It left me more curious, but whatever. I had enough problems not to take on more unless he brought them to me.
I turned back to my area, plopped my ass down and got dressed. Knee pads, skates, full leg pads. Arm pads and blockers, chest pads. By the time I was done I was about fifty pounds heavier and waddling my ass out to the rink.
The ice was my home, and it didn’t matter if I was on a frozen pond or an arena filled with thousands. My dad taught me to skate when I was three, something he’d done his entire life. It was in between his earliest deployments and after that first taste of being on the ice, skating in between legs before he let me go only to fall flat on my ass, I was hooked. Two more days of us at the rink and I was skating in circles, talking to it like it’d been set in my DNA before I came into the world.
There was no place that existed in the world where I was more comfortable, more confident, and more at home.
Unless I was with Lizzie.
I tapped my stick on the ice before starting my warm-ups.
Christ, I hoped like hell she stayed.
16
Lizzie
For the first time in what felt like years, it was three o’clock in the afternoon and I didn’t feel the desperate need to curl up into a ball and sleep until September. I hadn’t even felt that nauseous when I woke up but had eaten crackers just in case. Perhaps things were getting better. I wasn’t going to look the gift horse in the mouth. I was just going to be thankful I didn’t spend the morning repeatedly brushing my teeth after throwing up.
I’d even managed to call a few obstetricians and midwives and some of them were able to fit me in for consult appointments before I left next week. I’d checked Garrett’s calendar, and if he wanted, he could come with me to a couple of them but after this week, he was back on the road and only at home a night or two over a ten-day period. It wasn’t necessary he came with me, simply because they weren’t real prenatal appointments, but were more to help me find someone I’d want delivering our baby. Still, he’d want to be involved.
After, and since I wasn’t in will pass out at any moment even if I’m standing up mode, I decided to finally be an adult. I’d already shared all my secrets with Garrett. My parents knew everything. It was time to unload everything else on the only other person I’d lied to and kept things from. Katie had sent me numerous texts over the last few days asking if I saw Garrett, all of which I ignored. What could I tell her that night I left the hotel and he’d stalked off? What could I tell her the next day when he showed up and demanded to stay? What could I tell her the next day when I was packing bags to come with him to Vegas?
Now it was time for me to suck it up before she sent the SWAT team to my condo in Chicago and then alerted the FBI I’d been kidnapped.
With my laptop on my lap, I pulled up the FaceTime app to call her.
Her voice came through the computer before her grainy face materialized clearly. “It’s about freaking time, girl. I was about ready to call the cops on you!”
Yeah. I knew her well.
“Sorry,” I said, and immediately grinned at her face on the screen. But it wasn’t my best friend that captured my attention, it was the tuft of dark hair at her chest, mostly hidden beneath a blanket. Marissa’s tiny little hand rested on Katie’s chest and from the lack of bra strap or anything on her shoulder, I figured Marissa was eating. “Did I interrupt lunchtime?”
She rolled her eyes in the loving way moms did and grinned down at her baby. My uterus squeezed.
In six months, that was going to be me. Having another human connected to me. The screen blurred before I could blink back the emotion.
“So, I take it the meeting didn’t go well?” Katie asked.
“No.” I shook my head, sniffed, and finally pulled my gaze off Marissa. There was no way to filter out all the things I wanted to say so in a rush, it all fell out in a breath. “I’m pregnant and I told him and now I’m in Vegas with him.”
“I’m sorry… what?” she choked, eyes widening, jaw falling and then her eyes went huge, shimmered with tears and her smile grew so big I could see all her teeth. “Are you serious?”
She shrieked and Marissa popped off, scrunching up her face. “Oh shit. Hold on a sec.” She jumped, giving me a full flash of one of her boobs, moved out of screen and when she returned, Marissa had a pacifier in her mouth and Katie was covered up. “What in the hell? How did this happen?!”
I was too worked up to tease her. My typical sarcasm along the lines of well, Katie, when a boy and a girl have sex…
Instead, more tears fell. I’d held this in for so long, and now… now I could finally tell her everything. “In December, that weekend… and then I got sick, and freaked, and he’d told me he was coming to Las Vegas but that he loved me. Then I found out I was pregnant, and I was going to come here to tell him, but I saw him with that Nadia girl and I just… I didn’t know what to do.”
“Oh honey.” Her blue eyes were as wet as mine and we laughed stupidly, swiping at our cheeks. “You could have told me. You didn’t have to hold this in.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you to have to keep it from Jude, and then it took a while for it to be real, but my parents got so mad at me for not telling him right away.”
“Holy crap! I’m like bursting with excitement and pissed I can’t hug you. I mean.. you’re pregnant, Lizzie. Our babies are going to be like, what a year apart? And you’re in Vegas, so I’m guessing Garrett wasn’t pissed.”
I flinched as I recalled how angry he’d been that night I told him. When he sat in the booth and swore, told me he needed time. Demanded I give it to him. He’d left and I hadn’t known if I’d see him again, or if I’d be here. Crazy that was only days ago.
“He was. Huge. At first. The night I went to the hotel he stormed out and I was so damn terrified, but then he showed up the next night…”
I told her everything. She listened and we cried and I stupidly even told her about Nadia being here when we arrived. And poor Katie. She was more pissed she couldn’t have been here to hug me through all of this and had so many questions. How I was feeling… when I was due… what Garrett and I were doing.
“And now tonight, Joey’s having guys over I guess so Garrett wants me to come.” I chewed my bottom lip. “What if his team hates me?”
“Please.” She snorted. “There isn’t a single man you’ve ever met you couldn’t charm. You’ll be fine. And Garrett and Joey wouldn’t let anything happen to you. What’s really freaking you out?”
She knew me like the back of her hand. “I’m terrified to give up everything I’ve worked for up until now. To move here, start all over…”
“Yeah. I know what’s that like.”
How stupid of me. Of course she did. When Jude hobbled back into Katie’s life after having ACL surgery, she’d been his physical therapist. Months later, she was quitting her job, moving to North Carolina, all for a second chance at the guy she’d always loved.
“It all worked out for me,” she said, smoothing her hand across the back of Marissa’s head and she did it so softly, I doubted she realized she was even doing it.