Page 63 of Mile High Coach

“I know you don’t,” he turns to her, giving her a sly look. “Chrys, if your mom was here, she’d say you’re using me as an excuse. To keep from having to go out there and live your life. And I don’t want to be anyone’s excuse.”

Chrys bites her lips, looks away.

“I love the idea of it,” I say, clearing my throat and glancing between the two of them. “But…how in the world are we going to pay for it?”

“You know,” Dad says, flattening his hands on the table and glancing between the two of us, his daughters. “I thought about that for a long time—how would I pay for that, and upkeep on this place at the same time? But I think the truth is that I don’t have to.”

“Dad,” Chrys says, at the mere implication of what he’s saying. “But this is your place. This is you and Mom, here.”

“I know,” he agrees, nodding. “And I didn’t want to even think about it for a long time. Because your mother is here, in everything on this property. In the plants, the chickens—” he pauses to laugh about the chickens, wiping under his eye with his sleeve. “But that’s coming from a place of fear. She’s not here, in the house. She’s here…” he points to his chest. “And as much as she would hate it, she can come with me to the assisted living place. We can both be happy there, as long as you both come to visit.”

I’m crying, I realize, the tears streaming down my face quietly. Chrys hiccups loudly and reaches for Dad’s hand, and we sit like that for a second.

“I’ll go get my laptop,” I say, reaching the limit of how much emotion I can do for the day. “And we can make a spreadsheet?—”

“Wait, Lovie,” Dad says, reaching out and putting a hand on my arm. “There’s something else we have to deal with first.”

I pause, swallow, already knowing where he’s going with this, but not wanting to face it.

“There is?”

“Yeah,” Dad says, nodding and patting my arm, before sliding his hand off and gesturing toward my bedroom. “We can talk about all this when you get back. But for now, you’d better pack.”

My heart jumps, and I bite my lip to keep from crying again.

It’s been brewing inside me from the time I got back to Portland. My love for Harrison, shoved down inside me and bursting with the want to come out. And now, I realize part of that was physical, the love for the baby my body has been hard at work making.

And my dad already knows what’s been true since the moment I had my revelation this morning.

I have to go back to Baltimore.

Chapter 28

Harrison

The tough thing about being an NHL coach is that it doesn’t always give you time to make an emergency trip to Portland. The schedule doesn’t wait for you, and nobody in the league is going to postpone a game so you can make sure to catch the love of your life.

When I got home from seeing Brad at the bar, the first thing I did was pull out my laptop, comparing my schedule with the available flights to Maine. When I found at least twenty-four hours that I wouldn’t be needed, I booked the flight.

But that flight still isn’t until tomorrow, even after a whole week of home and away games, getting on plenty of flights that weren’t to Portland, Maine. And of course the place doesn’t even have an NHL team, so we couldn’t have been going there to play.

I just had to wait.

Now, I’m at the final game before I can leave, and trying to keep my mind on the hockey, instead of on the time and distance between me and her. I don’t want to think about how long, exactly, it’s going to be before I can talk to her, make my case. Tell her all the reasons why this thing will work, even though there are plenty of voices trying to tell us that it never will.

Around me, the announcer’s voice booms through the arena. “Ladies and gentleman, the Baltimore Blue Crabs and the Pittsburgh Penguins!”

I stand at the bench, clipboard under my arm, Samir and Deacon to my right, watching as the players warm up on either side of the rink. Music plays loudly through the arena, fans clap and stomp along to it, and my mind fights between two different focuses.

This game, which will bring us closer to the playoffs.

Lovie, and how I’ll be seeing her in just a few days.

That is, if she’ll agree to see me.

“Coach?” Samir asks, leaning down and catching my gaze. I startle, turning to him, and he clears his throat, gesturing to something on my clipboard, asking me a question.

I answer, and the team settles in for the opening face off. Like always, time seems to suspend itself in the seconds before the ref drops the puck, then, just like that, game is in play, sticks and pads clashing, the space filling with the sharp, frigid sound of skates on ice.

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