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ONE YEAR LATER
“Another game, another win for the Sven’s Beard Squatches!” I pumped my fist in celebration with Spencer’s team, which was my favorite to coach for obvious reasons.
Though Spence hadn’t been interested in playing hockey when we lived in Minneapolis, he wanted to play when he found out all his friends at school did.
Spending time at the arena teaching him the game I loved was a dream come true for me. Grady coached Marley’s team, but I joined him for as many practices and games as I could. Hockey was a way of life in the Beard, and I loved that my kids had embraced it.
“Spence, did your mom make snacks?” one of his teammates asked him as we gathered our gear at the bench.
“Yeah, she made ice cream bars,” Spencer said, clearly pleased.
Other kids assumed Shea was my kids’ mom since she was at every practice and game and also at our house every time anyone came over. After hiring someone to care for the yard at the home she was rarely at all summer, I’d finally convinced her to move in.
I’d always thought I was too traditional to have a woman living in my home with me and my kids when we weren’t married, but the four of us had been going to counseling to make sure we made the best choices for the kids, and our therapist had opened our eyes to a few things.
Being a family wasn’t about technicalities like a marriage license. It was about being there for each other through the good times and the bad. The kids and I wanted Shea to officially move in, and I planned to propose to her within the next year.
Everything we wanted, we already had. Marrying her would make it official, and I wanted that, too, but for now, the kids needed to get used to her living with us.
The boys dumped their sweaty hockey gear in the locker room and showered, cleaning the mess up quickly because they knew Shea’s homemade ice cream bars were waiting.
It took her a long time to make them, but they were always a huge hit with the kids. She wrapped each bar in paper stamped with “Sven’s Kitchen,” the name of her business.
When we met up with her in the snack bar, Spencer ran into her arms for a congratulatory hug.
“Did you see my assist?” he asked her.
“Of course I did. Great job!”
Avon stood near our table, five-week-old Georgie in her arms. She and Grady were over the moon excited about their new daughter. Grady was itching to take her around the rink for a skate in her daddy’s arms, but Avon refused to let him until she was older.
“Ice cream bar?” Shea asked me, holding one out.
“You know it. Thanks, babe.”
I opened it and took a bite, finding a layer of caramel in the center of the chocolate-coated homemade vanilla ice cream on a stick.
“You added caramel,” I said. “It’s amazing.”
“I thought you might like it.”
Now that I was skating a lot and getting into the weight room with my teams, I was back in fighting form. I’d put on around fifteen happy pounds over the first few months of my relationship with Shea.
Grady walked into the snack bar, a giant in his ice skates with guards. He immediately made an overly happy face for Georgie, his mouth open and his eyes wide.
“There’s my future Olympic hockey champion,” he said, opening his arms. “Come see Daddy.”
“Did you wash your hands?” Avon asked.
“Yes, warden.”
She gave him a look and Grady kissed her before she passed him the baby.
“There she is,” he said, kissing her forehead and cradling her. “My perfect little Gigi.”
Georgie made a face and grunted, Grady’s expression shifting.
