Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

“You brought hot chocolate?” Graham’s squeal matches the energy he’s had ever since he woke up and I told him we were going apple picking with Drew this afternoon.

Drew and I had talked a bit this morning about the best way to tell him who his father is, and we decided that it might be easiest if we were out doing something that felt family-like. Drew suggested apple picking, because he wanted to take Graham to the farm his family had always gone to as a kid anyway. Given that the location was meaningful to Drew, and we’d be able to find enough open space for the conversation, it felt like the right place. And now feels like the right time.

“Yep,” Drew confirms, as he pulls the paper cup back toward him before Graham, who is jumping around in his enthusiasm, can grab it with his outstretched hand and spill it. “It’s still a little too hot.”

I glance over at Drew, who’s balancing two larger take-out cups of hot chocolate in his other large hand. But all I can think of is the way that hand felt as he slapped my ass while deep inside me early this morning and, suddenly, I just want to be alone with him again. I wish he could spend the night again tonight, but I already know he can’t because their plane leaves early tomorrow morning for their first series of road games.

“Where’d you get this?” I ask instead.

“I made it.”

“You…what now?” In my mind, I imagine Drew in his kitchen—not that I know what it looks like yet—with several packets of hot cocoa.

“I made it. It’s a family recipe. I hope you like peppermint and Fluff.”

“What’s Fluff?” Graham asks.

Drew’s face transforms first into shock, and then to horror. “What’s Fluff???” He looks from Graham over to me. “You haven’t taught”—he pauses so quickly I think he must have just caught himself before saying our son—“Graham what Fluff is? What kind of mother are you?”

I laugh. “The kind who’s not trying to give her kid a sugar high by adding even more sugar to something that’s already sweet.”

“That’s an outrage!” Drew says, mock horror in his voice as he turns and sets the to-go mugs on the kitchen counter. He squats so he’s at eye level with Graham. “Okay, so Fluff is this marshmallow spread, and it makes lots of things better. Like hot chocolate, and also peanut butter. If you’ve never had a peanut butter and Fluff sandwich, we’re going to have to fix that immediately!”

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. “C’mere, I’ll show you a picture of it. And when your mom puts in her grocery order this week, she can get some for you.” He glances up at me, and his face is so playful that for a moment I feel like I have two kids—until he drops his voice low and says, “Right, Mama?”

Holy. Shit. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever find it hot for a grown man to call me Mama, but somehow when Drew says it in that smooth, deep voice of his, it makes me instantly want to jump him. And as he studies my response, I can tell he knows exactly what that word just did to me.

Drew looks up Fluff and shows Graham the picture on his phone.

“Do you think my hot chocolate is cool enough to drink yet?” Graham asks. “I want to taste the Fluff.”

“I don’t know that you’ll be able to taste it, specifically,” Drew says. “It’s more that it will make it sweeter and creamier.”

I pick up Graham’s drink and take a sip, determining that it’s not too hot for him. “Wow,” I say to Drew as I hand Graham his cup. “What’s in that? It’s delicious.”

“Family secret,” he says with a shrug. “I can’t tell you unless you marry into my family.”

“Mom’s never been married,” Graham says, as he holds the warm cup between both palms and looks up at us.

“Easily fixed,” Drew says, giving me a wink.

“I know!” Graham says, his whole face lighting up. “You two can get married. Then Mom won’t be all alone.”

“I’m not all alone,” I tell him as I reach out and brush my fingers across his cheek. “I’ve got you.”

“But you could have Drew, too,” Graham says, shrugging like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I love his wide-eyed innocence.

Drew keeps his lips pressed together, but there’s no doubt he’s laughing.

“That’s not exactly how getting married works,” I tell him, then give Drew a look that I hope communicates how awkward it is that he just opened up this conversation.

“How does it work?”

“You know what,” Drew says, “I’ll explain it to you later. Right now, we need to get going before all the apples get picked.”

When we head out the door behind Graham, I reach over to pinch Drew’s side, and I’m disappointed to find nothing but chiseled muscle—there’s barely anything to grab onto. In response, Drew snakes his arm around my back and pulls me close, then whispers, “That was your turn,” in my ear. He gives me a devilish smile, and I roll my eyes.

“Do not pinch me back.”

He drops his voice even lower. “Or what?”

“Try it and find out.” I give him a little wink as I saunter over to my SUV and grab Graham’s booster seat.

Once it’s settled in the back seat of Drew’s Jeep and Graham is all buckled in, I give him his cup of cocoa and a warning about not spilling it.

“It’s a Jeep,” Drew says. “If he spills, I’ll hose it out.”

I take a look at the interior, which is much more luxurious than I realized the last time I was in here. Then again, the only thing my illness-addled brain retained from that night was the way it felt to be in Drew’s arms. “You can hose this out?”

“Yep. It’s part of the allure of having a Jeep.”

“Why? Do you get it very dirty?”

“In the summers, I generally leave the top off unless it’s raining, so yeah, it can get pretty dirty.”

“Hey…” Graham says from the back seat. “Why do you have rubber ducks lined up across the front?” I glance back at him to see his nose scrunched up like he’s trying to figure out why a grown man has plastic ducks along the dashboard in his car. It’s a fair question, and I vaguely remember asking something similar the night he took me for the strep test.

“It’s a Jeep thing,” Drew tells him. “It’s called ‘Getting Ducked.’ When you see another Jeep, like in a parking lot or something, you leave a rubber duck on the windshield or the driver’s side mirror. And when someone sees my Jeep, they leave me a rubber duck.”

“Do you have to leave a duck if you see another Jeep?”

“No, it’s more like if you see one that’s just like yours, or one you really like.”

“Do people know you’re famous when they leave a duck on your Jeep?” Graham asks, and I watch Drew’s cheeks pull up and his throat bob as he tries not to laugh.

“I’m not really that famous,” he says as he backs out of the space and heads down the alley to the street. “I’m just lucky that I get to play hockey for a living.”

“Everyone at my school knows who you are,” Graham insists, and it’s the first time he’s mentioned this to me. It makes me wonder what he’s told his classmates—not that he knows anything particularly newsworthy to tell them. But he will soon, and one of the things that’s worried me most about telling him is trying to figure out how he’ll process this, and what his life and our life will be like when he finds out this hockey player he looks up to is actually his dad.

“That’s what happens when you play a sport professionally. There’re good things and bad things about it,” Drew tells him.

Graham looks like he might ask a question, but then nods solemnly, glancing back at the plastic ducks lined up on the dashboard. “Did you know that ducks can communicate with each other before they’re even hatched?”

I glance at Drew, who’s focused on the road but whose cheeks are definitely turned up in a smile now. “I didn’t. Who do they communicate with?”

“The baby ducks in the other eggs. They can all talk to each other and that’s how they know when to hatch, and then they all hatch at the same time.”

“For real?” Drew asks.

“Yeah. I saw it in a video about ducks.”

“He’s a little obsessed with birds,” I tell Drew as he comes to a stop at a stoplight.

“Do you want one of these ducks?” he asks, nodding toward the row of plastic ducks.

“Yes!”

“Which one?”

“Ummmm….” Graham pauses as his eyes move across the row. “Could I have the police officer duck?”

“Sure,” Drew says, reaching over and plucking it out of the row, then reaching behind him to hand it to Graham. “But only if you tell me more about ducks.”

I groan internally as I press my head back into the headrest and close my eyes. He has no idea the floodgates he just opened.

“Well, because of where their eyes are, on the side of their heads, they can see in almost a full circle around them…”

“Stop fucking pinching me,” I hiss at Drew. “At this rate, my ass is going to be covered in bruises.”

“Good.” The sight of him with those aviator sunglasses, a backward Rebels hat holding his wavy hair back, and a sexy half-smile dawning on his face, does funny things to my chest. Being with Drew feels like letting my heart grow in ways I didn’t know were possible, especially when I watch him lift our son onto his shoulders so he can reach apples high up in the tree, like he was doing just a minute ago.

“Why in the world is that good?”

“It’ll give you a reason to think of me while I’m gone.”

I hate that he leaves tomorrow for a seven-day West Coast road trip. “I won’t need any more reasons to think of you, trust me.”

His eyes flick over to Graham, who’s running ahead on the path to the next orchard with a different type of apple than the one we’ve been picking. Drew’s hand presses into my lower back as he pulls me into his side and drops a kiss on the top of my head. “Also, good. And just to make sure you have lots of reasons to think of me while I’m away, I’m sending you a little care package.”

He releases me, then calls to Graham to slow down and wait for us at the picnic table that’s just come into view. Beyond it, a valley of trees interspersed with fields and houses, spreads out before us.

I want to ask him about that care package, but I get the sense that he’s asking Graham to stop for a reason. “Are you going to tell him now?”

“Yeah, if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m nervous about how he’s going to take this,” I say, hating the way my stomach feels like an open pit.

“Me too. But he needs to know, and not telling him because it makes us uncomfortable isn’t fair.”

We’re quickly approaching Graham where he’s standing on the seat of the picnic table, taking in the view. “He’s going to have so many questions about why I didn’t tell him who his dad was if I knew all along.”

“Maybe,” Drew says. “Or maybe he’ll just accept it. He’s only five. He’s not going to think about it the same way we are.”

“True, but he’ll have questions, eventually.”

“And when he does, we can answer him.”

And while I know he’s right, I also know my kid, and I’m afraid he’s going to throw us a curveball we aren’t expecting.

Which is sort of what happens, because when Drew says to Graham, “Your mom and I have something we want to talk to you about,” our son holds his half-eaten apple in two hands and looks at Drew like he knows exactly what he’s going to say.

“Okay,” Graham says.

“So, you know how your family is just you and your mom?”

“Yeah, it was. Until you came back.”

Drew’s eyes flick to mine, but my face is frozen in a mask of surprise.

“What do you mean, Graham?” I finally spit out.

“I saw the picture at Drew’s mom’s house,” Graham says, as if we know what he’s talking about.

“What picture?” Drew asks.

“The one I thought was a picture of me. But your mom said it was you when you were my age. So I knew you were my dad.”

“Wait,” Drew says, then coughs out a laugh. “You saw a picture of me when I was your age and decided I must be your dad?”

“Yep. It’s like how Ivy looks just like Lauren when she was little, right, Mom?”

A couple of months ago, Lauren was showing us some photos of her and Paige when they were little. Graham was amazed at how Lauren, at three years old, looked exactly like her daughter, Ivy, looks now. We’d explained that sometimes kids look just like one of their parents at the same age. I guess it isn’t a huge leap that he’d see how much he looks like Drew and jump to the same conclusion.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I say. “So how are you feeling about Drew being your dad?”

Our son takes a bite of his apple and chews it with his eyes scrunched up like he’s deep in thought. Then he looks at Drew and says, “I’m glad it’s you.”

He looks between the two of us, and instead of asking any questions about how this happened, how Drew didn’t know or how he eventually found out, Graham says, “So, are you guys getting married?”

It’s the second time in as many hours that he’s mentioned this idea.

“You don’t just get married because you have a child together,” I tell Graham. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Why do you get married, then?” Graham asks.

“Well, when you love each other very much and you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, then you get married,” I tell him, feeling Drew’s eyes on me.

Graham’s big brown eyes are wide, and his face is curious when he says, “And you don’t love each other enough to spend the rest of your lives together?”

Why do kids always have to ask the hard questions?

Drew pulls at the neck of the t-shirt he’s wearing under his flannel and looks at me like he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “I think that it takes time to make those kinds of big life decisions, and your mom and I need more time before we can decide.”

I’m trying to figure out if he’s come to that realization himself, even after telling Caitlyn he was going to marry me, or if he’s saying it on my behalf so that I don’t have to be the one standing in the way of something Graham obviously wants to happen.

“We’re just taking things slow, Bud,” I tell Graham. “We need to figure out what this whole family thing looks like. For a long time, it was just you and me, and it’s only fair to give Drew time to adjust to being part of our family, and for us to adjust to him, too.”

“Okay,” Graham says and lifts his little shoulders in a shrug. “Can we go find more apples now?”

Drew and I glance at each other, both of us obviously bewildered by how this conversation went.

“Sure,” I say, thinking there’s no way we got off that easy after I’ve been building this up in my mind for so long.

But as Graham runs down the path ahead of us, holding his half-eaten apple, Drew slings his arm over my shoulder and pulls me to his side as we walk. Then he says, “I’m not just going to marry you someday, Audrey. I’m going to marry you someday soon.”