From the Beginning_A Prescott Family Story Page 14

  Somewhere during my phone call with Natalie, I let my news slip. I wasn’t looking for her reaction; I was just hoping to hear something about Noah.

  That weekend, Natalie, Joe, and the kids had come down to watch the Enforcers in their playoff series. Natalie, swearing her brother was a moron for letting me go, insisted on going to my doctor’s appointment.

  Now we sat in Natalie’s car on the way back to my apartment, the baby’s initial ultrasound picture lying in my lap, telling me I was nine weeks pregnant.

  As much as I didn’t want to remember the party, I would forever remember the events leading up to it. Apparently my birth control had been too new to rely on, on its own.

  “Noah will be thrilled,” Natalie insisted.

  “Noah can’t find out,” I said, my voice devoid of emotion.

  Natalie looked over at me briefly, then returning her attention back to the road. “He’s going to find out sooner or later, Ryles.”

  I bit my lip and scrunched my nose, trying to stop the onslaught of emotion her using his shortening of my name brought on.

  “I know, I just…” I took a breath. “I have to figure this out.”

  Natalie pulled into an empty spot near my door and I saw her chewing on the inside of her cheek.

  “What’s bothering you?” I asked her.

  She turned in her seat to look at me. Finally, she spoke softly, “Noah misses you, Ryleigh. I guarantee you, you telling him about the baby will have him thrilled. He’s too much of a…a guy, to admit he was wrong.”

  Something fluttered in my heart at the news, telling me there was hope yet.

  But I wasn’t about to set myself up to fall again, so I simply shrugged. “Thank you, Nat.”

  As I went to open the door, Natalie called out. “Have you been watching the team? They’re in the Calder Cup series this week.”

  Yeah, I had been watching, just not in my normal seats. I watched from either my couch or bed, watching the games on either ESPN, NBC, or streaming from my laptop. Instead of answering her, though, I just nodded and climbed out of her car.

  Before shutting the door, I leaned in. “If you see him…” I gave her a small smile. “Please, give him an extra hug for good luck.”

  But please… don’t tell him about the baby.

  I cradled a beer in one hand, the other resting beside me on the couch. I had the apartment to myself today. Nick had moved out, Teague spent more time out than in, and Caine was entertaining his parents at a local hotel.

  Already I had been pretty productive, having gone to practice, a sport bar with Teague, and then took a nap.

  These last few weeks had been long. It had only been a few months since he’d last been in this place of singledom but there was something about Ryleigh and my time with her that made those months seem much longer than they had been.

  Don’t get me wrong… I liked the solidarity of not having to worry about another person, only having to think of my own schedule, my own needs… But that’s where it stopped.

  Because if I were honest with myself?

  I knew damn well that Ryleigh never asked that much of me.

  On road trips, it was usually me to call first. And if she had called and I missed it, it was me who was always calling her back.

  She hadn’t asked me to practically move in with her. It just happened.

  Whipped?

  I chuckled dryly to myself, finally accepting the world. It didn’t cover half of it.

  Ryleigh had become my world, not because she put herself there, but because I wanted her there.

  My phone rang beside me, the tone being Natalie’s. “Hey, Nat,” I said into the phone.

  “Hey, Noah. How’re you doing?” Her voice was caring and therefore, so much my little sister.

  “Been better.”

  “Aren’t you chipper.”

  “I’ve got a game to watch.” I picked up the remote and finally turned on the television. Surely there was a game of some sort on right now. Even a classic would do.

  “Just wondering what the hell you did that made you and Ryleigh break up.”

  “Right to the thick of it. Always loved that about you.”

  “Well?”

  “There’s nothing to say. We were together, now we aren’t. That’s all she wrote.”

  “Even a fool could tell you loved her, Noah.”

  That’s because I was in love with her.

  “Natalie, do you have a point or are you just talking because you have no one else to talk to at the moment?”

  “Wow, bitter much?” There was a pause before she continued. “Joe and I were just shocked to hear, is all.”

  “Look, long and short of it is this. The rookie, Jason Thompson? He said stuff, kept saying stuff, and pissed me off.”

  “What does what Jason did or say have to do with you and Ryleigh?”

  “It just pissed me off, ok? And it all blew up.” I took a calming breath. “And then I said some not so nice things to Ryleigh. End of story.”

  “Is it?”

  “From where I’m sitting, yeah.” I wish it could be different, but there was no way she could forgive me for what I said. I might have been drunk, but I had sobered pretty quickly. I’d been pretty buzzed when I yelled at her, but I remembered every word.

  More than that, I remembered her face.

  Whenever I tried to conjure her blush and desire, it was now the hurt and anger that came to mind.

  “I’m sorry, No,” Natalie said softly. “Maybe you should still talk with her though. See if you guys can set things straight.” She quickly covered with, “You guys were cute.”

  “I honestly don’t think she’ll listen to me, Natalie.”

  “I saw her.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do with that, so I stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue. “You should talk to her, Noah.”

  Just like an annoying little sister, though, she hung up before I could press for more. She knew something.

  The question was…

  What was I going to do about it?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I sat in my car outside the players’ entrance, waiting for Jason.

  Yesterday I decided to act my age and put on my big girl panties. I had put together a plan and called Jason.

  I have to say, I wasn’t expecting everything Jason told me. He confessed to taunting Noah and then also sending Gorgeous Busty Blonde his way at the party. Part of me was furious with him, but the other part knew that Noah was a grown man.

  He could have done something about it before the situation exploded to where it was.

  I may dislike Noah at the moment, but I’d be damned if my child grew up not knowing who its father was.

  I chewed on my thumbnail while waiting, afraid that Noah would catch Jason, or worse yet, Noah would catch me.

  The rapping on my window caused me to jump. Realizing it was Jason, I rolled down my window. “You have—“

  Jason dangled Noah’s keys from his middle finger. “He just started his weight routine. He’ll probably start speed drills out here in about thirty, so you either need to get these back here before then, or you need to wait an hour. His shoulder’s been acting up, so I doubt the trainers will allow him to train much longer than an hour. Not sure if he’s going to sit with a trainer to work on his shoulder or not. This week he hasn’t been, but I heard it’s been hurting.”

  I watched the nasty check Noah completed in last night’s game 6 of 7 in the Calder Cup series. It was a game I was able to watch on television and I recalled the feeling of my gut clenching when his and the other player’s bodies hit the Plexiglas. Normally, Noah was the player who made his hits then went right back into the thick of the game, but that time, he’d skated back to the bench

  Noah being Noah continued to play the game. He avoided checking but it hadn’t stopped him from chirping and swearing at the other team.

  Snapping back to now, I reached for the keys. I noticed his hesitation, but I s
lide the ring from his hand.

  “Ry?”

  “Yeah, Jason?”

  He stared down at me before shaking his head. “Nevermind. Call when you’re headed back so I can get those from you.”

  I nodded and waited for him to move so I could exit the lot.

  I had a scene to set.

  Thinking about the time frame I had, I had simply made a copy of Noah’s house key and returned the keys right away.

  Odds were, after his morning session he’d go back to his apartment before the game. I could then go to his apartment after he left for the game, do what I had to do, and watch the game from his television.

  That seemed like the best option.

  Now, I had twelve hours to get my nerves in check.

  I had a feeling I was going to need all twelve.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Home ice advantage definitely had its perks. I rocked from skate to skate in the tunnel, waiting as Teague and Nick were announced to the home crowd.

  …and to have home ice in the game that would determine the winner of the Calder Cup? Definitely an advantage to have.

  This entire series had been back and forth.

  We won the first.

  New York the second.

  The third was ours.

  Fourth… Yep, New York’s.

  Again, we took the fifth.

  And New York won last night’s game.

  If playing by statistics alone, tonight would be New York’s game. However, if playing by statistics alone, we wouldn’t have made it to playoffs. Period.

  If one were betting on the repetitious pattern of the series, tonight would be our game.

  Now, I wasn’t a betting person, but damn did I want to win tonight’s game. It would be a hell of a way to close out my twenty-eighth year.

  Because yes, it was my birthday too.

  I stepped forward when Troy was called out, tapping the back of his leg with the end of my stick. When my own name and number were called, I pushed off, skating on the smooth ice. I moved to my spot near center ice for the anthem after skating in a circle around our zone.

  As the last name for starting lineup was called, I couldn’t help but glance just past the bench toward the two seats that had remained empty during the entire playoff run. Yet again, they were empty.

  I couldn’t afford to think about Ryleigh right now, though.

  Instead, I removed my helmet for the anthem, rolling my bad shoulder gently to be sure it wasn’t tight.

  So far, so good.

  One last thought of Ryleigh slipped through my mind as I shifted my weight from one skate to the other, all while the full baritone belted out the words to the National Anthem.

  Natalie mentioned she’d seen Ryleigh, and that Ryleigh and I needed to talk.

  Yeah, I wanted to talk to her, but I still had a suspicion that there was more to this ‘need to talk’ than what I assumed.

  I shook my head free of all personal thought as I put my helmet back on.

  Right now, all I had to worry about was winning the Cup.

  Bad idea, Ryleigh.

  The game closed out.

  There was no way in hell Noah would be happy to see me.

  Hell, I wouldn’t be happy to see me!

  The Enforcers had been ahead both the first and second periods, but some stick or another got wedged up the hind-ends of New York and they came into the third period, hell on their heels.

  They scored one goal after the other.

  Sure, some of those plays were ones that could have been stopped.

  Should have been stopped.

  And it was that reason that would have Noah pissed. The plays he personally failed to stop, as if he were some super human who could and should stop everything.

  After spending much of the next hour contemplating, I turned off Noah’s television and walked back into the kitchen. On top of the oven sat a cake pan covered in foil. I pulled the foil back gently before rummaging for a knife. Finding one, I walked back to the brownie sitting nicely in the cake pan, “Congrats & Happy Birthday, Daddy!” screaming up at me in green.

  What a joke.

  Yet another thing I did yet hadn’t thought all the way through.

  Carefully, slowly, I put the knife to the brownie and cut out the bottom, removing “Daddy!” from the phrase. That was one less thing he could be upset about, at least.

  I tossed the chunk into the garbage and found a paper plate to put the remaining brownie on, in hopes it wouldn’t look nearly as bad with its missing chunk if it were on a plate.

  Not that a cut brownie wasn’t already obvious, but yeah…

  It looked better.

  My breath caught in my throat when I heard the front door open and shut.

  Breath held, I looked around. I leaned against the counter only to think better of it and turned to face the counter.

  In the end, I crossed my arms and took a small baby step out of the kitchen, just as he neared.

  Was I upset?

  Fuck yes, with the way we played that last period.

  We had the entire game in our hands, and we just handed it to New York on a silver fucking platter. We basically gave it to them, saying, “Here you go. Take the cup.”

  It wouldn’t have hurt as bad if we handed it to them in the first period, but it took nearly the entire game for New York to take the reins and when they did, they fucking ran.

  And they ran hard.

  Of course, the game ended in double overtime, but…

  We still handed it to them.

  I tossed my duffle to the floor, a habit I started at Ryleigh’s that I wasn’t quite able to break, and started through the living room.

  Abruptly, I stopped when Ryleigh stood in front of me.

  When my eyes met hers, she immediately began to worry at her lower lip.

  It was so fucking good to see her.

  I had missed her, but I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing her.

  I took a long look at her, up then back down, lingering in some places longer than others.

  “Ryleigh.”

  “Hi.” She uncrossed her arms and pointed behind me toward the door. “I’m just going to go. You have a spare key now. I left it on the counter.”

  She went to move around me and I nearly reached for her arm. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to touch her though, so I stopped her with words instead. “Where are you going so fast? We should talk.” Not exactly the first thing I wanted to do, but it sounded good, right? “You know, maybe without fighting?” The first true-feeling grin I’ve had in weeks popped on my lips. I hoped that by going with teasing, she’d be more open to say yes.

  Fuck, was I wrong.

  I don’t know what it was about this man that made my temper snap.

  Yeah, yeah, some of it was hormonal, I get that, but he’d always had the ability.

  What kind of line of bullshit was Maybe without fighting? I didn’t come here to fight, but I knew… I fucking knew the second the game ended, this was how this meeting would happen.

  I was seeing red.

  Deep, dark, crimson red.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  His smile faltered. “I was joking.”

  “No. You’re not.” Snap. My crazy came out. “You’re fucking pissed because of the game. This was such a bad fucking idea.”

  “We lost.” He sounded so calm. “Which I assume you know. But I didn’t think—“

  “Let me get this straight,” I said, cutting him off. “Your team is brand new to the league, not even franchised before this year. You win a good few of your initial games but as some point, the other teams got better and you started to lose one game after another. No one thinks you’ll make the playoffs, let alone the Calder Cup final game. But out of nowhere, nowhere! You start winning one game then another. And another. Until you score a spot in the playoffs.” My hands were flying as I talked. “The underdogs made it. But oh no, you lost by one goal, and that was in a se
cond overtime. And you’re pissed? Oh, let’s not forget that you, Noah, performed a hat-trick. You, Noah. You can take credit for half the team’s points tonight yet you’re pissed? Good god, Noah, grow up…”

  I grabbed for my keys and stormed past him.

  “Mr. Fucking Hot-Shot Prescott,” I mumbled under my breath.

  This time, I truly was done.

  If someone had told me last year that it was possible to miss the flurry of hands talking at you, I would have laughed. If that same person also told me that I’d miss the stupid one-sided fights that had me chuckling at her passion, again… I’d laugh.

  But damn, I missed Ryleigh. Every side of her.

  She had sworn at me left, right, up and down, yet I couldn’t find it in me to be mad at her.

  Maybe it was because I was tired.

  Or maybe it was because I missed her.

  I sighed heavily, still standing where she left me. She didn’t let me get in a single word.

  Maybe we did fight too much. But the fights were always over stupid things.

  Maybe our relationship had happened too fast.

  You dive in head first, you’re bound to hit your head.

  Besides, who knew that they loved someone within months, weeks even, of meeting them?

  Finally I found it in me to walk into the kitchen, where Ryleigh had walked out when I came in. On the stove was a foil covered plate. Curious, I lifted the foil to find a brownie.

  Congrats & Happy Birthday

  Well, damn.

  That was really nice of her. But then again, that was Ryleigh. She was one of the sweetest people I knew.

  Granted, my brownie was missing a piece, I realized, looking closer. Did she really eat half my brownie? Must be good.

  I found a knife and cut off a piece and put it on a napkin in my hand.

  It was pretty good. She learned how to bake.

  Finished, I moved to toss the napkin and opened the can, only to find the rest of the brownie, the same green icing poking through.

  Curious, I moved it.

  Daddy!

  My world stopped. Just like that, it stopped spinning.

  I had to figure something out.

  I needed to keep Ryleigh in my life.