Page 12 of Center Ice

I tap the earbud to pause the podcast as I let out a guttural sound—the groan of frustration that’s been building all day as I’ve struggled through exhaustion and the worry over Drew knowing about Graham.

Then I hop over the plate, take the turn around the corner of the coat closet, and come face to face with the man who couldn’t be bothered to return any of my calls all those years ago.

He’s standing on the other side of the door, his hand over his eyes as he practically presses his face up against the glass. When we lock eyes, his expression takes my breath away. It’s pain, and confusion, and—if memory serves—longing.

“Are you going to let me in?” he calls out as a sheepish grin spreads across his face.

Do I have a choice?

I take my earbuds out as I take the few steps over to the entrance and slide the lock at the top of the door up, then turn the deadbolt. When I swing the door open, he just stands there, saying nothing.

“You could have just called.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, since he’s already called multiple times.

“So you could just keep ignoring me? Which I’ll be the first to admit, I deserve. I’m sorry to show up like this”—his lips press together and his eyes scan my face—“but I was desperate.”

I can feel my eyebrows scrunch together, and I hear Jules’s voice in my head, teasing me about how I’m going to develop a permanent crease in the space between them for how often I’m scowling. “For?”

“Answers? Last night was…a lot to process.”

“Yeah,” I say, a heavy dose of sarcasm in my tone as I turn and head into my office.

I can tell he follows, because I hear the door shut behind me. Walking to the table that takes up the middle of the room, I sit on the far side and gesture for him to take a seat. But he passes the seat I’m motioning toward and takes the one opposite the corner where I’ve just sat. He’s as close as he can be.

And that brings back all kinds of memories about Drew’s lack of respect for personal space—not because he’s being a dick, but because he obviously came from a family where close physical proximity and constant touch were the norm. I noticed it when I tutored him—the way he’d easily swing his arm over me and rest it against the back of my chair as he leaned in to look at a problem I was showing him, how he insisted on walking me home at the end of each nighttime tutoring session and how he’d always reach out and squeeze my shoulder and thank me, how when we joked around, he’d punch my arm lightly or poke me in the ribs or reach over and swat my thigh.

It was so different from my own experience after my mom died. She was always touching us—smoothing her hand over our hair in passing, giving us hugs when we’d had a bad day, kissing our foreheads before we headed to bed. Her love language was physical touch, and that didn’t stop, even when she got sick. But once she was gone, the lack of physical contact was almost overwhelming.

Maybe that’s why I started craving his attention and his affection. He had an easy-going spirit that could not have been more different from my own serious nature. He was light and happy, easily pleased and seldom bothered—a stark contrast to the man who now sits across the corner of the table facing me.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks, his voice gentler than I’d expect for someone who just found out he has a five-year-old.

“Sure,” I say lightly and give him a little shrug. “I got pregnant. I called you twenty times to try to tell you, and you never called me back. Not even when I broke down and told you I was pregnant in a voicemail.” I cross my arms over my chest, raising my eyebrows and biting the corner of my lip like I always do when I’m nervous.

I notice his eyes focus on that, and I want to screamReally?I just confirmed that he had a kid, and he’s looking at my lips like he wants to kiss them?

“You still do that, huh?”

I squeeze my arms tighter against me, like I can use them as a shield to protect myself from him. “Do what?” I’m scowling, and I know it, but it makes one corner of his lips turn up.

“Bite your lip when you’re nervous.”

“What would I possibly be nervous about, Drew?” I bluff.

“How I’m going to react to the news.”

“I’m more concerned with your non-reaction. You don’t seem shocked. Or apologetic. Or any of the other reactions I might have expected.”

“I’ve had all night to come to terms with the fact that I’m a father. I’ve had all morning to regret not getting to see him as a baby, not being there for his birth or his first steps or his first words, or any of the other moments that should have become memories.” As he looks at me, his eyes never wavering from mine, and I note the regret in his expression. “I wasn’t ready to be a dad five years ago, and I’m sure you didn’t feel ready to be a mom. But if I’d known, I’d have stepped up.” He reaches across the table and wraps his fingers around my elbow, giving it a quick squeeze. “I’d have been there for you and Graham. And it kills me that it’s my own fault that I didn’t know. That you had to do this all yourself, and that I missed it all.”

I tilt my chin as I stare at him with what I’m sure is wide-eyed disbelief. I don’t know what I expected his reaction to be, but it wasn’t this.

“I didn’t have to do it all myself. I had Jameson and Jules.”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning in. “Can we talk about how I didn’t know Jameson was your brother, and how he clearly doesn’t know that I’m Graham’s father?”

I let out a sigh and deflate a little.

“I didn’t tell you Jameson was my brother because I didn’t want that to be a factor in our...friendship. My whole life, people used me to get closer to my brother. College was the first time that no one knew who I was or that we were related.”

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