by Elise Faber
But it wasn’t Blue.
Instead it was—
“Diane?” she asked, swiping her finger across the screen and hurriedly putting her cell up to her ear. “Is everything okay?”
Stefan’s mom was as chipper as ever. “Fine, darling. I was just hoping that you might be close by. I made spaghetti and—”
Suspicion instead of pure unadulterated terror twisted in Anna’s gut.
“What do you want?” she asked, not coldly, but directly. Because she knew Diane’s tricks by now, and spaghetti . . . well, that meant something was up.
Diane huffed, but her response was tinged with amusement. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”
And silence.
Into which Anna asked, “And?”
“And I heard you were seeing Blue.”
Well, now that was to be determined, wasn’t it?
She sighed. Her last class had finished and all her exams complete. She didn’t have any excuse to stay away, and honestly? She wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t the voices inside her brain.
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Diane squealed. “I’ll open the wine.”
Anna’s “Better not,” came after the click of the other phone cutting off.
Diane had taken over Stefan’s bungalow when he and Brit had moved into a larger house in a nearby gated community, but the cute cottage had definitely been more Diane’s style than her son’s from the get-go.
Another reason why Stefan was so great.
He might have been living over a thousand miles away, Diane having refused to move to California initially, but he’d still bought a place where she could be comfortable.
Cheery windows faced the street and the porch was large and adorned with brightly colored flower pots. A rocking chair sat in one corner, along with a small table that Anna could even see from the street was stacked high with paperbacks. Nothing was particularly neat or overtly organized, but everything had a spot, including the riotous chaos of the flowers filling the pots.
The whole space was Diane.
Perpetually happy and endearing.
She’d opened the front door before Anna had gotten out of her car and was barreling down on her, a five-feet nothing bundle of energy that swept her into a tight hug.
“It’s been too long, dear.” She snagged Anna’s hand and dragged her into the house. “Come on then. You look like you need a good meal.”
Probably because her stomach was unsettled.
Or one might say nauseous.
Her heart twisted in on itself, anxiety pulsing within her. Fuck, what was she going to do?
Diane took one look at Anna’s face and moved a little faster, not stopping the forward propulsion until Anna was plunked safely into a kitchen chair.
No chipper conversation. No filling the air with gossip as was her habit.
Just silence.
Until she sat down across from Anna and said, “So you and Blue, huh?”
And cue tears.
“Oh no”—a screech as the chair pushed back, and a moment later, arms were wrapped tightly around her—“Sweetie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
“It’s not—” She sniffed, reaching up to scrub at the corners of her eyes. “It’s not you. I’m just upset and . . . hormonal.”
Diane leaned back, raised a brow.
“I mean,” she hurried to say. “I haven’t taken a test or anything, and I’m late, and—” There the tears went again. “I’m just going back to school, and Blue and I are so new . . .”
“You’re worried he’ll break up with you.”
Anna paused and considered that, but only for a moment. “No,” she said. “I don’t think he would.” This wasn’t his plan, and he might need some time to process the sudden change in circumstances, same as her, but Blue liked kids, and when they’d discussed it, he had been very clear that he wanted a house full of them.
Someday.
That was the crux of the problem.
Because what if someday was here?
“So what?”
“It’s too damned soon,” she murmured. “We haven’t been dating long enough—.”
Diane shook her head. “Not it. Try again.”
“I’m going back to school. I don’t know how’ll I’ll manage—”
“Pretty excuse,” Diane said, “but still not the real reason you’re scared.”
She sighed, knowing Diane was right, and since she was one of the few people Anna had confided in about her childhood, she let out the truth that was sitting like a heavy boulder on her chest. Because—
“I’m not fixed yet,” she whispered. She was working on it, had made a lot of progress over the last few years, but she still had so much baggage, so much fear that the moment Blue learned about her childhood—how she’d been left then passed around time and time again because no one wanted her—he’d realize he didn’t want her either.
“So what you’re saying is that you have no worth.”
“What?” Anna’s eyes shot up from the table. “I—”
A fist on the table. “No,” Diane said. “What you’re telling me is that rather than your childhood being something terrible and tragic that has no bearing on you as a person, instead of it being something you should be so damned proud to have overcome, what you’re saying is that because you were in foster care you have no worth?”
“I—” She shook her head. “No.”
“So why would Blue see it as any different?”
“I—” A sigh. “He has this plan, this image of someone perfect in his head. Someone sweet and kind and soft. I’m not that. I’ve got barbs and sharp points and—”
“Ah.”
Anna frowned.
“I get it now.” Diana put her hand on top of Anna’s “You’re waiting for him to leave you.”
“No. Yes.” She blinked rapidly. “I’m not the person he imagined himself with. I can never be her.”
“And yet he wants to be with you.”
Fingers squeezed Anna’s before Diane pushed out of her chair. Noise of plates being pulled from a cupboard, from a pan lid being lifted, pasta being served up filled the space between them. By the time a plate was in front of Anna, her tears had dried.
“You’re really special, dear. But you need to believe that here.” Diane touched Anna’s temple. “And here.” A tap above her heart. “Until then, you’re going to feel like shit.”
That startled a laugh out of her. “Really? That’s how you’re going to end our inspirational talk?
She stuck a fork in Anna’s hand. “Eat. And yes, because the person you should be having this conversation with is Blue.”
And . . . gauntlet dropped.
Anna made a face. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Diane tugged the end of her ponytail before sitting down across from Anna, a full plate in front of her. She looked healthier than Anna had ever seen her. Skin rosy, cheeks full instead of sunken.
“You look good.”
A wave of her hand. “I’m old. Wrinkled.” A pretend sniff. “And you never call. You never visit.”
Anna’s lips twitched. “You’re busy with Pierre.”
“Pish,” Diane muttered. “Pierre. That man is in the doghouse.”
For some reason that made Anna smile. “What’d he do this time?”
“He bought me flowers.”
She snorted. “Oh the humanity.”
Diane rolled her eyes. “I’d told him not to, and he went ahead and sent that extravagant arrangement anyway.” She pointed at a gorgeous vase of roses and daisies that took up a good portion of the opposite counter.
“Aren’t daisies your favorite?”
A sniff, albeit a real one this time. “Yeah, so?” Diane elaborated when Anna just lifted a brow. “So, I told him not to send anything when he was gone.” She shoved her plate away. “I told him I needed to think about it, and he ignores me anyway, trying to woo me with stupid daisies.�
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“They’re gorgeous daisies,” Anna said, rather helpfully, despite Diane’s huff. “What’s he trying to get you to agree to?”
“He wants to move in together”—she lifted one finger, affecting a rather good impression of Pierre—“and said, I quote, ‘Neither of us are getting any younger.’” She glared when Anna laughed. “It’s not funny. He might as well have said that we were going to die soon, so come in and be my live-in housekeeper.”
Anna couldn’t hold back her giggles, and this time Diane joined in. “If we’re being real here, I think Pierre can afford a housekeeper.”
The owner of the Gold—and Stefan’s dad because, yes, things were complicated—was a billionaire many times over. He could afford an army of staff if he so desired.
“The man has the romantic capabilities of an ant,” Diane grumbled.
“I don’t know about that,” Anna murmured. “But he does have good taste in flowers.”
A sigh. “Yes,” Diane agreed. “Yes, he does.” Another sigh. “He offered to move in here.”
“What?” Anna’s mouth dropped open. “Really?”
Pierre had a penthouse in the city. One that took up an entire top floor of a huge high-rise.
“That’s huge.”
Diane nodded. “I know.”
“So,” she said, squeezing her friend’s hand. “What are you waiting for?”
“Same thing as you, I suppose.”
Anna’s lips curved. “Never let me off the hook, do you?”
“That what friends do.”
“No.” She pushed out of her chair and hugged Diane tightly. “That’s what moms do,” she whispered. “Thanks for being my surrogate one.”
Diane wiped at the corner of her eye. “Let’s both stop it with the tears and eat before it gets cold.”
Spoken like a true mom.
Maybe for the first time, Anna realized she was lucky to know what that felt like.
Twenty
Blue
Two days with hardly a word from Anna, and now he was staring down at a text message that simply read:
We need to talk.
We need to talk.
What the fuck was that?
Had he done something? Had he screwed up and—
“Blue,” Frankie, their goalie coach popped his head into the locker room, “Bernard needs to see you.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, shoving his phone into the pocket of his slacks and stepping into his shoes. “Thanks, Frankie,” he said when he passed by him in the hall where he was showing Brit something on an iPad.
They were in Seattle at the home rink of the NHL’s newest team and so while the arena wasn’t home, it did have quite a few perks for the visiting teams that the older rinks didn’t have. In this case, it was a suite of rooms that were clean and new and state of the art, as well as several offices the coaching staff could use to chew out their players.
Which was probably on the agenda for that morning.
Blue had played like shit the previous night, directly contributing to the team’s loss.
His fault. His fucking fault because he couldn’t get his mind to focus on hockey, not when he knew there was something wrong with him and Anna. And that lack of focus had manifested in the form of three fucking giveaways at the blue line that had turned into easy goals for the other team.
Three.
Fucking embarrassing.
“Shit,” he said, finding the room that Bernard had commandeered and knocking on the wooden panel. Time to face his doom.
“Come in.”
He sucked in a breath and pushed through.
Bernard was older but in good shape, his hair fully white but his face almost unlined. He was known for his ability to scare players shitless, though he’d been a kind and fair coach to Blue from the beginning.
Today, however, with eyes narrowed and furrowed brows, he was frightening.
Or maybe that was just the sinking feeling in Blue’s gut.
Had he been traded?
Fuck.
“Sit,” Bernard ordered.
Blue collapsed into a chair, legs wobbling like a kid with stage fright, head spinning. Was this it? Was this the end?
Silence, for way too long given the sheer volume of his panic.
“If that leg is still bothering you, I need you to come clean with Mandy. It’s too early in the season to fuck around with injuries, and we’ll need you later during the playoff stretch.”
Blue shook his head. “I—”
“It’s either that or there’s something else fucking with your mind.” A brow lifted. “Maybe a problem that’s in female form?”
He sighed. “My leg is fine, but my personal life is my business—”
“Business that’s affecting the team.”
Based on the previous night’s game, he had a point.
Blue conceded with a nod. “It won’t happen again.”
Bernard shuffled some papers before stacking them together and tapping them on the desk. “See that it doesn’t. You’re excused from practice tomorrow. I’ll see you for the game on Saturday in Vancouver.”
He blinked. “What?”
“It’s a short flight. Go home and take care of it. Just make sure to have your shit together when you get back.”
The “or we’ll have a problem” might not have been verbalized, but Blue heard the words loud and clear anyway.
“Will do.”
He stood and turned for the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Thanks.”
Bernard grunted.
Blue high-tailed it to the locker room.
He had a flight to book.
Twenty-One
Anna
She’d finally gotten the courage to text Blue, and he hadn’t responded.
Nothing. Not a word or a meme or a gif.
Just radio silence that had her wondering if she’d already blown it.
“Shit,” she said, tossing her textbook to the side and flopping onto her back. “I ruined it.” She should have talked to him when she had the chance, not hidden in her apartment for two days straight, blowing off classes and eating nothing but Thai food delivered from the restaurant around the corner.
She hadn’t even showered—the smell of her body wash made her stomach turn—and she was wearing her old, practically threadbare pajamas.
And still no word from Blue.
He was probably upset about the loss the previous night. Nobody on the Gold had played particularly well, but Blue had played particularly bad. Which wasn’t like him in the least and what had ultimately prompted her to text. He obviously realized that something was up with her and it was bleeding over into his work.
She might be scared as hell, but she couldn’t in good conscience do something that might harm his work.
And her radio silence—or bare minimum of communication in case she spilled the beans and he bolted—wasn’t working.
So she’d texted.
And had hoped he would call that morning, knowing that he had two days off between games.
But he hadn’t.
Maybe he’d decided to cut his losses after all.
She glanced at the pregnancy test sitting on her coffee table.
She’d bought it after seeing Diane, all gung ho and ready to face her future . . . and it had sat in its bright pink box for three days.
Cute.
Sighing, she pushed up to sitting and started to reach for the box and head for the bathroom, knowing that she could put it off no longer. It was time to face the world again—
Apparently sooner than anticipated.
Because there was a knock at the door.
Normally she would have rushed to the bathroom for her robe before answering it—hello, see-through jammies—but it was a sign of how much she was off her game because Anna simply turned, took two steps, and whipped open the door.
Then gasped and slammed it shut.
Blue.
He was there. On the other
side of her door when he should have been in Seattle. Or Vancouver.
And she was . . . smelly and unwashed and—
“Anna,” he said, knocking again, more firmly. “Open the door.”
She couldn’t. Because . . . OMG she just couldn’t.
“U-uh. Just a second.” She sprinted for the bedroom, tearing off clothes, yanking on new ones, trying to finger-comb her hair, and—
“Anna?”
Blue’s voice was louder, as if he were—
She turned, saw that he was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, face white as he held . . . that bright pink box in his hand.
“Is—” He shook himself. “Are you—?”
She bit her lip. “I-I don’t know, but I think I might be.”
His jaw dropped open, the hand with the box fell to his side, and he just stared at her.
Just stayed perfectly still and stared.
For an eternity.
She lifted her chin. “I didn’t plan—”
He seemed to come to life all at once. A shudder going through him as he crossed to her and gripped the outside of her arms. The cardboard bit into her skin, but she hardly felt it, not when he was looking so earnest.
“I know that,” he said, brushing off one of her biggest concerns—that he’d think she’d tried to trap him—as easily as someone knocking away a fly. “Is this why you wanted to talk?”
A nod.
He crushed her to him. “Oh, baby,” he murmured. “We’ll figure it out together.”
It was the “we’ll” that did it.
Anna sagged against him, her own arms coming up to hold him tight as tears poured down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how this could have happened,” she sobbed.
He kissed the top of her head. “I do, sweetheart. I was there for all those orgasms, remember?”
Startled into laughter, she stared up at him. “What are we going to do?”
“First?” he asked.
She nodded.
“First, we take the test.”
It was during the five minutes the test was processing that Anna finally found the courage to tell Blue about her parents.
She’d always thought it could come later, that she had more time to untangle the mess inside her and tell him everything.