Page 19 of Cross-Checked

He presses his lips together and turns, walking over to a stroller I didn’t even notice off in the corner near the door to the athletic trainers’ room. Bending down, he pulls some sort of canvas backpack-looking thing from the storage space beneath the seat.

“Help me get her strapped into this,” I tell him, “and then I need you out there warming up.”

His eyes close briefly—a long blink that someone else might not even notice, but it says a lot to me about how hard it is for him to accept this help.

Standing in front of me, he lines the baby holder up against Abby’s back and then asks me to hold it in place before moving to stand behind me. Reaching around my hips, I can sense how tense he is, how careful he’s being not to touch me. But when he slips the padded straps under Abby’s legs, his forearms graze my hip bones before he brings the straps up around my waist, lifting my blazer as he clips them together behind me. There’s no way for him to avoid touching me as he tightens the waist strap.

“You just need to slip your arms through these shoulder straps,” he says.

“My jacket will get bunched up and uncomfortable like this,” I say as I hold one arm out. “Can you pull this sleeve so I can get my arm out?”

He holds the end of my sleeve with two fingers, like he’s touching trash—really, I just know he’s avoiding touchingme. And I pull my arm out, then slip it through the shoulder strap, before pushing it back into the sleeve of my blazer. After repeating the motion on the other side, Abby’s secured to me and already half asleep.

“Such a fussy baby,” I say, rubbing Abby’s back through the soft carrier. His head snaps toward me, but his face relaxes when he realizes I’m teasing, and then his entire expression softens when he sees how comfortable Abby is with me.

I’m not sure why, but babies love me. It’s a cruel trick of nature, I guess, to give a woman who can’t have kids the ability to calm any baby she comes into contact with. The unfairness of it all used to get to me, but now I just embrace this gift and snuggle everyone else’s children any opportunity I have.

“I’m not sure why, but she seems to like you,” he says.

A laugh bursts out of me and startles Abby, her arms and legs flying out quickly. But I wrap my arms around her, shushing her and saying, “Don’t let your dad’s grouchiness get to you, babe.We’ve got this.” Then I level him with a look, and using my bossiest voice, I say, “Can you please go do your job now?”

“Are yousureyou’re okay with her?”

“I’m positive.”

“You’ll come get me if you’re not?”

“I won’t be coming to get you, because we’ll be fine. Now go out there and play, and don’t think about us again until the game is over.”

“Where are you sitting?” he asks.

“I’ll be in the owners’ box with the Hartmanns,” I tell him. “And I’ll probably stop by and see the Flynns, too.”

“Behind the bench, right?” he asks, as if everyone on the team hasn’t given Drew endless shit this season about the way he can’t take his eyes off Audrey every single time he comes off the ice.

“Right. But for real, you don’t need to check on us.We’ll be fine.Now go do your job.”

“Okay. There’s a diaper bag in the bottom of the stroller with extra diapers, wipes, and a changing pad, and there’s a bottle of water and formula in there too if she needs it.”

It’s obvious how uncomfortable he is leaving Abby with me. But he brushes his fingertips across her head before turning to pick up his gloves, and then walks out the door just the same.

Chapter Nine

AJ

Itake a moment in the empty locker room to practice walking around with Abby. I’ve got plenty of experience holding babies, but not while walking around a crowded hockey game in three-inch heels. Once I feel more steady on my feet, I walk out into the empty hallway, taking it slowly. The last thing I need is to insist he trust me with his child, and then have some sort of mishap.

The noise from the arena isn’t that bad right now during warmups, but once they take the ice for the beginning of the game and the arena is full of screaming fans, music, and the announcers, it’ll be a different story. I feel like Abby needs those little baby noise-canceling earmuffs. Then again, she probably won’t be at another game, and it’s unlikely this one experience could damage her ears.

Plus, I think babies tend to sleep best with noise, and he did say that it was her bedtime. With any luck, she’ll sleep through this whole thing.

“Something you’re wanting to tell us, Miss?” Ralph, the nighttime security guard for this floor, jokes as he sees me walking toward the elevator with a baby.

“Did you miss my whole maternity leave?” I wink at him. With my high-profile role in this organization and my no-nonsense attitude toward my job and my team, no one is going to expect to see me walking around a game with a baby strapped to me tonight.

Little do they know that, once upon a time, I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I’d have left everything behind, scrapped my entire career, if it had been possible. But it wasn’t. And that’s when I learned that my husband, the same man who’d initially been attracted to my drive and ambition, basically only saw me as a vessel for his future children, which I was unable to have. It was all downhill from there.

“Whose baby you steal?” Ralph asks.

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