Page 112 of Center Ice
“Well, even though your family is here, I’m going to have to borrow you for a little while,” she tells Graham, “because we need to do an ultrasound and make sure everything inside your body is okay. Alright, little man?”
“Can my mom come, too?” Graham asks.
“Of course,” she says. “I’m going to need the rest of you to step out into the hallway so I can move this bed out and get Graham down to imaging.”
My eyes and Audrey’s lock, because it’s then that we apparently both realize we were here in this very ER, while my mom was down in imaging, after the last home game. “Let’s not make a habit of this, eh?” I kiss her nose, and she squeezes my hand, and even though I don’t want to let go of her, I move out into the hallway with Jameson and Lauren.
As the nurse wheels him past, Graham waves at us with his good arm like he’s on a float in a parade, and Audrey turns and mouths “Love you”to me as she passes.
“You made the right decision tonight,” Jameson says once they’re gone.
“I know.” I appreciate his show of support, but this would have been the right choice even if he didn’t agree with it…even if Audrey had been mad that I left the game…even if AJ hadn’t decided it was a good reason to keep me on the team.
There’s no world in which thiswasn’tthe only choice.
Chapter Forty-Four
AUDREY & DREW
AUDREY
“That’s the last of it,” Colt says as he carries two boxes through the front door. They’re balanced between his arms and held in place by his enormous hands on the bottom of the first box, and his chin on the top of the second. Behind him, Zach Reid and Ronan McCabe each have a box in their arms.
“I shut and locked the moving van,” Zach says, nodding to the keys that sit on top of the box in his hands.
“Thanks so much,” I say, grabbing the keys and hanging them on one of the hooks by the door. “Can you drop those two in Graham’s bedroom?” I nod toward Colt’s boxes. “And those two can go in my and Drew’s room,” I say, nodding toward Zach and Ronan, and thinking that it’s a damn good thing Drew installed a temporary pole in his bedroom so we can take it down and put it back up whenever we want.
“For you, anything,” Colt says and moves down the hall, followed by his teammates.
Behind me, the crowd in the kitchen is boisterous. I turn and head in there, loving the sound of our friends and family allcoming together for our moving day. The kids are playing in the living room, and McCabe’s daughter is asleep in her infant car seat on one of the chairs, completely unfazed by all the noise.
The adults are gathered around the island, helping themselves to all the brunch foods that Jules brought over for the occasion. Morgan and Paige are kicking back what has to be at least their third mimosa each, and Lauren’s bemoaning the fact that she has to be responsible for toddlers.
“Have another drink,” Jameson says, pushing the champagne bottle across the counter toward her. “I’ve got them.”
Lauren laughs, and says, “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
When I come up next to Jules, she wraps her arm around my waist and rests her head on my shoulder.
Colt and the guys come up on the other side of her, grabbing plates and piling them with food.
“I’m going to be lonely without you,” she says.
“I’m only going to be a few minutes away. And we work together. You’ll see me all the time.” I’m trying to remain upbeat for her sake, but the hardest part about deciding to move in with Drew was the thought of leaving Jules all alone. For years, it was the four of us—Jameson, Jules, me, and Graham—in our childhood home. And now Jules will be truly by herself for the first time in her life. Jameson and I are still close by, but I know it’s not the same as having us in the house.
“I’ll come over and torment you whenever you want,” Colt adds, poking her in the side so she jumps up from where she’s resting against me.
“Please, don’t. I won’t bethatlonely,” she says. “In fact, I’m changing the code for the doors just so you can’t amble in whenever you feel like it.”
“Pfft.” The sound that escapes his mouth is part laugh, part scoff. The man lives to rile her up, and has ever since she was a gangly kid. “Like that would stop me.”
“Hey,” Drew says, his mouth close to my ear. I hadn’t realized he relocated from the other side of the island, where he was chatting with his mom and sisters. “C’mere, I want to show you something.”
He takes my hand, and I follow as he leads me to the door in the hallway that opens to the staircase up to the roof deck. He closes the door behind me and pushes me up against the wall, trapping me there with his hips as they press into me. When his mouth descends on mine, pulling my lower lip between his and nipping at it with his teeth, I laugh. “So this was just a ploy to manhandle me without our family and friends seeing?”
“There are entirely too many people here. We should have hired movers.”
“Movers wouldn’t have made sense,” I remind him. We’d considered it, but given that the only furniture we were bringing was from Graham’s bedroom, and the rest of our stuff easily fit in boxes, it made more sense to do it ourselves. “Besides, our family and friendswantedto be here with us. Everyone’s thrilled. And I love seeing Graham surrounded by his whole family—yours and mine—and all these other friends who love us.”
