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“Why do you think we need a women’s shelter specifically?” Kodi asked him and both his eyebrows shot up and he began stammering apologies. “You’re good, it’s just something you need to be cognizant of the sort of safety precautions these women need to take.” Then she turned to me and said, “I’m thinking of getting a shot of him doing laundry. That’s every woman’s dream, right? A man doing all their domestic labor.”

“Oh for sure.”

“Are you gonna have Christenson do all the chores for you? ’Cause knowing him, he’ll do it without a second thought.” Kodi led the way out of the room and down a series of hallways, Brooker following behind us, eyes on his phone.

“No, having him do chores for me is … too domestic. We’re not a couple, just … co-parents.”

Kodi’s brow furrowed for just a second before she shook the look away.

“Right, sorry. But your kid is gonna have a lot of uncle figures. Nobody else on the team has kids, so everyone’s super excited.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding her head. “I think Christenson is the oldest on the team, so it tracks that he’s the first one to have a kid. Though Brooker …” she trailed off and gave the man behind us a narrowed look.

“No way. I always wrap.” He shook his head so vehemently, I had to laugh.

“We did too,” I told him and the color drained from his face. Kodi and I giggled, but she also went over to pat Brooker on the shoulder.

“I’m sure they would’ve let you know,” she said and I bit my lip, specifically not saying that I considered not telling Niall.

“Right,” he said, a little uncertainly. “Anyway, they’re all down on the field now.”

Kodi mumbled an affirmative and shifted our trajectory. As we continued down the halls, the blank, boring walls turned vibrant. Everything was green and yellow, palm trees painted across the walls, only interrupted by retired player photos. Then on our last turn, the wall was painted with "nice" graffiti. If you can call the encouragement to "fuck ’em up" nice.

And when we reached the end of the graffiti hallway, it opened up to the field.

We had a soccer field at the school that the track ran around, but this was completely different. For one, our school field was apparently not regulation size. But more noticeably, this field was cared for. Not a single blade of grass was misaligned, no spots of discoloring, it was all perfectly green.

And out on the field were a bunch of shirtless hotties surrounding my baby daddy, kicking the ball or knocking it with their head in an intense game of keep-away.

“Oh shit, I wanna play!” Brooker shouted and jogged out onto the field.

“Hey, Kodi,” a grumbly voice said as a tall, lumberjack man came over to Kodi and kissed the top of her head. She smiled warmly back up at him.

“How much of a pain have the others been?” When the man just grumbled and shrugged, Kodi laughed. “Leah, this is my boyfriend, Olli. He’s the best goalkeeper in the world.”

“I think you’re a little biased,” he said, voice gruff. But under his dense beard, I could see the hint of a smile.

“Where’s Rosa?” Kodi asked, leaning around her boyfriend to look up and down the field. “I thought she was coming down here to yell at Christenson.”

“She did, gave him an earful about how you shouldn’t tell folks about a pregnancy until the next trimester or something. I couldn’t catch all of what she was saying and I’m not sure he did either. But either way, once she was done yelling, the guys decided to punish him with keep-away.”

“Naturally,” Kodi scoffed. “Think you can get them to chill out?”

Kean huffed and jogged out to the circle of boys. He pushed through and stole the ball, kicking it up in the air before hitting it with his head. The ball flew over the heads of the others, a few of the guys jumping to try and reach it, before landing a good dozen feet away from everyone.

“Thanks, Kean,” Niall said, clapping the other man on his shoulder, panting.

“No problem. Your girl’s over on the sidelines,” Kean said, tilting his head toward me.

“Oh, no. Not my girl. Co-parent and friend.” Niall looked up to meet my eyes, chewing at his bottom lip, brows furrowing with uncertainty. Rolling my eyes, I gave him a thumbs-up. He was being as respectful as possible and it wasn’t his fault that it was also hot as hell.

Plus it was nice to hear him call me a friend after all the trouble I’ve caused him. It reaffirmed that despite how much of a pain I was to deal with, he was still in this.

“So, do you get bullied a lot at work?” I asked Niall when he and Kean joined us.

“No.” He sighed. “They apparently did a rock, paper, scissors tournament to see who got to meet you first and everyone else had to ‘distract’ me.”