Calle
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whispered, the realization of what she’d just said to Coop sinking in now that she was alone in her office.
Pregnant.
She thunked her head down onto her desk. “How could you have been so stupid, Calle Stevens?”
To think that when she’d taken the test that morning, she’d actually had a sliver of hope that she and Jason might get back together, that they might be able to work out their differences, that it might be what jumpstarted their relationship again.
Yeah, that never went wrong.
Because having a baby always fixed relationships.
“Fuck,” she muttered and forced herself to straighten. She couldn’t think about this now. There was work to do, and it wasn’t like anything was going to change in the next nine months.
Nine. Months.
Oh God.
This was actually happening.
She’d spent her entire life keeping her head down and not making stupid mistakes and . . .
She’d made up for that two months ago.
That was what happened when people got lonely.
They did idiotic things.
Like sleeping with their ex when he’d popped into town while on a road trip. Like dating a hockey player in the first place. Like dating a hockey player who was in the AHL and pissed that he wasn’t in the NHL. One who wasn’t happy that she’d gotten selected to coach an NHL team.
She’d understood.
It was hard to see someone else get breaks and move up in the world and be left behind.
God, how she got that.
She’d watched from the sidelines as her teammates had scored a gold medal, crutches under her arms, standing and cheering, and so fucking thrilled.
But also aching.
Because even though she’d gotten to take home that heavy metal ring of gold, she hadn’t been out there, eking out that win, scrumming on the ice, blocking shots, deking, shooting, scoring. She’d missed sharing the joy of earning that final win.
So, FOMO. Yeah, it was a real bitch.
The difference was that Calle had never held it against her teammates.
Unlike Jason.
He’d been happier when she was recovering from being injured than when she was playing, so attentive and caring and helpful that she hadn’t recognized that particular mindfuck until just before they’d broken up, almost two years before.
Stupid? Probably. But she’d also been so busy with rehab and school that she’d been able to ignore a lot of their problems.
Then Jason had been in town, and he’d called being all sweet, and Calle had been lonely and . . . she’d had a moment of temporary insanity.
Fuck.
Why had she thought for a moment that he might have changed? That this—she placed her hand over her stomach—would change anything.
People didn’t change.
So, now she had a useless prescription for birth control pills that had failed, a job where she worked with tough, strong men all day and where she needed to look tough and strong as well, and pretty soon she was going to be whale-sized, waddling down the hallway.
“Oh God.”
She wanted to plunk her head back down onto her desk, to bang it a few more times for good measure, but she had to get ready for the game that night, which meant she had tape to watch, players to check up on, and line combinations to float by Bernard, the team’s head coach. She also needed to check with the physical therapy staff and make sure there weren’t any new restrictions for the athletes she wanted in the game that she didn’t know about and—
Calle could not fall apart.
That was the most important thing.
Well, that and avoid Coop.
Coop.
Why of all of the Gold players and staff had she blurted out the truth to him?
They were the same age. They’d both grown up in Georgia, though their circles hadn’t overlapped until now, mostly because Calle had been lucky enough to move to be part of a talented, albeit burgeoning, girl’s program in Maine early and hadn’t needed to play with the boys. This was unlike Brit—the team’s starting goalie who was the first female player in the league. A few years older than Calle, she had played mostly on boy’s teams.
What a difference those years had made, though. While Brit had needed to fight her way up through the ranks on all-boys teams, Calle had played with girls her age and older, had opportunities to play on the junior national and participate in training camps before proceeding to make the national team and competing internationally.
Brit had gone to juniors, to the AHL, and finally to the Gold.
And was one of the team’s most talented and solid players.
She was who Calle should have blurted her troubles out to. She got what it was like to be a female in this industry, knew what it was like to deal with male players and their hang-ups and egos.
Brit had also handed many, many assholes their asses.
Calle should have taken notes before calling Jason.
But she’d thought—
“Ugh!” She pushed her chair back and shot to her feet. What was the definition of insanity? Doing the same damned thing over and over again? Well, then the last ten minutes of moping around in her office were fucking insane.
She was thinking herself in circles, wishing that the outcome of her conversation with Jason had been different, that she hadn’t blurted out what was happening to Coop.
But it wasn’t different, and she had blurted.
There wasn’t any way to go back, and she needed to get her shit together and do her fucking job.
“Do your fucking job, Calle Stevens,” she muttered.
Yes, she was talking to herself.
“You have fucking got this.”
Yes, it was morphing into a pep talk.
“Suck it the fuck up and get your shit done.”
Yes, it involved copious f-bombs, but that was hockey and really, the word fuck was the absolute best curse word around. Though asshole had a nice ring to it. Especially today. And douche canoe. That was always a good one.
See? Now she was distracted with thinking about the proper ranking order of curse words and not the problem in her uterus.
Problem—
Fuck.
Her heart spasmed, because no matter that the baby growing inside her was the size of a strawberry—yes, she’d looked it up, right after taking the second test in the pack—she was already in love.
Already feeling protective.
Already imagining holding the precious little bundle in her arms and—
She’d always wanted kids. That wasn’t the issue.
She had a good job with excellent health coverage. She owned a condo, had a car, even a savings account. Calle was capable of caring for a baby.
She’d always just pictured that the caring for a baby part would be shared.
“It’s for the best,” she murmured. Jason wasn’t the partner she wanted to share parental duties with. Maybe she’d been hoping that initially, but the conversation they’d just had told her otherwise.
Such vitriol.
Accusing her of trapping him. Telling her to abort. Saying she wouldn’t get a dime.
And all she’d been able to think was . . . strawberry.
That little strawberry growing inside her body was hers to protect and keep safe, hers to grow and love and—
No, she couldn’t just get rid of it.
She needed a lawyer, to get him to sign his rights away, to make sure he never came back and—
No.
She needed a doctor’s appointment. Calle needed to make sure everything was how it seemed, make sure her little strawberry was safe and well. She needed to cross her T’s, dot her I’s, have a plan of attack.
Her superpower was preparation.
This would be the perfect use of that skill.
She grabbed her tablet, shoved her cell into her pocket, and headed for the door.
Step one, find a doctor. Step two, talk to a lawyer, get Jason the fuck out of her life. Permanently. Step three, find Coop, swear him to secrecy. He wasn’t prone to gossip much, not like the rest of the players, but she needed to make sure he didn’t blab this around until her plan was in motion.
See?
She had this.
Although, maybe she should move step three up to step one. If Coop did say something . . .
She reached for the door handle, pressing it down and tugging the wooden panel open, mentally running through Coop’s schedule and deciding where would be the best place to track him down. The weight room, probably. He always—
“Calle.”
Heat down her spine, goose bumps prickling to life on her arms.
That warm, raspy voice had always been appealing.
Now it had gentled, softened, melted, coating her skin with honey. Her breath caught, her pulse accelerated, and her quads went a little shaky, as though she’d stayed out on the ice for too long of a shift.
She turned, stared up into the face of one of the most attractive men she’d ever laid eyes on. He was as gorgeous as Idris Elba, but even more so, because along with beautiful deep russet skin, intense eyes, and a strong jawline came all of the built yumminess of a hockey player’s body—powerful thighs, narrow waist, totally grabbable ass.
But that attraction had always been tempered with professionalism.
On both their sides.
Well, Coop had always been professional. She’d pretended to be professional while surreptitiously giving into weakness and occasionally checking out his ass.
The point was, she’d been careful to keep a distance between them.
She was a coach. He was a player.
They weren’t friends, couldn’t ever be.
But now he knew something about her. Something big. Something that had changed their dynamic.
Because it wasn’t careful distance in his gaze now.
His deep brown eyes were intense and for a heartbeat, it stole the air from her lungs.
“I—”
She didn’t know what she’d been planning to say, because Coop stepped forward, cutting off her words and crowding her back into her office.
And she let him.
Because she was suddenly nose-close to the broad expanse of his gorgeous chest, the spicy tang of man assaulting her senses, becoming abruptly aware that aside from being the prettiest man she’d ever seen, he had extremely kissable lips.
He spun, giving her his back, and she had a millisecond to appreciate the sight of his shirt stretched tightly over his muscles before she heard it.
It being the click of the lock sliding home.
Coop turned back.
His mouth descended.