He groans. “It’s not my fault,” he says, and I can hear him breathing heavy, and I look and see that he’s probably working out right now.
“How is it not your fault?” I ask him as I make my way toward the arena. We have practice today and a game tomorrow.
“She called me,” he explains. “And then she was asking why her parents flew to Dallas.”
“And you said?” I ask him.
“I hung up the phone on her,” he says, proud of himself.
“And then?” I ask, laughing to myself.
“Then she called me back,” he replies. “I told her I didn’t know and to call you.” I don’t say anything. “She knew I was lying.”
“So you couldn’t lie to her?” I ask him, and he groans.
“The last time she found out I lied to her,” he says, “she put baby oil in my sunscreen.” He hisses out, “I was a fucking lobster for two weeks.”
“God, that was bad,” I recall. Shaking my head, I remember how bad it was. “You had blisters everywhere.”
“Don’t remind me,” he says. “I heard the lunch was good, though.”
“It went really good,” I say. “Alex got shit-faced.”
Now it’s time for him to laugh. “I was wondering why she was sending me pictures of the walls, but they were blurry. I think I even got one of her eyeball.” His voice goes low. “So what are you going to do about Jillian?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say to him.
“Are you going to marry her?” he asks.
I laugh. “You have to stop hanging around with Uncle Matthew,” I say as I get to the arena and park my SUV at the same time as Cooper gets there. He gets out of his own SUV as he stares at me. “I’m going to let you go. Cooper is here, and from the looks of it, he’s not happy with me.”
“I heard,” he says. “He called me to ask me if I knew.”
“And you said no, right?” I say to him, and he laughs. “I’m not telling you anything again.” I hang up on him and get out of the SUV.
“Hey,” I greet, looking over at him and seeing that we are both wearing the same tracksuit with the team logo on it.
“Don’t fucking hey me,” he says. “I can’t believe you.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t know she was the girls’ teacher,” I defend, putting my hands up. “I mean, it’s not like we discussed what we did for a living.”
“She is the sweetest, kindest person I know,” he says, and all I can do is smile, proud that my child is going to have her as a mom. Everything about her is amazing, from her smile to her laugh and even the way she glares.
“You slept with her. Did you even know her name?” he asks, and I turn to walk into the arena.
“Of course, I knew her name,” I say. “She just didn’t know I played hockey or what my last name was.”
“Did you dip and go?” he asks, and I look around to make sure that no one can hear us.
“No, I wanted to see her again, but I was waiting for her to call, and she never did, and then my phone got stolen,” I say, and his eyes go big. “Yeah, so that happened.”
“Pregnant,” he says the words again. “Like she’s having your baby.” He slaps my shoulder. “Your life will never be the same again.”
“Thanks,” I say, walking into the room and seeing everyone getting dressed for the on-ice practice.
“Ice in ten minutes.” The coach sticks his head into the room. “If anyone is late, we start with suicides.” He takes his watch out and starts a ten-minute timer.
“Ugh,” I groan, getting dressed as fast as I can. I’m one of the last to get on the ice, and when his timer goes off, we look around, and everyone is busy counting.
“Good timing,” he says. “Manning, start the stretching.”
We get in a circle at center ice as we start the warm-up. We do drills, and he makes us skate for three hours. I skate off the ice, and I have sweat pouring down my face; I huff out as I hand my gloves to the equipment manager.
Walking into the dressing room, I peel off my shirt and untie my skates. Sitting down on the bench, I'm drinking water when my phone buzzes, and I look down and see that it’s Jillian.
Grabbing the phone, I walk out of the room and away from the reporters waiting to interview a couple of us. “Hey,” I answer, putting the phone to my ear and stepping into an empty office, and closing the door.
“Hi,” she says, and my whole face fills with a smile. “Am I catching you at a bad time?” she asks, and I can hear her walking.