter—except for the second bedroom, where a portable crib sat in the corner that hadn't been there last time.
We put Nova down together, her hand on the baby's chest until the breathing steadied, the monitor clicked on, and the door pulled partially shut. Audrey came out of the nursery, and I was in the kitchen pouring water from the Brita when she crossed the room, took the glass out of my hand, set it on the counter, and kissed me.
I kissed her back with both hands at her waist, and the afternoon opened up around us.
This was the part I hadn't expected. Not the sex—I'd expected the sex, or at least, I'd wanted it badly enough that expecting and wanting had blurred into the same thing. What I hadn't expected was that it would keep getting better.
A decade of casual had taught me that the first time with someone was the sharpest version, and everything after dulled by a degree. That was the logic underneath the goodbyes. The first night carried the charge. The second carried less. By the third, you were maintaining something instead of discovering it.
Audrey had blown that logic apart in about a week.
This time was different from the first.
The first time had been the relief of finally, the months of holding back giving way all at once. This time had daylight in it. I could see her properly, the freckle below her collarbone I'd found in the dark and was finding again now in the afternoon light coming through the bedroom window. I was paying attention in a different way. Not the urgency of the first time, but something slower, more deliberate—the beginning of learning where she was sensitive, what she wanted, the specific sound she made when I found the right angle and stayed there. Except therig didn't pull my hair or laugh against my mouth when I did something she wasn't expecting.
