“It doesn’t matter who gave birth to us.”
“I know it’s not supposed to matter.” I look away.
“They didn’t have to take us, or keep us.”
“Would they have wanted us if we weren’t good hockey players?”
The question hangs in the air. Martin was a youth hockey coach, and he took two talented Russian boys with natural hockey skills and trained them to be NHL stars.
“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe they took us because we were good hockey players, but they didn’t have to treat us like their blood, and they always have. They love you, Alexei, but you’ve never really accepted that. Laura’s been worried sick about you for a long time now.”
“I love them, you know I do.” I put my elbows on my knees, leaning forward.
“Then talk to them. They’ve never let us down, you know?”
I nod. “I will.”
Anton clears his throat. “Hey, I’ve got something to tell you.”
Oh, shit. I’ve lost my spot on the Blaze. I can just feel it. Anton did everything he could to hold a spot for his deadbeat, injured brother, but it’s gone now. And I’m finished—no team will ever want me now.
“I’m off the team,” I say, sighing. “I figured as much.”
“No, you’re not. We’re expecting you to make it back onto the ice, and don’t you forget it. We can send a trainer here to work with you if you want.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He grins. “What I have to tell you…it’s actually good news. The best news, really. You’re gonna be an uncle.”
I jump up from the couch, my hip rebelling against the sudden movement with a twinge. “No fucking way! Are you serious?”
He nods. “Mia and I applied with an adoption agency a few months ago and we found out two weeks ago that a birth mom picked us for her twins.”
“Twins?!” I put both hands on top of my head, elated and stunned. “You guys are having twins?”
“Two girls, in about three months.”
“Holy shit!” I look at Graysen, then reach down to hug her without even thinking about it. “Did you hear that? I’m gonna be an uncle!”
She laughs lightly in my ear, letting me pull her up from the couch.
“Congratulations,” she says to me before looking over at Anton. “And congratulations to you and your wife, too.”
“Thank you. We’re so damn excited.”
I release Graysen, letting her sit back down, and walk over to embrace my brother.
“Our family, mine and yours, is about to get bigger,” he says. “Two more reasons to take care of yourself.”
“I will, man.”
We sit back down and talk some more, but I can’t keep the smile off my face. Anton and Mia have been struggling with infertility for a while now, and I know how badly they both want children. I want to be a good uncle to my new nieces—someone they can look up to, and drinking doesn’t fit with that.
After our session, Graysen escorts Anton to the front lobby and comes back to her office, sitting down in her chair across from me.
“How do you think that went?” she asks me.
“I think it went great. I feel about a thousand pounds lighter than I did before.”
“Good.”
I stand up and walk over to her chair, sitting on the coffee table in front of her and taking her hand in mine. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t stop me.
“Thank you for that,” I say, looking into her eyes.
“I didn’t do much.”
I gently squeeze her hand. “You sat beside me. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”
She smiles, her expression warm. “Of course I sat beside you.”
“Don’t tell me that’s what you do with all your patients when they have family visits,” I say, winking. “Let me think it was just for me.”
Laughing lightly, she says, “I do always sit with my patient on the couch, but I never sit that close. There’s supposed to be a whole cushion of space between us.”
“A cushion?” I stroke my thumb over her soft skin. “Is that an official Beckett rule?”
“Believe it or not, it is. And I’ve never broken a single rule here…until you.”
I hold her gaze, wanting to break some more rules with her. But that’s not who she is. Graysen isn’t a woman I want to sneak around with. I want to date her properly, for the whole world to see.
I can’t do that for at least another thirteen days.
Learning not to just do what feels good, damn the consequences, is hard. But she’s worth it. So I squeeze her hand one more time and get up from my seat.
“I’ll see you in group this afternoon,” I say.
“Okay.”
I leave her office then, hoping there will come a day when I don’t have to walk away.17GraysenIt’s been a week since Alexei’s session with his brother, and there’s been something new on his face since that day—peace.