I flip down the visor and catch my own reflection in the mirror. Pinched brows. Downturned mouth. The permanent scowl I apparently can't do anything about.
I push the visor back up.
She's not wrong that I'm angry. She's just wrong about who I'm angry at. I'm furious with myself. For missing her game. For not being the parent standing in that gym when she needed someone familiar in the crowd. For being split down the middle between the career I've built and the kid I'd burn it all down for without hesitation. I know the rational version of this. I'm thirty-two, still in my prime, still earning. I can't be in two places at once and she needs the stability my career provides.
I have enough money that I could retire today, and we'd never want for anything. That thought lives in the back of my head more than I'd like to admit. Which means the only person I’m actually choosing hockey over Sawyer for is myself.
I glance at her again in the mirror. The little girl who used to fall asleep on my chest is still in there somewhere underneath all that twelve-year-old pride and quiet toughness. She still needs me. She just doesn't always know how to say it, and I don't know how to show it without making her feel like a burden that she isn't.
Her mom would have been at that game. She would have known exactly what to say on the drive home. What to do with the silence and tears. How to make Sawyer feel like everything was okay without forcing it. I never figured out how she did that. I wasn’t around her enough before she passed away. Too busy chasing a career and a living.
I steal another glance in the rearview at her. She’s grown up so fast. She’s not my little girl anymore—she’s on the cusp of teenagerhood. Boys, periods, mood swings, and emotions I don’thave a clue how to navigate. I’m so far out of my depth and I don’t know how to get back in control.
I flick my eyes to Bri, her head’s resting against the passenger window, eyes closed, her soft breath barely audible over the music. Her playlist is still going, one nostalgic song after another, and sure, I could’ve turned it off by now, she wouldn’t notice, but I haven’t. Partly because I wanted her to be happy listening to her tunes on the drive back to Brookhaven, and partly because there’s something comforting about listening to the same music she grew up with, knowing that she was once a little girl too. Just like Sawyer.
Bri is an extraordinary woman. She’s complex. Thoughtful. Kind. Fiercely loving. She was raised by a single parent, too, and that didn’t seem to hold her back. She’s a strong woman who loves freely and gives so much of herself to the people that are around her. She could be more jaded, more upset at the circumstances with her dad, yet she finds beauty and romance in every encounter with a stranger.
It gives me hope. Hope that maybe I’m not totally fucking this up with Sawyer despite how I feel.
I grip the wheel tighter, my mind racing as the highway stretches endlessly ahead of us. I want to reach across the console, thread my fingers through Bri’s, hold her the way I did last night—feel her warmth pressed into my body, breathe in her sweet scent, and lose myself in the safety of her touch.
Two things I know are true. I want her more than I've ever wanted anyone else, and I’m a mess. I come with history, relationship and emotional baggage and a daughter who will always come before everything else, including whatever this is. I've been married twice and failed both times in different ways.
Any rational person would look at all that and run.
Bri doesn't run. She looks at all of it, the whole ugly complicated picture, and she doesn't flinch. She looks at me like I'm someone worth wanting anyway. I don't know what to do with that, but after what happened last night, after she sacrificed her own health and time for my daughter, I know we need to have an honest conversation. Because I’m so fucking tired of holding back.
Three hours later I'm pulling up in front of her house in Brookhaven. The sun is hanging low, throwing long amber shadows across her front porch, the kind of light that makes everything look quieter than it is. I put the car in park and sit there for a second.
Bri's still asleep in the passenger seat, head tipped slightly toward the window, lips parted, one hand loose in her lap. She looks young like this. Unguarded, except she always looks that way. I don't want to wake her, but I do it anyway. Because she'll sleep better in her own bed, and it’s been a long twenty-four hours for all of us.
“Hey,” I whisper softly.
Her eyes flutter open, sleepy and unfocused for a second before they lock onto mine. Green.So fucking green. Way greener than they are when they’ve been open for a while. Like the moss in the fantasy movies Sawyer loves to watch. It reminds me of faeries and the twinkle lights I hung in her room when we moved here just a few short weeks ago.
“Oh. Hi there,” she whispers, her smile making my chest tighten.
"We're at your place," I say. "I can drop Sawyer off and then bring your car back down later?”
She stirs, stretching slowly, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she takes in her surroundings. Then her face falls.
"You drove the whole way?" She looks at me. "Seth, I'm sorry. You just played a full game, and I left you alone up here without anyone to talk to. You must be exhausted."
“It’s all good. I got enough sleep last night.”
A lie. I barely slept at all. But the hours I spent tangled up with her, feeling her body against mine, were the best rest I’ve had in a long time. I’d take another sleepless night if it meant being able to hold her on my chest again.
She glances toward the house, then back at me, her expression softening. “I’m just gonna shower and freshen up. I’ll walk down with dinner for you two later then I can check on Sawyer? In case she wants to talk. Unless…” She hesitates, her voice quieter now. “Unless you’d rather it just be the two of you tonight. I know I’m not working, but I thought she might want a distraction. Maybe she’ll want to hit a few balls together in the backyard when she wakes up?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I cut her off, though part of me really wants her to do exactly that and more. I want to spend more time with her. I want to stare at her as she smiles and learn everything there is to know about her. But at the same time, I don’t want her spending energy on cooking us a meal or enjoying her free evening off when she’s already done way too much for us.
There’s a flicker of disappointment in her expression. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just text me if you change your mind.” Her gaze drops slightly, her tone a little softer now. “If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you both want some alone time.”
I don’t know what to say. She’s not working right now, but she still wants to go out of her way to take care of us. Because that’s who Bri is. Loving. Generous. Selfless. She enjoys spending time with people, touching and connecting with them. Showing up insmall and big acts of service. Hell, I think every love language is her favorite and—fuck, she’s touching me. She reaches across the console and squeezes my bicep, her fingers gentle, her eyes serious as her voice lowers so that only I can hear her.
“I know I’m not a parent yet, but she’s a good kid, Seth, and she’s going to be an even better young woman because she has you as a father guiding her. You’re doing a great job.”
Her words hit me hard. I swallow the lump in my throat as she slips out of the car, closing the door softly behind her. I watch her disappear inside her house, and that familiar ache in my chest—the one that feels too much likesurrender—settles in deep.
