It's Our Time (Carolina Rebels 3)

“How old is your daughter?” Theresa asks.

“She turns three in March.”

“She’s adorable,” Meredith tells me.

“Thanks.” I glance down at the ice. We were a little late, so it’s already started.

“Mommy!” Savannah rushes over, but whatever she wanted to say is forgotten. Her eyes widen as she sees the ice. “Oh, ice! They fast!”

I lean down, so she’s the only one who will hear me. “Yep, they are. Your daddy is out there somewhere, too.”

“I wanna go!”

“You can’t right now. They are playing a hockey game, so you have to be a player to be on the ice. Your daddy plays, that’s why he is on the ice. Are you having fun with your new friends?”

She nods and leaves me to keep playing.

“Do you want us to explain the game to you?” Sylvia asks.

“No, that’s okay. This will probably be the only game I’ll see.”

That surprises them, but I don’t care. I’m not a sports fan and I’m pretty sure the only reason why Ian asked us to come is so Savannah could see him play. Too bad she’s having more fun playing with the other girls. My eyes alternate between Savannah and the ice.

Everything seems to be the same when I look at the game. The players are either on one end of the ice or the other, it seems. They crash and bump into the boards a lot. Other than that, they chase the little black puck around and are pretty aggressive with their sticks sometimes. At least, it seems so to me.

At some point, one of our players is carted off to sit all by himself, which just from watching the jumbotron, I learn is because he earned a penalty. That makes me laugh. He’s in timeout like a two-year-old. Do other sports do this?

Despite having him sitting in the box while he watches his teammates work hard for his mistake, as they are now a player short—it took me about thirty seconds to realize this—they manage to score a goal. A loud horn goes off.

Savannah rushes over. “What happen, Mommy?”

“Rebels scored. Goal!” I raise my forearms, though I really don’t care and if it wasn’t for the announcer, I wouldn’t know who scored the goal.

“Goal!” Savannah repeats, raising her arms. She climbs into my lap to watch the game as one of the girls, whose name I learn is Stella, comes to sit in Sylvia’s lap. Stella and Savannah talk. Stella seems to know the game way better than I do. She impresses me as she talks to Savannah as if she’s really understanding everything she says.

The women don’t say much more to me since I made the comment about how I probably won’t be back to another game. I don’t know if this is good or bad. They spend most of their time talking to one another, so they know each other well. But I probably won’t be coming back to another game unless Savannah wants to come.

The Rebels score another goal. Savannah claps and cheers when she hears the goal horn, her arms going up in the air as she shouts, “Goal!”

My mind wanders back to yesterday. I wonder how long it’ll take before Ian stops being mad at me. Yeah, I know he should be, but that doesn’t mean I want him to be. The longer he’s mad at me, the longer things aren’t normal with us. And I want them to be normal. The problem is Ian wants to change that.

At least, he did before I told him he has a daughter.

When the game ends and I stand, Sylvia reaches out to stop me.

“Don’t leave yet. The guys will come up here.”

“Oh.?

?? I sit back down, wondering if I should stay. Ian never said anything about seeing me after the game. Savannah leaves my lap to play with Stephanie, the other little girl, and slowly, guys start trickling in.

“Okay, I can’t take it anymore,” Sylvia begins. “What happened with you and Ian? How did he lie about his job if you’ve known him since you were sixteen? Why are you his girlfriend but not his girlfriend?”

“Sylvia!” Lizzy exclaims. “It’s none of your business.”

“But nothing is happening with Miss Wedding Planner over there,” she points at Meredith, “and I already know everything about you and Marc. This is fresh and juicy and it’s killing me!”

“Forgive her,” Theresa says. “She just needs a trip to the hairdresser and she’ll have her fill of gossip, so she can stop badgering you. She likes to know things and once she knows a little, she has to know it all.”