Page 4 of Home Ice

“Hey. Do we know each other?”

Barrett’s eyes frost over, and he holds up his hands between us, one of them clutched around his coffee cup. “My mistake. Thought you were someone else.”

He sidesteps me, minty scent fresh and familiar, and I have half a mind to grab his arm and apologize, but for what? He made it clear ten years ago that he wanted nothing to do with me, so I’m just following through on that decision.

I’m hardly aware that I’m staring through the front door, watching him as he walks down the street, until a throat clears behind me.

“Can I help you, honey?”

I turn to the expectant face, and it takes me a second to remember what I walked in here for. Coffee. Shit. Right.

I can only hope a really, really big one clears this fogginess away.

Mom and Dad live in the first of a line of pale gray condos. I offered to buy them something bigger when I signed my eight-year contract with St. Louis, but they refused. Instead, they sold our childhood home and downsized to this cute street full of neighbors who know way too much about each other.

It’s new, and they love it, but compared to my house, it’s a shoebox, and I’m glad I’m only here temporarily because I’m used to having my own space.

I’m still heavy over how I handled things with Barrett, but I don’t have time to process why because my hunch was right. The second I pull up in the driveway, my sister snaps the book she’s reading closed and jumps out of her chair to jog toward the car.

Guess there will be no easing into this.

I switch off the engine and climb out, feeling colder than the weather should make me, and catch Gigi in a hug.

“You landed two hours ago! What took you so long?”

Sheer fucking dread, probably? “Stopped for coffee.”

“Mom and Dad are driving me nuts. If I have to eat one more fucking pastry⁠—”

“Mom cooked?”

“Yes. A lot. If I’d known you were going to take so long, I would have waited to come over, but I wanted to see you first.”

“Why? So you could be the first to commiserate with me on parenthood?”

Gigi’s sulking fades. “Yeah, that’s … that whole thing is fucking wild.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You never wanted kids.”

“I—” Truthfully, when I was younger, I didn’t see the point in it. I was going to play hockey professionally, so the time I’d have for offspring was small, and if I couldn’t be active in a kid’s life, what was the point? “Yeah.” There’s no point in disagreeing with her because I don’t know where I sit on that topic anymore.

Especially since it might be taken out of my hands.

“We don’t even know that he’s mine,” I mutter, but Gigi isn’t listening. She’s popped the trunk and has hauled my suitcase out and onto the driveway.

“How much did you fucking pack?”

“Enough.” I press the button to close the back and then lock the rental. “When are they coming over?”

“Two. So you have time to shower.”

“I showered before I left.”

She wrinkles her nose. “And this is me telling you that you need to shower again.”

Fuck me. I don’t think it will matter if I shower every moment until they get here. This vaguely panicked dry sweat I keep breaking into isn’t going anywhere. The thought of telling Amelia that I want a paternity test makes me feel sick, but I know it’s the smart choice. I have a lot of money, and I could become an easy target if I take people’s word about these things, but it’s a terrible way to meet them both.