Puck Princess (Houston Scythes Hockey #2)

Epilogue Owen

19 WEEKS LATER

“Pack your things, Miss. This is your official eviction notice.”

I reach around Callie and poke her stomach, but she doesn’t respond.

She just stares at herself miserably in the full-length mirror in our bathroom. She’s in nothing but her underwear and a sports bra, which became her staple outfit last week when she shouted, and I quote, I’m uncomfortable and nothing fits. I’m a naturalist until this baby is born.

“Her official eviction notice was a week ago. She has overstayed her welcome. This isn’t cute anymore.”

“Maybe not, but you are.” I plant a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

Callie brushes me off. “No. I’m not cute, either. I’m forty-one weeks pregnant.”

“I know, my love.”

“Not forty weeks. Forty-one .”

“I know my love.”

“I look like a planet.”

I spit out a laugh and then quickly fix my face before she fixes it for me. “That’s true. Because you are my whole world.”

She glares at me in the mirror, and I bite back my smile “Sorry. Just brushing up on the dad jokes before Victoria Rose gets here.”

After some very competitive back and forth about names—me wanting hockey terms and her wanting flowers—we settled on Victoria Rose. The first ever hockey game recorded was played at Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. And, as for Rose, it’s a callback to our engagement.

It’s one of the only compromises I’ve ever liked making.

“Save them for the baby. You’re not my dad, and I’m not laughing.” There isn’t a hint of smile in her words.

It’s a good thing I’ve always loved Callie’s salt. Because she’s full of it lately.

“Fine. But I stand by it. You’re lovely, Cal.”

She whips around to face me, immediately shifting from angry and annoyed to soppy and upset. I brace for impact.

“Owen, I am never going to have this baby!” she cries.

I smooth a hand down her back. “Yes, you are.”

“She’s never going to come out!”

“Yes, she will.”

“She’s spent nine months in there seeing what a shitshow I am, and she’s decided she isn’t interested. I haven’t even had her yet and she already thinks I’m a bad mom.”

Houston, we have a problem.

Callie is on the verge of losing it.

I am also on the verge of losing it, but in laughter; not pregnancy-induced weeping.

“Callie, honey, she’s going to come out. And when she does, she’s going to love you. She won’t think you’re a shitshow.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.” I circle my hand on her lower back. “Do you want to take a shower? That might feel good.”

“I don’t even fit in the shower anymore.” She starts to sob.

“No shower, then. How about a walk? Walks are supposed to induce labor, right?”

There may have been some late night Googling on my part after Callie tossed and turned for hours last night, grumbling about how impossible it is to sleep when she’s this big.

“I can’t even walk anymore. I waddle. I don’t want all the neighbors to see me waddle.”

“You could eat something spicy,” I suggest.

“Heartburn,” she bites out.

“You could dance?”

The glare she slices my way could level whole cities with its sheer intensity.

“Well, what else helps make babies come out?”

All at once, her face shifts. She turns around to face me, an eyebrow arched. It’s a look I haven’t seen on her face in weeks.

“There is one more thing I’ve heard of.” She presses a hand to my chest, dragging it slowly down my stomach.

“I’m all ears.”

“Sex,” she breathes, biting her lower lip.

The woman almost tore my head off for suggesting we go for a walk, but she wants to have sex?

“What?”

“Sex,” she repeats. “Sex can help.”

“No, no, no. I am not about to risk injuring my baby with—” I point down at my crotch, which, even with the words coming out of my mouth, is growing uncomfortably tight.

It’s been a hot minute since Callie has been interested.

“It’s something to do with semen.” She shrugs. “All I know is you need to finish inside of me?—”

Fuck me .

“Callie, no.”

“You just don’t want to have sex with me because I look like a hot air balloon,” she shrieks

Fuck.

I yank the conversation wheel the opposite direction, but it’s too late. The car is on fire. The road is on fire. Every way lies danger and there is no way out.

“I just told you you’re cute. I just told you?—”

“Cute, but not sexy. You don’t want to touch me.”

“I don’t want to break anything.”

“I want you to break everything! My water. The dam. Just make her come out.”

If I’m being honest, I want her. I never stopped. Seeing Callie in all her very pregnant glory is making me kind of hard.

Things they don’t teach you in sex ed for a thousand, Alex.

I drag a hand down my face. “Callie…”

She fists her hand in my shirt, pulling me closer. “It’ll be at least six weeks after she’s born before we can have sex. This might be our last chance for a while, Owen. I want you .”

Whatever self-control I had snaps. I’ve never been able to deny this woman anything.

“Fine.” I push her back towards the bed, her hands wrapped around my wrists. “But if anything hurts—if you’re uncomfortable at all?—”

“Too late,” she interrupts. But she rolls her eyes. “I’ll tell you, though.”

“Thank you.”

With not an ounce of shame, Callie peels her panties down her legs and bends over the end of the bed, resting on her elbows.

“Fuck me.” My internal thoughts slip out as I hurry out of my pants.

She looks over her shoulder at me. “Other way around, O. You fuck me .”

And I do.

I tease her with my hands, but despite how miserable she’s been for weeks, she’s already ready. I notch myself at her entrance and slide into her, gripping her hips as I fill her in a slow, steady thrust.

“God,” she groans, arching her back. “This is the first time I’ve felt good in so long.”

If she’s lying just to seduce me, it’s working.

I lean forward, sliding my hands under her sports bra to take her new, bigger breasts in my hands. She fills my hands perfectly. She fits around me perfectly.

At every stage of life, in every way, Callie and I make perfect sense.

I slide a hand over her bump and between her legs, and she clenches around me. She cries out as an instantaneous orgasm works through her, and I can’t hold back. My hips stutter against her, and I spill into her with a groan.

She falls onto the bed on her side, and I curl around her, assuming we’re going to nap. Napping sounds good. I could use some sleep.

But after a few minutes, Callie snakes a hand behind her back, slipping between our bodies until she’s wrapped around me. She strokes me in slow, tightening movements that have my nerve endings sizzling.

“Callie,” I growl, kissing her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“What we both want.” She gives my hardening cock another tug. It’s all the evidence she needs.

And curled on our sides like that, I fill her again.

And again.

In between, I bring her snacks and rub her feet.

But as soon as I think she’s going to be done with me, her eyes darken, and she’s a predator on the prowl. There’s nothing like the promise of induced labor to get a pregnant woman going.

By the end, Callie is a post-orgasm puddle, and I feel like I just did hockey drills for fourteen hours straight.

She flops a limp arm across the bed, stroking my chest hair.

“The shop is closed,” I moan, lying face down on the pillows.

“What’s the problem?” she teases, clearly enjoying this a little too much

“The problem is I just fucked you five times in six hours, Callie Coleman. I haven’t done that since college.” My voice is muffled. I also can’t see the face she’s making, though if I had to guess, it’s not a good one.

“You fucked someone else five times in six hours?”

I lift my head. “Objection, your Honor. This is entrapment.”

“Was it one woman or several?”

There is no right answer, but if you’re gonna dig your own grave, you better dig deep. “Multiple women.”

But just before I can start back pedaling, explaining that I was a cocky college kid, and I couldn’t pick any one of those women out of a line-up if my life depended on it, Callie’s face goes from pissed to shocked.

“Oh…” she gasps.

“I love you , Callie. We never had the numbers talk, but it doesn’t matter. You’re the only woman I want to be with you. You’re the only one?—”

“Shut up. I don’t care about who you’ve fucked.” She turns to me, eyes wide. “Owen, I think my water just broke.”

I scan from her face to the puddle between her legs and grin from ear to eat. “Whoa. Yeah, shit. You just—” Then the panic kicks in. “Shit! We gotta go!”

After some chaotic scrambling, a mix of Callie breathing like the midwife taught us and cursing like a sailor, and me driving us to the hospital like the calm, not-at-all-scared-shitless father-to-be I am, we make it to the hospital and get settled into our room.

Once the OB gets there and checks her, she lets out a long, low whistle. “For a baby who didn't want to give up room and board, she’s eager to get out now. It’s almost time to push.”

“Now?” Callie is already shaking her head. “But I haven’t had an epidural. My uncle isn’t here yet. Or my cousin. And what about Summer?”

She looks to me like this is my fault. In some ways, I guess it kind of is.

“We’re on baby’s schedule now. You better get used to it. It’s going to be that way for years.” She snaps her gloves off and tosses them in the trash. “And this one is impatient.”

I smile. “Like mother, like?—”

“Finish that sentence and die—” Calle gasps. “Oh, fuck. Shit. Ow! Excuse my French, but holy mother of God, this fucking hurts.”

“You come from a hockey family. We expect nothing less,” Kennedy says as she walks in the room.

She stops next to the other side of the bed and grabs Callie’s hands. “Let’s have a baby, cuz.”

The next minutes—hours?—are a complete and total blur.

Callie is crying, pushing, breathing, cussing.

Kennedy crying, smiling, cussing when Callie is too busy breathing to cuss and someone needs to fill the silence.

I kiss her hand while she nearly rips mine off, cheering her on the best way I know how.

“Callie Coleman is the star of this show. Just when you think she has nothing left to give, she digs a little deeper. I think we know who our MVP of this labor and delivery is, isn’t that right, folks?”

I don’t think she’s impressed with my sports announcer voice, though, because she shoots me a look to kill.

Then it’s the OB’s turn to make an announcement. “There’s the head.”

“Yay! Your baby has a head,” Kennedy sobs through a smile.

“Does she have hair?” Callie asks, gritting her teeth.

Kennedy peeks down and goes pale. “So much hair. That’s basically all I can see. Even though she’s like, hanging out of your hoo-ha, I love her so much.”

“Bear down, Callie,” the doctor instructs. “We need to get her shoulders out, and then it’s over. One more big push, and you’ll have your baby in your arms.”

I hold her hand, not caring if she breaks every bone in it as she crosses this finish line. Never have I ever seen a stronger woman. And never have I ever wanted to step up more as a man.

Seeing everything Callie has been through—everything she is going through right now—and knowing we will have a beautiful daughter as a result of all of it makes me want to be better than I’ve ever been.

Callie grits her teeth, squeezes the life out of my hand, and after one more big push, the OB lifts a perfectly pink, screaming baby girl into the air. “Here she is!”

The nurses wipe her off and wrap her in a yellow blanket. Between one blink and the next, they lay her on Callie’s chest. And like the adoring mother I always knew she’d be, Callie leans forward instinctively and kisses her on the head.

“Hello, baby girl,” she whispers, kissing her again.

I lean down and kiss Callie. “You did so good. I love you so much.”

She closes her eyes and leans against me. “I love you both.”

“Oh my God, I just can’t with all of this,” Kennedy weeps, blowing her nose loudly on one of the paisley-printed burp rags from our overnight bag.

“Those are for the baby.” Not that I care right now. Shit, she could’ve blown her nose on my shirt sleeve, and I’d still be smiling right now.

“Fuck off, I’m the auntie.”

“Not the only auntie!” Summer pokes her head in, waiting until I nod before she comes into the room to see my baby. Kennedy and Summer hug, weeping softly together.

Callie turns to me, and I press a kiss to her forehead. Then we just look at each other. Victoria is whimpering softly as she suckles on her hand.

I love you. I mouth the words.

It’s the only thing I can think to say. It’s the only thing that feels worth saying right now.

My life has been a long series of obstacles I had to overcome. But looking down at my future wife and daughter, I see a reason for every struggle. I understand what I’ve been fighting for all these years—to get to this moment.

I see hope and brighter days ahead, and I can’t wait.

She smiles and mouths back. I love you, too.