by Frost, Sosie
Not that it’d do him any good. The man had forgotten how to swallow, and I couldn’t let him drown before I’d had a crack at his swimmers.
I slid out of my seat as he struggled with the basics—breathing, blinking, forming words.
That was to be expected though. I hadn’t just dropped a bomb on him—I’d blindfolded the man, bound him to the wall, and then drew a bulls eye over his crotch. It was a wonder he was still alive after I’d sling-shotted my ovaries at him.
But was it that bizarre a request, really?
Well, yes.
And no.
Adrian might’ve made a perfect father…had he spent any time outside of the hockey rink. Given the right motivations, I was sure he’d be good at both making the baby and raising one. After all, the man skated every damned day and night, sacrificing everything for his team. His body. His health. His time.
And when it came to me? Adrian was the most devoted and compassionate I’d ever met. How would making a baby be any different from the times he’d groggily stumble to my house in the middle of the night to kill the mustache-looking creepy crawlies with too many legs that skittered across my wall?
Both tasks were done at night.
Both would be handsomely rewarded with breakfast pancakes.
And both would result in a much happier me.
Adrian was already my bug-killer, top-shelf-reacher, car-fixer, jar-opener, snow-shoveler, and furniture-mover. Becoming my baby daddy was the natural progression of these things.
He just needed a little time to get used to the idea.
I busied myself in the galley, checking to ensure everything was clean, neat, and orderly for the rest of the flight. I cracked open a bottle of water and sipped. As usual, it had no character. Just flat, flavorless liquid.
It’d taken me way too long to learn that no water tasted as good as what came from Ironfield.
In fact, I’d traveled the entire country specifically to taste-test the local taps. New York. Miami. San Francisco. Seattle. I’d even joined the flight crew for international trips to sample the water from Paris.
Turned out, it tasted like how the city smelled.
And that’s when I realized the problem. For the first time in my life…I’d been homesick.
Which was ridiculous because I hardly had a home. Sure, I’d bought a cozy house. Stayed there occasionally. Slept in the bedroom. Ate over the sink like an uncivilized beast. It was as much a house as any other.
Or, at least, it might’ve been.
A few weeks after Adrian’s injury, I returned to work and flew out from Ironfield, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. It’d stayed on the ground, playing hooky with a fanciful dream, silent wish, and deep dark fantasy of a different life—one that wasn’t measured by airline miles and layovers.
It was then I realized that sometimes a girl just wanted to shake up her life and see how much of a future she could cram inside her uterus.
Nothing wrong with that.
Besides, Adrian was nothing if not resilient. After five minutes, he shook off the shock like a minor concussion.
The sudden appearance of a towering, 6’5, 240-pound rampaging monster storming into the galley alarmed my fellow crew.
Gladys, the senior flight attendant with thirty years of experience and only thirty seconds of reserved patience, contorted her thin, smoker’s lips into a sour smile and shooed the mountain of a man from her path.
Adrian had spent his life barreling into snarling, spitting, rabid defensemen—angry brutes armed with sticks and multi-million-dollar contracted hits masquerading as legal agreements.
Gladys wasn’t moving him. And she knew it.
“Wow…” She craned her neck up to study Adrian’s face. “You are a big boy.”
To his credit, he did look gorgeous for one o’clock in the morning. Simplicity suited him. He wore a white t-shirt, black jeans, sneakers tied with knots instead of bows, and a dark-faced watch with only the 12 labeled in gold—a gift from his grandfather at our high school graduation. Sure as hell didn’t look like a millionaire crash landed in the galley.
His fingers scratched his beard, somehow appearing casual, like he’d forgotten to shave for a few days and not as if he meticulously crafted it for twenty minutes every morning—mustache wax included.
The man was handsome enough to charm more than the scarf off Gladys. She pulled the clip from her hair and shook out her platinum dyed waves, doing her best to hide the streaks of grey peeking between the strands.
“Normally passengers aren’t allowed back here…” Gladys said. “But…if there’s anything I can help you with…”
I shooed her away with an impatient hand. “He’s with me. Just needs more pretzels.”
I shoved another bag into his mammoth hand.
His fist curled, pulverizing the snack into dust.
Uh-oh.
“You wouldn’t happen to be an athlete, would you?” Gladys reached for the coffee pot if only to brush against his thick arms. “You look the type.”
Adrian stared at me, as if I’d crack open the hatch and make a break for it over the Rockies. Knew me too well. I was considering the aerodynamic possibilities of the escape slide.
“I am,” he said.
Gladys clapped. “I knew it! You must an Ironfield Rivet!”
He flinched. I hissed between my teeth.
“Uh, no,” I said. “Wrong sport. The Rivets play football. He’s the new captain of the Ironfield Forge.”
She frowned. “What’s that?”
“The hockey team.”
“Ironfield has a hockey team?”
Adrian rubbed his face. I’d run out of fingers and toes to count the number of people from Ironfield who had missed the Forge’s announcement, media blitz, draft, and rampant television and radio promotions for tickets and events.
“Is that why they built that monstrosity in the middle of the city?” Gladys asked.
“The Maxwell Intimates Hockey Arena,” I said.
“Huh. I thought that was for concerts. Got Trace Adkins tickets for this summer.”
Sensing an opportunity to make an impression—not a good impression, but an impression, nevertheless—Gladys gave her badonkadonk a wiggle and tugged on Adrian’s clothes.
“You know the song—no shirt…” She fiddled with his hem. “No pants…” She reached for his buckle. “No problems…”
“It’s shoes.” I banished her wandering fingers with a quick smack. “Pretty sure they don’t strip tease with country music.”
Adrian had tensed. Not that I could blame him. He’d confessed that after his surgery, his nurses had left the radio in his room tuned to a country station. Now, the sultry twang of a guitar instantly ached his Stetson and boots.
Poor guy.
“I can handle the galley from here.” I edged Gladys away from the man before she tried to save a horse by riding a hockey player. “Why don’t you go take a break?”
“You just ring that call button if you need me.” Gladys tugged on her summer-time-barbeque-little-too-snug blazer and gave him a wink. “I’ll come running to give you an encore.”
Adrian groaned as she sashayed away. I lowered the jump-seat for him before he crashed to the floor of the plane. Not that the seat did anything. His bulk just didn’t fit anywhere but on the ice. He one-cheeked it as best as he could and stared at me.
“How many members of the flight crew now expect me to knock them up?” he asked.
“Only me…but I haven’t talked to the pilots since dinner service.”
“Christ.” He held his head in his hands. “You wanna remind me where the emergency exits are again? I gotta get off this plane.”
I threatened to bind him to the chair with a seat belt extender. “I just want you to consider this proposal.”
“You want a baby. You’re insane.”
It was just my luck that he’d regain his faculties in record time. Here I’d hoped that I’d have all of Texas to figu
re out my next move.
“It’s what I want to do with my life,” I said. “I would like to have a baby. With you, preferably.”
The prospect nearly bowled him over again. Hell, it confused me, and it was my proposition. Babies were one thing, but sex was completely new and uncharted territory for us. I wasn’t a stranger to a naughty fantasy or two…but allowing visions of Adrian to prowl around those midnight thoughts? His athletic, beastly muscles, and his dark, I-know-where-you’re-touching-under-those-blankets eyes?
What girl wouldn’t get a little flutter deep inside when imagining a night swept in Adrian’s possessive embrace?
He ran his fingers in his hair, but I didn’t trust the creeping hesitation clouding his features.
I rummaged through the alcohol cart, grabbing a tiny bottle of whiskey. Normally, he’d never drink anything but water and sugar-free Gatorade this close to the season, but we both needed it.
Adrian downed the contents of the bottle with a single swallow and grimaced. “Do you even know where babies come from?”
I pointed between his legs.
The man shifted, and his frown would’ve instantly ended the conversation if it hadn’t been this important.
“I get that you’re worried about your injury,” I said. “It’s gotta be scary for any man to take a slap shot to the…Zambonis.”
Adrian swore. “I said I was fine. I’m recovered. It’s good. We never have to talk about it again. Ever. Get me?”
Damn superstitious hockey players. They never wanted to talk about their issues in case it spawned more bad luck.
But the accident was all I’d thought about since the night it happened, nearly a year ago. I hated that I hadn’t been at the arena, though I’d managed to swap shifts with a flight attendant on standby so I could race to the hospital.
When I arrived, Adrian had been delirious with pain and begging for either painkillers or a gun to finish the job.
Then came the surgery.
I didn’t even know testicles could rupture, but Adrian had learned the hard way. And so did men across the country who happened to watch any show on Sports Nation for the next two weeks. The anchors had replayed the clip again and again and again, simultaneously wincing when they whispered the word rupture and praising Adrian’s selfless actions and quick thinking which had blocked a would-be game winning shot to secure the Marauders a playoff berth.
He’d been a hero.
A very sore, very embarrassed hero.
And I was one terrified best friend. Especially once he’d started talking after surgery, groggy from the anesthesia and brutally honest with me.
He didn’t remember what he’d said.
But I couldn’t forget it.
I’d never forget it.
“I’m sure everything is in…working order,” I said. “The doctors insisted you made a perfect recovery.”
“I’m not worried about the…” He glanced down. “Players on the bench. I’m worried about you.”
“Me?”
“Look at me.” Adrian waved a hand over his bulky, mouth-wateringly large frame. “Now look at you.”
My tippy-toes did their best, but I remained woefully petite and comically undersized next to Adrian.
“I’d break you in half, little girl.” Adrian laughed. “It’ll never work. We won’t fit.”
Despite his warning, a dark curiosity sparked my imagination.
“I’m not afraid of a challenge,” I said.
“You afraid of never walking again?”
“Yes, yes. You’re a formidable man. Bane of the pure and slayer of hymens.”
Apparently, Adrian had even less patience talking about his prowess than he did his injury. He scowled, a positively foreboding warning for a man talking about his cock.
“Where did this idea even come from?” Adrian lowered his voice. “Do you even know what you’re asking of me?”
If he needed me to explain this, then I’d been dramatically misled on what details the men shared in the locker room.
“I’m asking if you’ll be the father of my baby,” I said.
“Christ, you’re serious.”
I shushed him with a stern glance. “You would make a fantastic daddy, Adrian. You’re such a good man.”
“Yeah, but this good man usually does all he can to not get a girl pregnant.”
“Only because you never found the right girl. Luckily for you, you didn’t need to look hard for her.” I did my best to charm him with a smile. “Just think—all that time I spent with you in the hospital or cheering you on at the games or stealing your popcorn during movie nights…we could’ve been making babies.”
This thought sent him pacing across the galley. Didn’t have much room for his long strides, but Adrian made it work. Always said he could never think if he wasn’t able to move. It was why he had horrible grades in high school but possessed an unsurpassed genius on the ice.
“We’ve been friends for over twenty years,” he said. Two steps and he’d reached the far wall. One turn, and he’d nearly collided with the door to the lavatory. “You’ve never once expressed any interest in starting a family—especially with me. What the hell is going on?”
“Can’t a girl have a change of heart?”
“You won’t even change your bathroom towels without making a pro/con list between cotton and bamboo.”
“Well, it’s gotta be cotton—”
“This is coming out of nowhere, Clover.”
I took the opposite seat from Adrian and waited as a sleepy passenger plodded down the aisle in search of the lavatory.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been telling you,” I said. “I want a change. I’m tired of traveling and waking up in every city except home. I’m stressed. I’m not having fun anymore. And I started thinking it’d be great if I could have a baby before turning thirty. If you agree, I’d have number one before I’m twenty-eight—”
“—Number one?”
“It works out perfectly.”
“Except it doesn’t.” Adrian covered his eyes. “You’re talking about having a baby…our baby.” Simply saying it overwhelmed him. He reached the wall and knocked his head off the fuselage with a solid thunk. “We can’t even share a bottle of water on a road trip. If you get frustrated with me, it’s not like you can toss the baby at my head and demand we pull over at the nearest gas station to buy a second one just for you.”
“Are you worried we couldn’t handle it?”
“Handle what? We can barely agree on wing sauces.”
“And yet we survive every movie night.”
He snorted. “You realize I agree to whatever you want to eat and whichever movie you want to watch to keep you happy?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
His lips drew into a thin line. “Aha. Now I get it. I’m the only man who will tolerate you long enough to hop into bed.”
If only he knew how right he was.
“No—you’re the perfect man to hop into bed with me, and not just because you compromise with me.”
“You mean, surrender?”
“You take good care of me.”
He wasn’t convinced. I threatened to pitch a bag of pretzels at his head, but if it was easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar, it’d be easier to bed a hockey player with a smile than lube.
“You’ve rescued me from flat-tires,” I said. “Helped me paint my bedroom…and then repaint it when the color looked like a sick yellow instead of sunshiney and bright.”
“Painting?” He sighed. “That’s your qualification for making a baby?”
“Practice for a nursery.”
“I’m out of here.”
He bolted for his seat. I grabbed his hand.
“You care about me,” I said. “You call to make sure I’m okay when I’m on the road—and if it was a bad flight, you always order something tasty to be delivered to my room. Pizza, wings, salads, ice cream…”
He rubbed his face. “
If a room service grilled cheese sandwich gets me access between your legs, you’re a cheaper date than anyone on the Marauders ever hoped.”
“It’s not about the sex.” Though…in reality…it was all about the sex and I simply ignored that dick the size of an elephant in the room. “Don’t you think it’d be fun to have a baby?”
“Fun?”
Should’ve known the concept of fun was foreign to a man who lived and breathed exercise, conditioning, training, and practices. Without me, I suspected the man would curl up in his locker and live at the arena.
He sighed. “I’ve never thought about having kids, Clover.”
My stomach dropped about thirty thousand feet to the ground below.
“Never? You never imagined about settling down, finding someone, starting a family?”
He quieted. “My life is just…hockey. Just like you chose to spend these last few years working and traveling.”
And there was our problem.
I knew it. He knew it. And yet, we’d let our careers control our lives for so long because…
Well…I had no answer. Only because it had worked for us.
Because I’d been so busy taking as many flights as I could and traveling to anyplace that sounded exotic. And he’d worshipped nothing but the puck and devoted his life to perfecting his game. We’d never made time for anything else. And our friendship worked because we expected nothing of the other, completely forgiving cancelled dates or missed connections because we were too focused on our own lives.
But that was no way to live.
I rifled through the food cart and split a bag of cookies with him. We’d need something to get us through this conversation.
“I know you, Adrian,” I said. “You ignore everything that isn’t on the ice. You didn’t even tour your new house before you bought it.”
“The realtor said it was great.”
“And you didn’t pick your own furnishings.”
“The interior decorator said she’d handle it.”
The cookie crunched to dust in my hand. “Doesn’t it bother you? Not even knowing what your home will look like?”
“When would I have had time to tour the houses and furniture shop?”
“Most people would make time.”