Page 130 of Sin Bin Daddies
The ultrasound photois soft at the edges now, worn from the number of times I’ve unfolded it.
It sits in the top drawer of my desk, hidden beneath folders and scouting reports, but it’s always there. Always calling to me.
I look at it now, the tiny, grainy image of a life we created, and my chest tightens in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
They’re growing. Inside her. Our babies.
And she’s still walking around in that ridiculous mascot suit, acting like nothing in the world is different. But everything is. Everything.
I should be in the locker room by now. Game’s in forty minutes. But I’m frozen here, staring at this picture like it holds all the answers.
Like it’s not driving me completely insane that I can’t tell anyone.
That I can’t touch her in public. That I can’t drop to my knees every time she walks into a room and thank her for giving me this.
Fuck. I’m so in love with her it wrecks me.
My head snaps up at the knock on the door. I blink hard and shove the photo back into the drawer, slamming it shut just as I hear the knob turn.
“Maddie?” I breathe, stepping forward as she walks in, the giant ice costume swallowing her small frame.
But something’s wrong. Her hand is pressed to the padded stomach, her steps uneven.
“Hey, hey, come here.”
I guide her in and close the door behind her. My gut is already turning.
“What happened?”
She lifts off the oversized mascot head and I freeze. Her eyes are red, lashes wet, her cheeks streaked with tears. She’s sobbing. Loud, hiccuping sobs that make me want to tear through walls.
“The zipper,” she manages through a gasp. “It broke. I can’t get out and I’m—I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re crying because the zipper broke?”
“I’m crying becauseeverythingis broken and I’m hot and huge and this costume smells like old fries and I just—I don’t know. I’m losing it, Leo.”
Shit. She’s unraveling. Hormones. Stress. All of it.
I slide my hands to her back, trying to find the catch in the zipper. “Okay. Deep breath. We’ll get you out of this thing, alright? No one’s going to make you wear it like this.”
“I have to go out there,” she cries. “They’ll notice if I’m not there. And I can’t—not like this.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of it.”
She sniffles, nods, and I start peeling her out of the oversized costume piece by piece.
The head’s already off, the gloves fall to the floor, and I tug down the padded body until she’s standing in nothing but her panties, clutching her arms around herself, shoulders trembling.
I grab the Miami Icemen hoodie draped over my chair and ease it over her head. It swallows her up, the sleeves dangling past her fingertips.
She wipes her eyes, but the tears keep coming. “You don’t think I’m sexy anymore, do you?”
My stomach twists. “Mads. What the hell?”
“I mean it,” she says, hiccupping between words. “No one touches me anymore. I’ve got stretch marks, and I leak sometimes, and I’m always hungry or sleepy or snapping at someone, and no one evenlooksat me like they used to. I just—I don’t know—I feel invisible. But also like I’m going to explode. I’msodamn horny and none of you even try to do anything about it and?—”
I close the space between us fast and cup her face.
