Hard Fall (St. Louis Mavericks 1)

It fucking killed me just thinking about it.

“You want to just order in?” I asked Hadley when I got the last of her things inside.

“Sure. Okay.” She nodded, looking around for a moment and then sinking into the couch.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “I’m going to figure this out.”

“Wes, I don’t know what to do.”

“I know.” I sat beside her and pulled her into my chest. She resisted for a second but then relaxed into me, her body going limp, though the fingers of one hand had a death grip on my shirt. I stroked her hair and we just sat there, as if we suddenly had no purpose. No kids, no hockey, no nothing but the silence of my very quiet and sterile condo.

Had it always felt this way?

No. I’d loved my condo until all of this happened. Hell, I hadn’t even put it on the market because I wasn’t sure what we were doing and I didn’t want to live anywhere else if I wasn’t going to be with Hadley and the kids. Except now everything had changed. I wanted to live in a big house with Hadley and the kids. I wanted to buy something new that she and I could make into a home, both for us and for them.

Fuck.

When had I started thinking this way?

“I’m kinda hungry,” I said after a while. “Let me order something and I’ll come right back.”

“Okay.” She looked so lost; I would have done anything to fix it. To make her smile again.

Instead, I ordered Chinese food from our favorite place and then sank back down next to her. I reached out my hand and she slowly placed hers in it.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I still see Annalise’s face, crying and calling for me. I feel like the worst human being on the planet right now.”

“I’m so fucking pissed right now.”

She didn’t respond at first and when she finally turned her head, tears were puddled in her eyes, threatening to spill over any minute.

I reached out to brush them away with my thumbs. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Everything.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’m going to call my dad and if I get him involved with this custody battle, the Whitmers aren’t going to know what hit them. I didn’t want to bring in the big guns because they’re mourning the loss of their son, but now that they’re playing hardball, I’m going to double up our efforts too.”

“You don’t understand.” She rubbed her eyes and sniffled.

“Talk to me.”

“There’s no we. It’s all you now. Don’t you see? I have to go back to New York or I’m going to lose my job. And once I’m back, I’ll be working sixteen-hour days again, with no support system for the kids. The smarter choice—for the kids—is for you to take custody. You have the money to make sure they’re okay, and you have your Mavericks family to help you. I have no one but a handful of workaholic, single girlfriends who know less about kids than I do, and probably have even less free time than I do.”

“But—” I started to protest but she put a gentle finger on my lips.

“This is about the kids. I want them, I love them, and I’ll spend every moment of vacation I have being Aunt Hadley, coming to see them, talking to them on the phone…but on a day-to-day basis, you’re the better choice, Wes. The writing’s on the wall.”

I stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying even as my gut churned with disbelief and frustration. Part of me agreed, because I did have more time than she did, even with as much as I traveled. But we were a team, dammit, and this thing between us was more than sex, no matter what it had started out as.

“Hadley.” I put one of my hands on the side of her face, forcing her to look at me. “What about us?”

She blinked, and this time a single tear ran down the other side of her face. “I don’t have time for an us. Not with the way my job is. Unless you got traded to New York…” Her voice trailed off.

The chances of that happening were slim to none and we both knew it.

“You don’t have to work,” I said after a moment. “I make millions of dollars a year and we also have everything Ben and Lauren left for the kids. We could make it work, and it would be—”

“You want me to quit?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“I don’t want you to quit. I’m just saying you have the option.”

“And I’d do what? Stay home and be the kids’ full-time nanny?”

She looked pissed and I didn’t understand what she was mad about.

“You could find a job that’s less demanding, with a more understanding boss, someone who’d—”