Page 59 of Icing on Top

She smiled gently, and I smiled back.

“Then catch me up.”

We easily lost track of time, only pausing our conversation long enough to order our food. Carter told me about her debut game and how she’d botched a shot on goal, but how encouraging her team had been. She got a hat trick the very next game. I showed her pictures of Bash, and she gushed over how much he looked like Jada.

It felt like no time had passed at all. We were just as comfortable with each other as we had been in college, spouting out our innermost thoughts without any filters.

“Okay, now tell me about Charlie’s dad.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me, and I covered my face so I didn’t have to witness it.

“Please never make that face again.”

“Fine, fine. Just spill the tea.”

I sighed and let my hands drop, my dopey smile exposed for everyone to see. “He retired from the Seattle Cascades a few years ago.”

“Position?”

“Goalie.”

“So he’s a freak. Okay, continue.”

I barked out a laugh and had to slap my hand over my mouth when a nearby table shot me dirty looks. Carter just snickered across the table from me.

“What? All goalies are weirdos. If you don’t think he is, he must be really good at hiding it. I’m sure it’ll slip out eventually.”

She wasn’t lying; goalies typically had a few screws loose in the best way and were considered the oddballs in the hockey world. And here I’d welcomed not one, but two of them into my life. Best decision I’d ever made.

“Anyway. We met when I took over coaching Charlie’s hockey team for my uncle. Then we teamed up to create a women’s rec league at his rink and well…” I trailed off, letting her fill in the blanks.

Carter smiled knowingly.

“Honestly, he’s amazing. He’s got such a big heart.” I shook my head, not sure how to put into words my thoughts and feelings in regards to Miah. “I’ve never been with someone like him, and half the time it doesn’t feel real. Too good to be true, you know?”

I’d been with my ex, Blake, for a couple years before I had my accident and chased him away like I did everyone else. Not that it had been that hard. I think we’d both been looking for an excuse to end it, and my attitude after the accident gave him the perfect out.

He’d been a good boyfriend. He was fun to hang out with when I had the free time and he got along with my friends, but we would have never worked long term. Blake just wasn’t someone I could consistently count on. There were times he’d skip out on a date, because there was fresh powder on the mountains or miss one of my games, because his frat was throwing a party.

Miah, though? Miah was a quiet and steady kind of love. He’d shown me time and time again that he’d be there for me, and, most importantly, when I was ready. I suppose it was because of his patience that I opened up so willingly to him. And he did the same. In just a few months, we’d built a solid foundation of trust and respect that I hadn’t known outside of family and my friendship with Jada.

“You deserve good things, Danny. You know that, right?”

My bottom lip wobbled as I met Carter’s earnest gaze, and I gave a small nod. “I’m working on it.”

I’d spent years hating myself, hating the universe for the cards I’d been dealt, and in doing so, I’d wasted precious years grieving the life I was supposed to have and not enjoying the life I did have. An aunt and uncle who cherished me, a best friend who fought for me, and a job that I genuinely enjoyed.

Life had placed me on a different path than I’d dreamed of, but that didn’t make it inferior by default. No, I’d say this path was pretty damn wonderful. Especially since it brought me to Miah and Charlie. They made me happier than I’d been in a long time, and I was finally realizing that I deserved happiness just as much as anyone else.

Chapter 25

Zoe

“I think Zoe sabotaged our pieces and made them so they wouldn’t fit.”

The whiny voice coming from the dining room belonged to six-foot-four, professional hockey player, Wesley Sanders, and not the seven-year-old he was teamed up with for our gingerbread house building contest. I’d kept my promise and baked fresh gingerbread for Charlie along with what I believed was my stickiest batch of icing yet.

The entire home smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. Add on Michael Bublé crooning Christmas tunes from the television and the warm glow of the tree Wes had helped Charlie decorate, and the Langfield home felt straight out of a holiday movie.

The original plan had been to just build gingerbread houses. It had taken all of two seconds for someone to propose the idea of turning it into a competition. Not all that surprising when you threw four hockey players together, though. Charlie chose her Uncle Wes as her partner, and they had opted to work on their house in the dining room, so Miah and I “couldn’t copy” them.