Page 33 of Meant for Mayhem

I’d need to get her added to the building, make space for her things, and figure out what she liked to eat because my refrigerator was stocked for a hockey player and a toddler.

Thinking through the logistical details of combining our lives settled something inside me. My brain liked a plan, and checking things off before Shannon even had the chance to think of them eased some of the guilt I’d carried since I’d dragged her into this mess.

Nine months.

That was it.

Nine months to get through the season, then I’d have an entire off-season to figure out what came next.

Leena and I ducked into the courthouse bathroom to change clothes before meeting Shannon in the hallway. I’d swapped my sweaty ones for a button-down and jeans, and she’d changed exactly nothing. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

“No. Not about this.”

Shannon studied me for a moment, one dark brow raised before she walked up to the counter, ready to sign our names on a dotted line.

The ceremony lasted less than five minutes. We signed where the clerk pointed and repeated words when he told us to.

No family.

No celebration.

Just a folded marriage license and a legal solution to an impossible problem.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the judge said when it was all said and done. “Congratulations, you three.”

I looked over at Shannon—my wife.

8

Trees lined the sidewalks outside Vail, the brown-and-white architecture looking more like the Swiss Alps than a rustic mountain town. I let myself get distracted by the familiar storefronts while Mikko disappeared on a quick errand. That felt easier than thinking about the fact that I’d gotten married an hour ago.

Something clinked against the inside window, pulling my attention back to the car.

I glanced into the rearview mirror to see a chubby hand pop over the side of Leena’s rear-facing car seat. Cinderella lay on the floorboards, right where Leena pointed.

“Do you want your toy back?”

She grunted and tugged harder on the straps of her car seat, trying to turn around and face me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a tiny voice insisted I should be processing my new marital status instead of mentally assessing a toddler’s speech and language development.

But Leena was the whole reason I was here, after all...

The third time Cinderella went flying across the car, I climbed over the center console and into the backseat beside her.

“Doll,” I said, holding it up.

She smiled and took it from my hand without trying to repeat the word.

Testing this theory, I grabbed the first things I could find in my bag.

“Phone. Keys. Pen.”

She watched every item, reaching for each one when I named it, but not a single word back.

At her age, I wouldn’t even call this a speech delay yet, but the fact she wasn’t forming any intentional sounds was worth noting, especially considering her mother’s history with addiction.