Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(18)

Neither fact was wrong—something Tess would appreciate.

Blackburn? Not so much.

The defenseman clamped his molars together hard enough that the team dentist probably would need to make time for him on the schedule.

“Your baby,” Blackburn said between clenched teeth.

“Hey, Zach, can you—” Tess came out of the apartment, struggling under the weight of a suitcase with a broken roller wheel, spotted Cole, and jolted to a stop. “Oh. You. Hi.”

Cole should respond—say hi, wave, smile like a dumb-ass who forgot words. He meant to respond, but he couldn’t. Instead, he reached out and took the suitcase she’d been struggling with off her hands. A very small part of his brain tried to work out what she’d stuffed it with, since the damn thing weighed about a million pounds, while the rest of him surrendered to one single thought: She’s so fucking hot.

Evolved man? Yeah, definitely not him.

In his defense, it was hard to be when all he could take in was the way her jeans clung to her round hips, the pink of her full lips, and the way her T-shirt clung to her curves. And she’s pregnant with your kid—how about you not gawk at a mother that way, you asshole.

Especially when thinking like that was what had gotten them in this situation in the first place. Hadn’t his dick and Christensen’s faulty condoms caused enough trouble already without him wondering if he and Tess could go find some stranger’s rehearsal dinner so they could get weddinged again?

“We were just talking about how it made so much sense for you to stay with Phillips while your apartment is repaired,” Blackburn said, sounding even more self-satisfied than the expression of I-know-exactly-what-you’re-thinking plastered across his face, if that was possible.

Her cheeks paled and her chin trembled before she pressed her lips together hard enough that a little white line appeared around her mouth. “There’s no need for that. I’m sure I could swing a hotel somehow. I don’t want to impose on you and Fallon or anyone else.”

His nuts deked to the side when she said anyone in that dismissive tone, but underneath there was more, as if she were deflecting. Whatever her reason, it still stung. She’d liked him plenty before. They had been cordial the other day. Now he was just some dude? Ouch.

“It’s no imposition; it’s just Phillips there.” Blackburn slapped a heavy hand down hard on Cole’s shoulder. “Really thought that this would give you two a chance to get to know each other a little better before the baby comes. Now, if you’re annoyed by the thought of having to eat Corn Flakes across the table from this guy every morning, you shouldn’t, because he’ll be on the road every other week.”

The team captain wasn’t wrong. Hockey schedules were brutal. Three games a week on average, at least half of which were on the road for a total of eighty-two games a season. Cole fucking loved it. The travel he could do without, but the daily grind of either playing or gearing up for a game the next day? It was just the kind of consistency he lived for. But the point of it was, he was crazy fucking busy. If he and Tess played it right, she really could move in and there would be as little disruption to their schedules—whatever it was she filled hers with—as possible.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” Tess said, her focus popping around like a ping-pong ball, landing everywhere but on him.

“It’s a great idea,” Fallon said as she joined them in the hall, holding up her phone, the screen of which displayed what looked like the mother of all group chats. “Gina and Lucy agree.”

“I don’t want to be an obligation,” Tess said, her voice wavering a bit. “I can just stay at a hotel. There are some extended-stay ones not that far away.”

Blackburn and Fallon both sent him do-something-you-asshole glares, but he barely noticed. He was too busy taking in the way Tess seemed to shrink back against the wall, as if by doing so, she could get the entire world to not notice she was there.

He knew that body language. Shit, he’d had to unlearn that shit with every new school he was enrolled in every six to nine months growing up. The other two didn’t realize it; they were a matched pair of bulldogs who didn’t have it in them to ever let go of an idea once they grabbed hold of it. If anyone was going to save Tess from their “helpful” bossing around, it would have to be him.

“It’s no obligation. Really,” he said, meaning it. “It’ll let us get to know each other a little better before the baby comes and work out the co-parenting stuff. You’ll have your own space, and it’ll be strictly as friends. I have no ulterior motives.”

And he didn’t—or more correctly, he wouldn’t. It was just the shock of seeing her again that had thrown him into hey-baby mode. “Baby” being the key word he needed to remember from now on.

He had no idea how he was going to tell his parents or Marti.

When he and Marti eventually got back together again—because they always did, right on schedule and according to routine—he would have to tell her. He hadn’t been kidding about the co-parenting; he wouldn’t just be the guy who contributed half the DNA and wrote an occasional check.

As long as he and Tess stayed away from weddings and remembered that what had happened had been a one-time (okay, three-time) event, then there was no reason why they couldn’t make this co-parenting thing work. He just needed to make a few small alterations to his daily regimen. He probably wouldn’t even notice.