His mouth twitches.
Mine almost does too.
I hang up coats while Colby carries her toward the hallway. The soft glow from the kitchen light follows them across the hardwood floors, and something inside my chest twists painfully at the sight… a man carrying my daughter to bed, a normal thing, an ordinary thing. And more importantly, a thing I stopped expecting my life to include a long time ago.
I follow them quietly.
Jillie’s room glows softly with string lights around the headboard and glow-in-the-dark snowflakes stuck crookedly to the ceiling. Colby kneels beside the bed carefully while I pull off her fancy shoes and she curls sleepily beneath her blankets.
“You came to my concert,” she murmurs to Colby. “I said I would.”
“You clap loud.”
“I’m very supportive.”
Her eyes drift mostly closed.
Then: “Can you come to school again sometime?”
My heart squeezes hard enough to hurt. Colby glances at me briefly before answering. “If your mom says it’s okay.”
Always that. Always giving me room to breathe.
Jillie nods sleepily like that answer satisfies her completely.
A minute later she’s asleep.
Colby stands quietly, then automatically reaches down to pull the blanket higher over her shoulder where it slipped loose.
I freeze, because he does it absentmindedly, naturally. It’s like taking care of people is wired into him somewhere beneath the hockey fame and public reputation.
He notices me watching.
For one second, neither of us says anything.
Then he steps back carefully from the bed.
We move into the hallway together in silence.
And suddenly the house feels too quiet.
Too warm.
Too intimate.
“I should probably go,” he says softly.
Relief flickers briefly. Then disappointment arrives right behind it. Wonderful.
“You promised hot chocolate,” I remind him.
Something shifts in his expression, softens. “Right.”
The kitchen light glows warmly around us while snow falls harder outside the windows. Briar Cove disappears beneath white drifts and soft gold streetlights until the whole world feels distant and hushed.
Safe.
That feeling should not involve Colby Reid standing barefoot in my kitchen because he thought to take off his wet boots.
