“Yeah, we’re gonna miss you too. It’ll be fucking weird not playing with you. How’re you feeling?”
“Alright, excited about being with the girls and having some time off. Happy that Wolf and I can go back to England for a bit and spend some time there, maybe knock her up again.” He grinned, his eyebrow rising. “Not sure how I’ll feel when next season starts and I’m not part of it, but we’ll see I guess.”
“Do you know who Coach will make Captain when you step down?”
He scratched through his beard. “He’s asked my opinion, but I don’t know what he’ll decide.”
“You said me, right?” I demanded.
His beer stopped just before it touched his lips, a smirk creeping up one corner. “Of course, just before we pissed ourselves laughing.”
“My money was on Sands, but that won’t happen if Coach finds out he’s trying to date his daughter.”
“When are you going to be back on the ice again?”
I gave him a lopsided shrug. “I’ve got x-rays coming up to check, but hopefully two more weeks of the brace and these goddamn crutches, and then I can start swimming and doing light leg weights. The doc says early summer before I can step on the ice, then it’s just a matter of getting game-ready.”
I was healing nicely, but the hard work was still way ahead of me.
“Such a fucking ball-ache.”
I looked over to Molly, sipping on her champagne and smiling wide, and whatever she was saying to the girls had them all howling in laughter. Even over the music, the boys and Freddie’s cackling all I could hear was Molly laughing. And it was my favorite sound. Her smile was my favorite view. It always had been and I would never tire of it.
“Yeah I know, but you know what? Molly had a surgery the other week and she’d had to amputate this kid’s leg, and he was at the start of his career. I’ve been so fucking lucky injury-wise and I’m coming to the end of my time on the ice, and as much of a fucking ball-ache as this was, at least I still have my leg. I couldn’t have grown that back.”
But for me, there was more to it. Because I hadn’t added that without the accident, I don’t know if I’d have found Molly the way I had, and that made my stomach churn in the way it did before you hurled. The anxiety of a near miss. And I didn’t want to think about that never happening, or us wasting any more of our lives by not being together.
“Poor kid.”
“I know.” I turned to Drew. “It’s made me think about the foundation idea though. What if we created one that helpedamputee kids or kids born without limbs, find their way into hockey? Or something like that?”
His jaw moved from side to side as he thought about it. “That’s not a bad plan at all. I like it. We can ask Mol to hook us up with some experts to get some background, and it doesn’t have to be only hockey, could be any sport. But I think this is better than anything else we’ve come up with.”
“What’s this?” Jasper asked, taking another beer from the waiter.
“Clevs and I have just been shooting ideas around for what we want to do when we retire.”
“You’re retiring?”
Drew shook his head. “Not yet, just setting things in motion for when the time comes.”
“Smart.” He sipped. “How long do you think that’ll be?”
I shrugged. “Couple of seasons, maybe.”
I never used to be able to picture the day when I retired, but now it was a real conversation. Jas was games away from it, him and Cooper were both parents. So much had changed during the past few years. I watched the waiter offer more drinks to the girls, speaking to them as he did and they all made their way over to the table and us. It was hard to remember what it had been like without them. Life before they’d been around. What we’d been like.
“How the fuck did we manage to get them?” Drew muttered, reading my mind and following my line of sight to Molly who was walking toward me.
“I have no clue.”
She leaned down, kissing me, and I couldn’t stop my hand from sliding up the back of her bare leg, stroking the skin I’d been craving since she’d left the hospital.
She frowned at Cooper as she stood back up, his eyes glued to us with confusion. “What?”
He rolled his lips. “Nothing, just getting used to this. But you look happy, Mol. I like it.”
She kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
