Page 32 of On Thin Ice

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Tally lifted his beer a few hours later. “To a great start to the season.”

The guys around me cheered, holding up their drinks to Tally’s toast.

We’d won our home opener two to one, and now we were celebrating at Tipsy. The game had been tight, with Sin and Haldy potting our two goals. I played okay and managed an assist, but I still needed to step it up. I’d ended up in the box for a stupid penalty when we’d been tied late in the third. Thankfully, the guys had kept Toronto from scoring on the penalty kill, but I hadn’t missed Millsy’s narrowed eyes when I did the skate of shame back to the bench after my two minutes were done.

I sipped my beer and scanned my phone, skimming through recent texts from Ally. She’d wished me luck with my game tonight, and I wondered if she’d watched. The Strikers were alsoplaying, and I knew she would watch her brother’s team first, but I couldn’t help but hope she caught some of the highlights of my game, at least. Not that I’d contributed much.

A text popped up, and I bit back a groan.

Messages from my dad were never a good thing, but I tapped on it anyway.

Dad: You looked sloppy tonight. You’re favoring your right hip. You injured?

Dad: Your team isn’t great, but you need to step it up, or a Cup team won’t want you.

I took a longer pull on my beer. His armchair coaching was meant to antagonize and was never valuable, but he still gave it. Two seasons thirty years ago in the NHL, and he thought he was a fucking expert.

Dad: You should’ve spent the entire summer here training with Dirk. He would’ve kept you in fighting shape more than just playing for that beer league.

This time, I barked out a laugh. Calling my summer pro league beer-level was fucking insulting. Top-tier guys played in the group when they were home in Montreal. And Dirk, my dad’s training buddy, was a hack. Not that I ever called my dad out on his bullshit. It just fired him up to be an even bigger asshole, and I didn’t have the energy for that.

I decided to respond later, if at all, and clicked back to the texts from Ally as I nursed my beer. We had another movie night set up for tomorrow. Who would’ve thought that I’d look forward to staying in to watch movies and text or video-chat with Ally?

I preferred video chats so I could look at her. She was so fucking hot and always had been. I could still remember the firsttime I saw her at Crash and Byrne my rookie year. Her laugh caught my attention, and I was hooked. Harty had put up a roadblock almost immediately, but that hadn’t stopped her from flirting like hell with me. I knew she partly did it to aggravate her brother, but it hadn’t taken long to figure out she was genuinely interested in me as well.

Sometimes, I wondered what would’ve happened if we’d actually tried dating instead of just random hookups, but neither of us had really wanted anything more than just a little fun.

And now we were having a kid. Fuck. It was weird, and I was so damn freaked out, but I was also excited.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t fuck the kid up. At least Ally seemed to have a solid family supporting her.

Not that I’d told my parents about my impending fatherhood. I didn’t need any extra bullshit from them.

Chapter 7

ALLY

Maybe there was no need to panic. It would be fine. Totally fine.

I sighed and stared at the spreadsheet on my computer screen that I was supposed to be updating with new market research for one of our bigger clients. Focus on the numbers and not on the fact that my baby daddy was flying here right now to play a hockey game against my brother, who still didn’t know that said baby daddy wasTHEbaby daddy.

I blew out a frustrated breath and let a few curse words slip out. I’d had plenty of time to tell Ethan in the last few weeks… no, the last thirty weeks… and here it was game day, and I still hadn’t clued my family in. But it wasn’t like Dom was going to blab the information to everyone. He asked a few times over the last two weeks if and when I was going to say something to Ethan, but he hadn’t pressured me at all. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d told his family about it as far as I knew.

Yeah. It would be fine.

They would play a game, and then Dom and I would go out to dinner. Not to Lanzi’s, obviously, but somewhere else. Totally nothing to worry about.

My phone buzzed across my desk, startling me from my panicking thoughts, and I gasped. “Shit.”

Phew, it was just my mom.

I tapped on her name, and six images filled the screen.

Mom: You can’t be mad, but I couldn’t resist.

Mom: It’s my right to spoil her.

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