Delayed Penalty (Empire State Hockey #5)

Chapter 15 – Harris

Chapter Fifteen

Harris

T he quiet sounds in the small room we’re in start blurring together with the ultrasound machine that our new doctor brought in when she came to meet us. Her name is Dr. Cindy Nelson, and she came in with such a happy and calm presence that it was hard for me to still be worked up over everything that happened with Peter.

I can tell it’s been calming for Avery as well; ever since we’ve been in the room, her hand hasn’t left mine but at least now they’re no longer shaking like they were. I think the initial shock wore off for both of us as soon as we were back in the room and they asked her to pee in a cup to confirm the pregnancy—the reality of why we were here quickly taking precedence over the little incident in the waiting room. Now, all of that has been done and they’ve done a regular exam on her, which I was kind enough to step out for.

I may have seen her from as many different angles as possible, my tongue running along every inch of her body, yet it’s still different when you’re being exposed in a doctor’s office with a bunch of eyes on you. I just wanted to be respectful.

“Are you ready to hear the heartbeat?” Dr. Nelson asks as she finishes up a couple of measurements of the little one.

Avery looks at me and smiles. “Yes, please,” she says cutely, her face lighting up, and I’m so fucking excited I’m going to get to watch this woman become a mom. This is going to be the luckiest baby in the entire world to have Avery as their mom and I’m just so excited I get to come along for the ride, supporting both of them in any and every way I can.

My heart starts racing, a rush of excitement as I watch the technician make a few more clicks on a screen, turning a dial on her device before all of a sudden, I hear it. At first, it just sounds like a thumping noise, like a whooshing, but it’s steady, strong.

It’s the heartbeat.

Looking down at Avery, I feel another wave of emotions hit me all at once and I feel like I’m floating, a combination of anxiety and excitement mixing together as I watch us in the intensely intimate moment. My hand is trembling as I reach over to cover our already intertwined fingers, my eyes blurry as I place a kiss on her forehead. Pulling back, our eyes lock and I see just how vulnerable she is in this moment, wiping a tear away, her adorable smile telling me just how excited she actually is. We’re excited and scared but we’re doing this.

Together.

After the doctor goes over what to expect in these next few weeks since she’s now entering the second trimester, we discuss her morning sickness and how it should be disappearing soon. If not, she wants us to send her a message or talk to her at the next appointment which we won’t have for another month.

Seems like so long, but I guess I should trust the doctors to know how to do their job, it’s just so much more nerve wracking than I thought this would all be. Just knowing something is happening, that we made a life that’s currently growing inside Avery right now, it’s crazy—but it’s also terrifying in ways I never imagined. What if something happens? How would we know? Thankfully, the doctor tells us everything is looking right on track, which definitely helps to ease my nerves a little bit.

After making our next appointment, we end up back in my car where we both are just sitting staring at the ultrasound photos.

“Can you believe it?” she says, her eyes watering as she stares down at the little blurry blob that somewhat resembles a McDonald’s chicken nugget.

This is why I play hockey and did not go to school to be a doctor.

“No, I really can’t. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really excited,” I say, smiling because it’s true.

“Me too,” she whispers, like she’s afraid to ruin something by saying it too loudly.

“When do we get to tell people?”

“Well, my guess is Peter’s already made the phone calls he needs to fuck up my life so we can tell whoever. Especially now that I’ve made it out of the first trimester, so the risk of loss is lower.”

Even hearing those words send a string of panic through me. The thought of losing this baby, this baby I’ve never met, yet feel such an intense love for is so overwhelming I feel the urge to put them both in a bubble for the next… six-ish months until they’re both safe and healthy.

But I’m pretty sure Avery might actually kick me in the dick if I try that.

“I mean, I have to tell my family… and my friends, but I was kind of hoping you’d be there with me when I tell my friends.”

“Really?”

“Yeah? I know the girls have been wanting to meet you, especially after they heard everything about you from the night at the bar. Their boyfriends are the biggest gossips I’ve ever met, but they’re all the best people I know. You’ll love them all, I promise. Oh, and Ellie and Trevor, they’re having a baby too. In… well, at the end of this year sometime. I’m not sure when exactly.”

“I mean… sure. What are they all going to think?” she says nervously.

“They’ll be thrilled. I promise. There’s not a damn thing for you to be concerned about.”

“Okay,” she says quietly, looking out the window, and I hate that she’s nervous. I hate that so much of today has been tainted by drama, and I only have from now until I get to her sister’s house to turn this around.

Unless I didn’t have to go straight back to Kelly’s…

“Do you have anything going on for the rest of the day?” I ask, both hands gripping the steering wheel, doing my best to give her some space.

“No, Kelly and her kids were going to the movies, and I was just going to lie in bed and read a book.”

“Do you want to hang out? I could introduce you to someone special to me. If you’d like to, of course.”

She eyes me skeptically, but eventually just shrugs.

“Might as well.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re walking into the shelter, the sound of barking echoing around us as the dogs are either outside playing, running around like little crazies, or waiting to eat their food. Either way, it’s full of happy, excited noises. I’m guessing Mrs. Andrews is out back with the dogs, probably throwing the tennis ball because these dogs seem to never get tired of playing fetch.

“This is where you sneak away to?” Avery asks as she looks around with a huge smile. She’s always loved animals—specifically dogs, though. It’s how I first met her that day on campus years ago—I was walking from practice, my friend had a Golden Retriever and dumped him on me because he had to go to class and his sister was late. When I walked by Avery, she immediately fell in love with the puppy, so we got to talking. I remember when we first started dating she told me that when she was older and had her own place, she wanted two dogs. One German Shepherd and one Golden Retriever. Part of the reason I just know she’s going to love this surprise.

“Yeah, I started coming here a couple of years ago and then realized they need help and just sort of made this my second home.”

Avery watches me for a moment as I make my way through the shelter, letting myself in until we get to the room where I know my girl will be waiting.

“She’ll be in here,” I say quietly, looking over at Avery who seems to be taking it all in. “Look, she might not be very friendly to you right away. In all honesty, she’s not very friendly to very many people, it’s something we’ve been trying to work on.”

“It's okay, people are scary, I can’t blame her.”

I pause, wanting to reassure her, but I can’t. I don’t know how this will go, or if Luna will even let her say hi.

“Pretty girl, I’m here,” I say as I step into the room, the sound of rustling comes from her crate as she bounces her way to the front already ready for me to open it and let her out.

I walk over and open the door, Luna immediately prancing over to me, standing up on her hind legs just waiting for me to give her a hug. She’s still growing, she’s already fifty-five pounds, and I can tell she’s going to be a big girl, and I love it because it means her hugs will only get easier.

Until she gets adopted.

I can tell the second she notices I’m not alone because she immediately stops bouncing around and puts her body behind me so she can peek around my legs over at Avery. Avery’s already on the ground, though, sitting down crisscross with her hand out, in her attempt at being as small as possible.

It’s fucking adorable.

It reminds me of what I love about this girl.

She’s incredible, she’s so caring, and she’s honestly willing to do whatever she can, including getting on the ground while pregnant, albeit newly, to try and make a puppy more comfortable. Fucking perfect.

“This is Luna,” I say, walking over and sitting next to Avery on the ground, Luna slowly following behind me and gluing herself to my side. Avery’s eyes widen at the name, but she doesn’t say anything—yet. “She’s my girl. I’m here at least five days a week, more if I can swing it, but I’m always with my girl if I’m here.”

As I say it Luna nuzzles me, her nose pushing under my arm as she tries to force me to pet her. Scratching behind her ear, I look over at Avery who scoots just a bit closer until she can reach Luna and waits… letting Luna make the next move.

Which, surprisingly, she does. It’s slow, but after a little while she starts scooting closer and closer, each time making sure I’m still nearby, but I can tell she’s interested in Avery. I love it. I love seeing that she can learn to be comfortable around people, even if it is only specific people. After a couple of minutes, she’s lying down right next to me, although her head is resting on Avery’s leg.

It's the first time she’s willingly touched someone who isn’t me, and on occasion, Mr. or Mrs. Andrews, but only if they’re lucky.

“Who’s this special lady our girl is giving some love to?” Mrs. Andrews asks as she walks in and joins us, Luna lifting her head to look, but immediately putting it back down.

“Hi, I’m Avery,” she says, reaching her hand up to shake with Mrs. Andrews, but Luna’s making it a challenge.

“Hi, sweetie, I’m Mrs. Andrews. This is my rescue.” Returning the handshake, Mrs. Andrews smiles before sneaking a glance in my direction, giving me a knowing look toward Avery.

“Are you guys going to take the sweet girl home for the night to get a good night’s sleep and some food?” she asks, looking at Avery as she speaks, damn well knowing I’ll tell her no.

She’s been trying to get Luna to my place for the last month because she knows how much I love this dog and how much Luna loves me. But I don’t want to bring Luna home with me because although it’s summer right now, once the season starts up I’ll be gone a lot. That’s not fair to a dog.

Not to mention the fact that I’m going to be a dad.

Avery looks down at Luna then back up at me, the look in her eyes is hopeful, happy. Gone are the emotions from earlier, the ones Peter caused on what was supposed to be a happy day.

Goddamnit.

“Damn you, woman,” I groan, and Mrs. Andrews actually fists bumps.

“Her stuff is already in your car; I took the liberty of loading it up while you guys were snuggling.”

“You’re lucky you make the best muffins.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get our girl home and comfortable, I expect pictures, so I know she’s happy.”

“Fine. But don’t be texting me in the middle of the night, I need my beauty sleep.”

“So… are we going to talk about the fact that you called me your fiancée earlier?” Avery asks from her spot next to me, her back against the cabinets as we sit on the kitchen floor. It took a little while to get Luna to eat once we made it back to my place, but after she did she curled in between Avery and I and fell asleep on the floor—slowly inching her way closer and closer to Avery.

I want to be jealous of Avery, but I’m more jealous of the dog right now.

“Are we going to talk about the fact that he said he was going to get you fired and drop you from his health insurance?”

“I mean, what’s there to talk about with that? Basically, I’m fucked. It’s not an if he does it, it’s just a when . He doesn’t like looking bad so he’s going to ensure I look like the bad guy and take me down in the process. Unmarried girl and pregnant immediately after leaving him? Yeah, looks great. Should we talk about the fact that this dog is a Golden Retriever… named Luna?”

“Which leads to your first question. Yes… I called you my fiancée because your ex was pissing me off. I hate that he feels like he had ownership of you, because whoever gets to call you their fiancée, they should be worthy of it. They should be proud to be yours. Peter wants to ruin you? Fucking bet, sir. Let’s see how easy it is for him to ruin your reputation when it’s so much more public than his? Especially when you’d be backed by a team of the best lawyers in New York City.”

“What do you mean more public.”

“When you’re my wife, the mother of my unborn baby, not only will you have my lawyers on your side, but you’ll also have every one of my teammates and their wives and girlfriends. We’re a family—plus, I’m pretty sure any one of the guys would gladly punch him in the face once they hear about the shit he pulled earlier.”

“You’re like, actually serious about this…” she says skeptically.

I don’t blame her. You don’t normally just get proposed to out of the blue, but at this point, I think we should do it like yesterday, for a plethora of reasons.

“Absolutely. It’ll help protect you from Peter, it’ll ensure you have insurance because you’ll be on mine. You’ll have free housing because you’ll be living with me and trust me, it’s paid for.”

“Sounds too good to be true, what do you get out of it?”

“I get to experience your pregnancy with you, something I’d die if I had to miss. I want to be there for every craving, every kick, every ache and pain, I want to be there. Then there’s also the little issue he mentioned about my fights. It’s true that my first year in the league I got into a lot of fights, way more than necessary. It was to the point they were considering trading me. My coach put a lot of faith in me, so I pulled my shit together. If he were to see two fights in a row… yeah, he’s going to be pretty pissed.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“If he knew you were pregnant with my baby, and all the shit we’ve gone through with Peter, even just today, he’d understand why I’m so short-tempered with him. Hell, it might just save me from getting traded out of New York if Peter gets his way.”

“So, let me get this straight. You’re saying that you want us to get married… then pretend it’s real so people around us believe we’re actually a happy family?”

“Basically. I mean… A. insurance fraud. Let’s not add that to the list of bullshit we’re dealing with so we sort of can’t tell people it’s fake. B. I keep my job and Peter gets to watch us have the happily ever after we should’ve had.”

“But it’s fake.”

“But he doesn’t know that.”

She sits quietly, staring down at her fingernails, picking at the hot pink nail polish she’s been slowly destroying since we saw Peter.

I make a mental note to make sure to get her an appointment to get her nails done. Toes too, if she wants it. She deserves to get as pampered as she’d like to for doing the hard work with the pregnancy.

The longer she waits the more I start to wrack my brain for any way I can change her mind, how I can sweeten the deal to where she doesn’t want to say no. All I want is for her to give me a chance, if I can convince her of that, I’ll just have to let my actions do the rest.

“Okay,” she says quietly, her voice surprising me, especially because it sounds an awful lot like she’s agreeing.

“Okay, as in…” I start to say, but she keeps going.

“As in, I’ll marry you. Hell, I agreed to marry Peter and he was a douche who couldn’t make me come. You’re a decent guy who has a nice cock, I could do worse.”

“Thinking about my cock now, huh?”

“Slow your roll, bucko, we are not flirting.”

“Whatever you say, Ave. Let’s go get that movie started before we all fall asleep on the kitchen floor. We can figure out the rest tomorrow.”

“Am I staying?” she asks, but I just look down at Luna who’s slowly moved her way further and further into Avery’s lap until she’s practically on top of her legs. “Guess that answers that question.”

“Come on, girls, let’s go get comfy.”

I could get used to saying that.