Page 44 of Decidedly With Baby
Simon:Trueenough.
A moment later I received another text from Chris:Don’t suppose your fake ex-fiancé is thefather?
When I didn’t respond right away,Fuck. The wanker really is thefather?
Mum:I agree. Your career comes first. He wasn’t the right man foryou.
Me to Mum:I know. But I still love him and it will take me a long time to get over whathappened.
“So don’t even think of trying anything when it comes to me and Drew,” I said to my phone, even though she couldn’t hearme.
Mum didn’t text back. I could only hope that was a goodsign.
Simon:You know at some point you will have to tell Mum and Dad. Or were you just planning to show up one day with the little ankle biter intow?
Now that did sound like a brilliantoption.…
16
Josh
It wasthat time of the year again—the middle of September and the beginning of hockey training camp. What did that mean? New hopes. Newteammates.
New headcoach.
You heard me correctly. After we lost our series in the playoffs, the general manager and the higher powers decided to shake things up and sign a newcoach.
And that wasn’t the only thing to change. We lost a few of our old teammates when they became free agents. And one player retired. He was only thirty-three yearsold.
“Hey, man,” I said to Mark Milone, one of our forwards. “You lookexhausted.”
“I am. Welcome to life with a six-month-old. I swear the kid thinks he’s in college and life is nothing but an all-nightparty.”
“I’d love to tell you it gets easier,” Jyri Toivonen, our goalie, said. “But I’d be lying. Just be thankful you only have the one.” He had two-year-old twinboys.
Oh, Christ.There wasn’t a chance Holly was pregnant with twins, right? She only mentioned hearing one heartbeat at the doctor’sappointment.
Sean, the third member of the daddies’ club, smiled an evil grin at Mark, which was followed by an equally evilcackle.
“You okay, Josh?” Mark asked. “You look a littlepale.”
“He’s right,” Sean said. “You look ready to pass out. If I didn’t know better, I would guess you’d knocked up your girlfriend.” He slapped me on the back. “But we all know the great Josh Hoffer would never settle down with a woman. Why give up his off-ice player status when he doesn’t have to?” He yanked his T-shirt over his head. “Which is a good thing too. If you did that, then who would we live vicariouslythrough?”
“It’s not like Hamilton will ever settle down,” I said, sidestepping the discussion about me.Thank you, Travis, for being the player I was—until my sperm wentrogue.
Except even before I’d known Holly was pregnant, the thrill of being a player off the ice had wornthin.
“Holy fuck,” Mark said. “Are you telling us you have agirlfriend?”
I inwardly groaned. Was I really that transparent? “She’s not exactly my girlfriend.” In the seven weeks since finding out Holly was pregnant, we had been enjoying sex—reallyenjoying sex—and practicing prenatalyoga.
Our future as a family? It was something we both avoided talkingabout.
Avoidance—our newsuperpower.
Based on my teammates’ expressions, you would’ve thought I had told them I was dating the EasterBunny.
“So what is she?” Jyriasked.
