Page 51 of The Pucking Date
“I’m not judging,” she says, totally judging. “It’s just, I thought you were immune.”
“I wasn’t immune. I was avoidant. But then he turned on that devastating Southern charm, showed me Montreal like it was his gift to me, and without Dad or Adam monitoring my every breath, I just...surrendered. For one night, I let myself want something without calculating the cost. He looked at me like I was the only woman in the world, like everything he’d been searching for was right there in front of him. And suddenly I couldn’t remember my own name, let alone all the reasons I was supposed to keep my distance.”
She clutches her head. “Jess. That man is six feet two of chaos and thigh muscles!”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Intimately.”
Sophie groans and flops dramatically onto the couch. “Alright. Rewind. Montreal, sexy chaos, mind-blowing hockey-player sex—and now you’re pregnant?”
I nod. Miserable. “Apparently I skipped the chapter in your future OB rotation where they remind you birth control is only 99% effective.”
Sophie makes a face. “Hey, don’t blame this on me just because I can diagram your reproductive system from memory.”
I jab a finger at her. “You’re sleeping with a professional athlete too. Don’t get all smug about life choices.”
“Liam and I use protection,” she says primly. “Also, I track.”
“So do I! Apparently, that’s necessary but not sufficient.”
She sobers a little. “Okay…but seriously. What now?”
I scrub my hands down my face. “God, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far. I haven’t even processed anything beyond ‘holy shit, I’m pregnant,’ and now you’re here, and there’s two pink lines sitting on my coffee table like a tiny nuclear device.”
Sophie stays quiet.
“And what am I supposed to do? Call Finn and be like, ‘Hey, remember that night where we didn’t sleep for six hours and my thighs were shaking for three days? Surprise! You knocked me up.’”
Sophie winces. “Maybe not like that.”
“I have a career I’ve spent years building, brick by careful brick. I have a summit in Park City that could make or break not just Finn’s contract, but my own reputation. And now I’m supposed to manage sponsor optics while hiding the fact that I’m carrying the star player’s baby?”
“You’re not?—”
“I’m a walking headline! Coach’s Daughter Pregnant with Star Forward’s Baby While Repping Team Sponsorships. I mean, Christ, do you know what the New York Post will do with that?”
“I think you’re catastrophizing.”
“I think I’m being realistic,” I snap. “And what if he freaks out? What if all that Southern charm disappears the second things get real? What if he pulls a Chad—says all the right things, then quietly starts planning his exit strategy?”
She’s quiet again.
“And it’s not just him. It’s Dad. It’s the team. It’s the optics. My entire job is built on control. On clean image management. This?” I gesture wildly at the test. “This is not clean. This is messy and complicated and unplanned, and I do not do unplanned.”
My breath comes hard now, shallow and tight.
Sophie gets up, walks over, and puts both hands on my shoulders.
“You do real, Jess,” she says, soft but firm. “Better than anyone. And you don’t have to figure it all out tonight. Have you spoken to him?”
I scoff. “Yeah, I texted Finn right after I peed on a stick. Sent him a GIF of a baby and a cowboy hat.”
“You know what I mean,” Sophie says, her voice gentle but unshakable.
“No. I haven’t told him. Ijustfound out.”
She leans back, arms crossed. “Fair enough. So what’s the plan?”
“Theplan,” I say, dramatically flopping into the cushions, “was to stress-shop with my sisters, eat frozen yogurt, and keep pretending I’m not still hung up on a guy who wrecked me in a Montreal hotel room.”
