Page 8 of Sven

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You are the mother of my child. I’ll take care of the both of you,” he said as he picked her up.

Stacie walked around the room, packing her bags and getting everything ready. As Sven held this beautiful little girl, talked to her, and made her smile, his heart fell more in love than it had with anything before.

His phone in his pocket started ringing. He switched the darling little girl to his other arm and reached for it. His dad was calling. It only took the name Peter Olsson on his caller screen to snap him right back into reality.

What the fuck was he going to do?

4

Sven

Later that night, Stacie and Winnie were downstairs doing laundry. Perhaps he may have gone overboard and bought her almost everything in the baby section of Target, but he had to make up for lost time. All that while he was in the guest room, trying to put together a crib. He was Swedish, so putting together furniture like this should’ve come easy to him, but he was struggling. So, he was tempted to call someone to come do it for him.

But he was going to do this. He stood and looked at the extra screw in his hand.That wasn’t right, he thought as he opened the instructions again. All three times, his dad had called, and he had sent him to voicemail. But this time, the face that showed up was a bit better. It was his baby sister.

“Tillie, what’s going on?” he said to the FaceTime.

“What’s going on with you? I was just letting you know I’ll be in town next week. We play the Glendale Huskies. You’re scheduled for a home game, and I’d love to see you.”

Tillie attended Michigan University and was on their hockey team.

“Yeah, let’s work that out,” he said, still eyeing the crib, trying to figure out what he had done wrong.

“What are you doing? Is that a crib in your guest room?”

“Yeah,” he said.

While he wasn’t ready to talk about what was happening, his sister was the only person he thought he could talk to about this.

“Tillie . . .”

“What is it?” she asked, her expression changing from curiosity to concern.

“I fucked up . . .”

“What the fuck did you do, Sven?”

He looked at her, but no words would come out.I have a baby.I got a bunny pregnant.I’m a dad. All those were things he could say, but instead, he just stood there, gaping at his phone, with no words coming out.

“Oh my god... Did you finally knock up one of your one-night stands?”

All the breath left his body. At least he didn’t have to actually say the words yet. He just nodded.

Her mouth fell open, and an astonishedhuhleft her lips. “When?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When did you find out?”

“This morning.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really have it figured out yet. They’re staying here.”

Tillie shook her head with a confused expression. “What do you mean?”

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