by RJ Scott
Our house was packed. I loved it but, man alive, six kids made a lot of noise. There were so many backpacks, sleeping bags, and sneakers tossed around it looked like a Marine obstacle course.
Dinner was pizza and soda because tomorrow was the Fourth and all the cooking would happen then. The kids were in the living room feeding Bourque pizza crusts and the adults were in the kitchen, enjoying the pizza and a bottle of wine.
“I’m so happy that your surrogate is coming tomorrow,” Mom said then plucked a slice of pepperoni off my father’s plate and gobbled it down.
“That’ll give you heartburn,” Dad warned. She waved him off.
“Yeah, me too. They seemed really up for it when we had the ultrasound yesterday. They have a couple of boys and—”
“You had your five-month sonogram?” both Lisas asked in tandem. I nodded warily. Jared poured Brady a little more wine but sat like a golem beside me. “Did you find out the sex?” It was uncanny how in sync they were at times.
My mother’s eyes flared. She sat up and waited.
“Yeah we did but we don’t want to—” I was steamrolled by my excitable in-laws and mother.
“You should have told us. You can do the gender reveal at the cookout!” Mom said.
Both Lisas nodded. I threw a pleading look at Brady who tossed up his hand—only one as the other was in a sling due to another operation on his shoulder—and stared at his pizza. Jamie suddenly found his napkin fascinating, and Dad was talking to Jared about a dinosaur show he enjoyed. Cowards, the whole lot of them.
The talk raced onward at full speed. Colored cakes and pink or blue balloons were being discussed when I slid into the conversation.
“Okay, can we just take a breath?” I asked then gave the women my most endearing smile. “Cool, thanks. So, the thing is, Jared and I don’t really believe in gender-reveal parties.”
“But we had one for all of our kids,” Lisa and Lisa replied.
“There wasn’t such a thing when I had you boys,” Mom added while watching me close.
“Yeah, I know, and while lots of people have them, and that’s cool if you want to, being active in the LGBTQ community has taught us that gender and genitals are two different things.” I got confused looks. “See, it’s possible that this baby may be not identify with its birth sex. It’s just… there’s so much gender stereotyping and possible future disappointment for the kid. Imagine you watch a video of your parents celebrating the fact that you’re a girl when you’re not a girl deep inside? Imagine how much that would hurt. So please, Jared and I really appreciate your enthusiasm but we don’t want our daughter to be born with any labels. The world will slap enough of them on her without her family doing so before she’s even born.”
The room was quiet for the longest time. Then Brady spoke up. “That’s cool, Ten. So, it’s a girl and she’s healthy, eh?”
I nodded. We got lots of congratulatory hugs and any further discussion of pink or blue fireworks withered away. Changing the way people think was a marathon not a sprint, as they said at the end of our hockey diversity meetings. On or off the ice, progress was made in increments.
Our backyard was so patriotic it would have made Captain America wince. Since I’d kindly blown the gender-reveal party idea to bits, the Lisas had fallen back on what we had in the house—full-blown red, white, and blue everything. Umbrellas, streamers, banners, sparklers, tablecloths, plates, cups, plastic cutlery, and napkins. Even good old Bourque had a star-spangled bandana tied around his neck. Burgers were piled on the grill, smoke billowing as fat dripped into the flames. Beans, deviled eggs, and macaroni salad took center stage on the picnic table as we set platter after platter of other cookout goodies around the Rowe favorites. Dad and Jamie supervised the charring of the meat and Brady tried to keep the kids from devolving into a manic wild pack of soap bubble ruffians. The eldest twin girls had already had a fight that had ended in tears, and Jamie’s youngest had been stung by a bee. Bedlam reigned. And right into the Rowe chaos appeared Isobel, Eddie, and their sons.
Jared had met them at the door, it seemed, and escorted them through to the backyard.
“Everyone!” Jared shouted over the shrieks of children and CCR blaring out of my father’s phone resting on the table beside the watermelon fruit bowl. “This is Isobel and Eddie.”
I waved from my spot in the shade with the dog. Mom swooped down on Isobel and led her to the glider where they sat side by side falling into some deep gossip. Brady pulled up a chair beside me. He winced as he tried to get his big body comfortably wedged into a folding lawn chair.
“Shoulder hurt?” I asked and rubbed Bourque’s belly.
“Always, both of them. Don’t get old, brat.” I bobbed my head as if I had any control over aging. Shit, I was closing in on thirty. “They’re talking about you when you were a baby.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said with a sigh. “Talking about how I was the best and most adorable of the Rowe boys. Oh, and the smartest and most athletically talented.”
Jamie walked over and dropped an ice cube down the back of my rainbow frog tank top. After I did a wild dance and flung the cube back at Jamie, Jared arrived with Eddie in tow. Brady was happy to sign his puck, and we gathered at the sunny end of the table, letting Isobel, Mom, the Lisas, and the pack of sweaty, grimy kids, have the shade. There we sat for hours eating, laughing, more eating, telling stories about our pasts, and more eating. Then the desserts were brought out.
By the time we were rounding up children to head to Riverfront Park for the fireworks show, I was so full I was waddling. Mom pulled me aside just outside the front door as the rest of the mob got kids buckled into seats.
“Tennant, Isobel is just lovely. And her husband is a delightful man. Their children are beautiful and so charming. You chose wisely, honey.” She rose to her tiptoes, kissed my cheek, and then scampered off to ride in the back of Brady’s rental minivan.
“Everything okay?” Jared asked as he closed and locked the front door.
“We got the Mom seal of approval for our surrogate choice.”
His eyebrows flew up his forehead as he turned to face me. “That was fast. It took her ages to warm up to me.”
“Well, you did lure me into a treehouse and had your way with me,” I said and got an eyeroll.
“If I remember correctly, and I do because I’m not as addlepated as you like to say I am, it was you who led me into the treehouse in your parents’ backyard.”
I chuckled. “That’s true, I confess. And for what it’s worth, Mom and Dad loved you way before we started dating. You’re really a loveable sort.”
I stepped close and planted my lips to his on our shadowy front step. Some asshole turned on their headlights, flooding the stoop, then shouted at us in a thick Boston accent. Brady’s shout sounding like this in my ears.
“Ah, fah Gad’s sake get a room why don’t cha?” My face screwed up. “Get in the cah. The pahk is probably wicked full already!”
“If he wasn’t in a sling I’d pop him in the face,” I muttered under my breath while Jared chortled. Our little girl was coming into one great family. Not that I’d ever tell my brothers they were awesome…but they were. Even Brady. Most of the time. Just not right then.
Chapter Five
Jared
September
“It’s like the first day of school,” Gagnon murmured at my side.
Minus the small kids and the Day-Glo backpacks, he was right. Starting back at training camp had the same excitement and expectation as that first day of school, full of hope that this year was going to be our year. It was vital we recalled that we didn’t go all the way last year, but from today we’re all being offered a chance to make good. Hell, this season could be our win, and no one could take that confidence away from any of the team. It wasn’t our first day here, we’d already gone through rookies, and tryouts, and offered contracts to three new guys. Two of which went to the Colts, and the third, Jack Cookson, a scrappy twe
nty-year-old from Buffalo was a brand new D-man for me to hone. I wasn’t sure where Jack would fit into my D-pairs, but he played nicely with Arvy in the tryouts, and I was focusing on the fact that we’d lost Travis MacAllister over the summer when he’d announced his retirement. There was a hole to fill and Jack might have been the missing piece we needed.
We were first to the ice, waiting on the team, and I was as nervous as I was confident that we were going to come out strong this year. Most of that was Ten’s enthusiasm rubbing off on me, and his highs were in direct proportion to how much good news we received from Isobel. We were getting daily updates and the latest, which arrived at three a.m. and caused Ten to fall out of bed, was that our daughter wanted Cherry Garcia, pickles, and ham, not individually. After picking himself up off the floor he read the text out loud, then climbed all over me, hugging and kissing, and whooping. Somehow we got back to sleep, but he was still on a high when we arrived at the training facility, and it was infectious to everyone around him.
“Coach,” Jack arrived, his grin wide, his eyes bright with excitement.
He reminded me of myself. My first morning with Buffalo, waiting to be told where to go and what to do, was a shining moment in my memory, and the culmination of everything I’d fought so hard to achieve.
“Let’s see it then,” I nodded to the ice, and he glanced behind himself, uncertain.
“On my own?” He frowned and for a second or two I thought he’d call me out on making him skate out there without the team, but this was my chance to see his warm-up and I wasn’t losing that.
Also, a rookie out on the ice without the team? Classic first day.
He paused with his left skate on the ice, and glanced into the rafters where our winning banners hung. We didn’t have any retired numbers yet, that would be for our core skaters when they finally hung up their skates, and one day Ten’s number might be up there alongside Stan’s, maybe even Adler’s if he stopped being an idiot. Was Jack thinking that his name could be up there? Was he looking at our cup wins and thinking he could be part of another cup run?
“Sometimes I wish I could have my first day back on the ice again,” I admitted, as Jack pushed off and circled the ice, his form relaxed, his skating strong. He wasn’t the biggest of guys, but as a defenseman what he did have was a canny understanding of the game and the ability to hassle the other team. He didn’t rely on brute force, he was all flashy skating and speed, and when he jumped smoothly to skating in reverse I saw something in him.
“I remember my first day, I was so freaking nervous.”
I thumbed at Speedy-Jack. “He doesn’t look nervous.”
Jack executed a near-perfect lateral move in front of us, something that was the key to playing the rush and steering the opponent in the desired direction. A bit more force, a little less speed, some filling out and I could polish him into a great D-Man. I was excited to get started.
“Morning,” Coach Benning arrived, followed quickly by Coach Pike. We were the core coaches for this team, and the expectation for results was heavy on our shoulders. “Kid looks good.” He nodded at the ice as Jack flew by and rounded the net, switching to backwards, then icing to a stop. He was staring at the net, and I thought I saw his lips move. For all I know he could be praying to the hockey gods, or sending good thoughts out into the universe, but he seemed serene. A new generation of Railers.
“He has a lot of potential,” I said.
“Not sure how long we’ll get to keep him,” Coach muttered, but I didn’t have time to ask for specifics, because the team came out of the tunnel, half in white jerseys, half in black. It would be just my luck to find a rough diamond for me to lose him in a trade to another team.
Ten tapped my calf as he passed, the only public acknowledgment of what we were together, and then every single player was on the ice, a whirling chaotic mess of bodies shouting and teasing and knocking pucks in the net before Stan and Bryan got to their respective ends. Bryan laughed, Stan cursed at everyone in strident Russian, and then there was a loose game of nothing much, some passing, a warming up, and I noticed that Jack and Arvy had instinctively paired up. Not just that, but against Ten there was a spark there, he was making Ten work, and I loved how this dynamic was coming together.
When we split into our core teams, I had eight men ranged around me, and with a crack of my neck I began to pair them up, splitting Arvy and Jack and deciding that today we’d look at the distance between defender and the attacker.
“Heads-up, guys, today we’re focusing on gap.”
By the end of that first practice Jack Cookson had his official Adler-endorsed nickname, Cookie the Rookie. Poor kid, because it would stay with him for the rest of his career.
Although by the way he was smiling it didn’t seem as if he cared.
When we got home Ten was on such a high that I shut myself in my office. Not that I didn’t love it when Ten was like a kid at Christmas, but I needed to get my thoughts in order, and being a coach wasn’t something I could leave at the door. After practice, Coach Benning had pulled me into the office and shut the door; never a good sign.
Rumors only, he’d begun, but I knew better than to ignore any kind of rumor. Then he began to explain a convoluted mess that involved us using Jack as a bargaining chip in a trade with the Boston Rebels of all people. I wanted to call Brady, and ask him if the rumors were true. Were they rebuilding the defense, and why? I would be asking him as a friend, and also as a brother-in-law. He’d been in a bad way in July, but I’d put it down to post-op blues, but maybe, if he was thinking of retiring, the Rebels would be losing their captain, and one of the best D-Men in the NHL. Ten hadn’t said anything, but that was the thing with the brothers, the three of them pushed the limits, but when it came to team secrets they were locked vaults.
I sent a quick text to Brady, just wishing him good luck for the season, and then I made some notes on what I’d seen today, filing the paperwork in neat order, and finally I was done.
I padded through the kitchen, wondering where Ten was, searching downstairs, and then realizing that the one place I needed to check was the nursery. We’d decided the room at the back of the house, with the attached bath, and right next to ours, was the perfect room for our daughter, and I recall he’d muttered something about Cherry Garcia and scarlet paint when he’d stepped out of the shower today.
Leaving Ten alone in the room with his vivid imagination and an array of paint sample jars could only mean trouble, but I didn’t find him painting yet more squares on the wall, I found him sitting on the deep window seat, legs crossed, staring out at the yard.
“Hey,” I perched next to him.
He shuffled back to give me room. “I think I’ve chosen my color, or at least narrowed it down to two.”
We’d agreed to choose a color each for the cozy room, and then we’d decide which we preferred, and call in an independent arbitrator if we couldn’t decide. Someone who wasn’t Stan or Adler. I’d already chosen mine—the original pale lemon that I thought would look cool with cream on a couple of the walls. Ryker had sent me photos of the room he’d decorated for Colorado and it was a riot of rainbow colors, including Colorado’s number in dots of paint, and it suited Colorado, but I wanted this room to be an oasis of peace. I tended toward muted colors that we could then hang bright posters on, but I had no idea what Ten thought, and that wasn’t the only thing we hadn’t shared with each other.
The other deal was to think of one or two names and then discuss them between us. The deadline was the end of October, two weeks before our daughter was due, and that was still a way off.
“And I have a name,” he added softly. “Just one, although I don’t want to jinx things.”
Damn hockey superstitions. “It won’t jinx anything to talk about names, but we’re not calling our daughter Gretsky-lina.”
He smiled at me. “Damn, I was hoping you’d go for that.”
“Nope, not going there, unless the middle name is Lemieux
-sally,” I teased and waited for him to laugh, but he appeared deadly serious.
“Charlotte,” he murmured. “Charlie, Lottie, even the full name, I like that and it won’t leave my head. Maybe if you think it works we could have it as a middle name?”
I laced my fingers with his. “Charlotte is perfect.”
“For real?”
I’d been searching for a name that could be shortened, something that sounded right, and as soon as he’d said Charlotte my chest was tight.
“Charlotte Madsen-Rowe,” I said. “How about Elizabeth for a middle name?” That had been the only name I’d held close and it was the first name of my great-grandmother. “Or Isobel?”
“Charlotte Elizabeth Isobel Madsen-Rowe,” Ten said, and lifted my hand to press a kiss on my palm. “I love that.”
“It’s a beautiful name.”
“And for the color I like the lemon we chose first, which one do you like?”
I kissed him hard, and he let out a muffled oomph, before cradling my face and kissing me back.
“What was that for?” he asked after our heated make-out session slowed to soft nibbles and smiles.
“Lemon was my choice as well.”
He smiled broadly, his green eyes sparkling with humor. “We rock this parent thing.”
“We rock it so hard.”
Unspoken was the fear we both had, the usual stuff a new parent faces, such as whether we would be good parents together, or what kind of world we were bringing our baby into. Then there were the other more immediate fears, Isobel’s health, our baby being born safe and well. But, for now, all we could worry about was the color of the room.
“We should go and buy paint,” Ten announced and stood quickly as if he hadn’t had a full day on the ice. I moved slower, muscles aching in places but with just as much enthusiasm.