Page 69 of Pucking Daddy

Because what happened in that staff lounge isn’t about custody papers or court appearances. It’s about the way Zara looks at me. The way her skin feels under my fingers. The way she whispered together like she meant it.

"Jaxon." Simone's voice sharpens. "I need to know what I'm spinning here."

"Spin whatever you need to spin. Just keep Lily's name out of it."

"The daughter angle is actually—"

"Out of it, Simone."

She sighs. "Fine. But you're doing a press availability after practice today. Controlled questions, quick answers, we move on. And Jaxon? Maybe keep your hands to yourself until this blows over."

She hangs up before I can respond.

The apartment is quiet around me.

Lily has already left for school—Mrs. Henriksen has taken her early, before I'd even emerged from my bedroom. I'd heard them in the kitchen, Lily's chatter about her dragon cartoon mixing with the housekeeper's patient responses.

What I haven't heard is Zara.

She usually starts the mornings with Lily. Makes breakfast. Talks through the day's schedule while braiding my daughter's hair with a competence I can never manage. Her absence this morning sits wrong in my chest.

I find her in the living room, curled into the corner of the couch with her phone. She looks up when I enter.

Her expression is carefully neutral, but there’s tension in her shoulders.

"You saw," I say. Not a question.

"Hard to miss." She holds up her phone. The same article, same photos. "Danny texted me seven times before six AM. I think he's worried I've joined some kind of hockey cult."

"Who’s Danny?"

"My brother." She sets the phone down, face-up, like she can't quite stop looking at it. "He wants to know if I'm okay."

"Are you?"

The question lands between us. Zara meets my eyes, and I watch her consider lying. Consider giving me the easy answer, the professional response.

"I don't know," she says instead. "I've never been tabloid fodder before. It's... a lot."

I move to the opposite end of the couch, giving her space. “Simone’s handling it. She’s drafting a press statement. But since we have to move fast, it’ll include that we’re getting married. So we can expect more tabloid attention because of that. And if my experience with tabloids says anything, it won’t be kind.”

"Unless they don't." She pulls at a loose thread on her sweater. "Unless your ex-wife's lawyers decide to use this. Unless—"

"Hey." I lean forward. "That's not going to happen."

"You can't know that."

She is right. I can't.

But I'd spent the last five years fighting for Lily. Fighting to stay in her life when everything in the system seems designed to push fathers out.

Fighting to prove I can be enough—coach and parent, provider and presence. I'd learned that certainty is a luxury I can't afford, but action isn't.

"I know what I'm going to do about it," I say. "I'm going to go to practice. I'm going to coach my team. I'm going to come home tonight and read Lily her bedtime story. And tomorrow, I'm going to do it again. The lawyers, the press, the speculation—they can all go to hell. This is my life. Mine and Lily's."

I pause.

"And yours. If you still want it to be."