The Langfield Brothers: Box Set

23. Gavin

TWENTY-THREE

GAVIN

Present Day

“And then what happened?” Henry says, swiping at his eyes.

I scrub a hand against mine as well. Fuck, this is sad. “Nothing. I haven’t spoken a damn word to her since.”

“That’ll be a thousand dollars, Uncle Gav,” Finn sings as he appears from behind me.

Dammit, the kid is sneaky.

Henry leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You didn’t go after her?” He sounds affronted. Like he’s the one who got his heart broken.

I stand up and point to Finn. “Come on, buddy. We gotta get you home.” Then I turn to Henry. “She didn’t want what I wanted. Should I have gone after her?”

The old man clucks. “Come back tomorrow with a burger and fries from Wendy’s for me. I need to think this one through tonight. Figure out how you can make this right.”

I snort out a laugh. “McDonald’s not good enough for you?”

He smiles. “There’s no real competition. The fries and chocolate Frosties from Wendy’s are far superior.”

I shrug. “You got a deal.” I pull out my wallet and dig out a couple hundreds. “Thanks for listening. Make sure you stay somewhere warm tonight.”

The man stares at my outstretched hand, but he doesn’t take the money, so with a sigh, I push it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

“I’m not homeless,” he grumps. “I was just sitting on a bench, enjoying the afternoon sun.”

Finn giggles beside me.

Frowning, I hold out my hand to the man. “Well, you can give me that back, then.”

“Lesson number one. You don’t take back gifts. Maybe you don’t deserve to get Princess Peaches back after all.” The man pats his pocket and grins. “Don’t forget my Frosty tomorrow. Same time.” With that, he stands and walks away, whistling a tune.

“I think you just got swindled, Uncle Gav,” Finn sings.

I laugh, feeling lighter now that I’ve finally told someone the whole truth. “I think you’re right.”

Hours later, I’m in my new apartment at a long dining room table with half the guys from my team. I moved in a couple of weeks ago, right after I added head coach of the Boston Bolts to my résumé. It’s my dream job, even if the way I got it was more like a nightmare.

I had to fire the head coach, Sebastian Lukov, after it was discovered that he’d had an affair with the head of PR, Sara Case, without disclosing to her that he was married to my aunt. It was a shit show, as expected, and worse, the woman at the center of the scandal, Sara, is my brother Brooks’s best friend.

During the fallout of the affair, Sara and Brooks began fake dating and somehow managed to fall in love. Now, they’re happier than ever.

When Sara came to me about the affair in hopes of saving her job and Brooks’s, I did some digging. Apparently, my uncle had been cheating on my aunt for years. But I’ve kept that information to myself. Aunt Zoe was devastated as it was, and I have no interest in rubbing salt in her wounds.

I lost no sleep over firing his ass, but finding a coach mid-season—one the guys and I could trust implicitly after what the team had been through—proved more difficult.

Okay. Maybe I didn’t look all that hard. Because this is the job I’ve always wanted.

And it came at the perfect time. When my uncle’s indiscretions were blasted all over the media, I’d already lost Millie. Honestly, the job saved me from a depression I was easily sinking into. Now I’m just on the left side of grumpy.

Moving into the building where my hockey players lived seemed like a no-brainer. A fresh start. Langfield Corp owns the whole place, and we encourage our guys to live here—i.e. we offer them apartments rent-free—to build comradery.

My hope is that by moving in here these guys will come to trust me. For all they know, I don’t have the first clue about how to coach an NHL team. I sign their paychecks and I wooed them when I was drafting them to my team, but they have no idea that I know what I’m doing when it comes to the game. They’re probably under the impression that I think my last name makes me entitled to this position.

That’s definitely what the media is saying.

I’m determined to prove everyone wrong.

Grinding my teeth, I read the most recent text message from my asshole uncle.

Sebastian: I’m not signing the divorce papers until you agree to abide by the terms in my contract.

Fuck this man. He’s holding my aunt hostage in their sham of a marriage because I refuse to agree that if the team makes it to the playoffs, he’ll still get his contract bonus. Yes, he held the position of head coach for more than half the season, which is what the contract stipulates, but he’s a scumbag, and I refuse to pay him another dime.

I turn the phone over and blow out a breath. I won’t allow him to ruin another thing for my hockey team.

“I have to sing for my food.” Aiden, my youngest brother, stands and does his vocal warm-ups. “Do, re, me?—”

“No. You really, really don’t.” I grasp his arm so I can force him to sit and shut up, but he pulls away.

Not only is Aiden my little brother, he’s also the best center in the NHL. Commentators even argue that he’s one of the best to ever set foot on the ice. He’s also the biggest pain in my ass, and he loves to sing to get the team amped up. I get it. It’s good for morale. And before I took over as coach, I even liked it. But now that he’s constantly singing his own versions of Ariana Grande songs and inserting my name into the lyrics, I want to kill him.

The doorbell rings, and I jump up to get it, happy to have the attention off me and the long list of Aiden’s past coaches that, according to his song, aren’t as great as me.

“Sar, if this is another one of your packages, I’m going to start charging you delivery fees.”

As this is the only apartment in the building with three bedrooms, I took it, despite the fact that it once was my uncle’s.

The only issue? During her epic revenge tour against him, Sara set up regular shipments to be delivered to Sebastian in hopes of pissing him off. The number of dildos and lingerie sets she’s sent to him—and me, since I now live here—is insane.

Sara laughs from beside Brooks, and his face flames. My brother is so in love with her it’s not even funny. A grown man blushing.

“The last time I called, they swore the deliveries would stop,” she says as I open the door and look out into the hall.

The elevator is just closing, probably taking the delivery person back down to the ground floor.

That sends a bolt of annoyance through me. They couldn’t even wait for me to get to the door before running off? With a huff, I shake my head and turn to the floor in front of me to see what the latest delivery will be.

What I don’t expect, what I don’t think anyone could ever really prepare for, is to come face to face with a baby. It’s wrapped up tight in a big peach contraption—a jacket maybe?—and strapped into a car seat.

My heart stops. For a beat, I just look at her, then I holler at Sara over my shoulder. “Sar, seriously!”

Heart pounding, I catalog the child. While my brother and Liv just had twins, there’s no way this is one of them. June and Maggie are a month old, and they’re still tiny. This little girl is all round cheeks. They’re tinged pink from the cold, as is her button nose. The hair that peeks out from beneath her hood is dark. Definitely not one of the twins. They barely have any hair. Poor girls are bald little things that Finn says look like aliens.

They do, sort of.

My mind is a mess of questions. Who is this child? Why is she here? Where are her parents? But an arm on my shoulder forces me to focus.

“Aw, it’s a baby!” Sara coos, leaning forward.

“I see that. Why in the hell would you have a baby delivered to my apartment? Your kinks are getting out of control,” I growl.

Fuck, I’m not a growler. I’ve totally become my brother.

Sara’s eyes bug out, and she chokes on a laugh. “I did not deliver this beautiful little girl to you.” Seemingly unbothered by my anger, she bends at the waist and scoops the baby up, car seat and all.

The little thing doesn’t so much as make a sound. She just blinks her big brown eyes at Sara like she’s not sure what to make of the situation.

“Aren’t you beautiful, and what a good little girl too,” Sara happily chatters with the baby while she pulls her out of the car seat.

Me? I’m ready to lose my mind. This prank has gone way too far.

For the first time, I realize Brooks is here too. He scoots past Sara, picks up a diaper bag from the hallway floor, and pulls at the card that’s sticking out. “Looks like there’s a note.”

“Well, fucking open it,” I demand.

“Gavin, has Finn taught you nothing?” Sara chides.She turns to Brooks and arches a brow. “What he means is ducking open it.”

I let out an annoyed breath. “Ducking A.”

Brooks slides the card out, and his eyes go comically wide as he reads it to himself.

“Out loud,” I grumble.

Brooks pushes it toward me. “No way am I being the bearer of that news. Read it yourself.”

“This family and their inability to talk. Fine, I’ll do it. Coach ,” I start, pointing to myself. “Guess that’s me. I can’t do this. I know you said it’s over and we couldn’t be more—but she’s more. ” My heart stumbles, making it hard to speak, but I power through anyway. “ Too much for me. Meet Viviane, your daughter. You have more than enough resources to help her. So keep her or put her up for adoption. Either way, I can’t do this. ”

Keep her. My daughter. Can’t do this.

The words are all a jumbled mess, but as they swirl through my mind, all the air escapes my lungs. When they form a coherent thought, I suck in a harsh breath.

The letter falls to the floor as a drum pounds loudly in my ears.

I think it’s my heart.

“Gavin,” Sara says softly, almost nervously, like I maybe look the way I feel.

I swallow down my shock. Swallow down my anger. Swallow down the complete and utter sense of loss washing over me. Then I do what any person would do. I look at the little girl in Sara’s arms and I take a deep breath, knowing this is bigger than me.

Knowing that every moment in my life is insignificant in comparison to this one, I push away the confusion and the hurt and reach for the little girl, needing to hold her. Needing to know she’s real. Just, quite frankly, needing her.

This stranger. This piece of me I didn’t know existed until this moment.

“Viviane,” Isay softly,swiping my thumb gently against the fabric of her peach outfit. My mind is at war with my heart, because what are the fucking chances…? “Hi, baby girl. I—” I clear the emotion from my throat. “I’m your— dad .”