Page 90 of Slapshot Baby

"Hockey is the only thing I've ever been." His voice drops. "Take it from me and I don't know what's left."

My other hand finds his knee. I don't plan it. My palm just lands there, warm against the fabric of his joggers, and his quad muscle tenses under my touch.

"The rest of you is the man who rebuilt himself after a head injury," I say. "There’s no playbook for that. You wrote it yourself."

He doesn't respond. But his thumb traces a slow line across my knuckles, and I feel that touch all the way to my spine.

We stay like that for a while. Then I pull my laptop from the side table.

"What are you doing?" he frowns.

"We're making a plan."

"Ava..."

"You said Brennan wants private sessions. So let's figure out exactly what you can walk in there and prove." I open a blank document. "What have you still got?"

His lips twitch.

We work through it together. I type while he talks. Every time he names a strength, his voice firms. Every time he names a gap, his hand flexes on his thigh, and I have to stop myself from reaching for it again.

"Theo and Wyatt offered extra sessions," he says.

"Then we schedule them."

"We?"

"You need someone to organize this and you organize like a man who stores receipts in his pockets."

"I don't store receipts in my pockets."

"Don’t argue with me. I found seven in your jacket when I reorganized your closet."

He stares at me. "You went through my jacket pockets?"

"I went through your entire apartment, Kai. How do you think it got organized to your tastes?"

The warmth in his eyes deepen. His lips stretch into a slow grin.

Look away, Ava. You're staring at his mouth.

We work through the plan until Biscuit is asleep on her back between us, paws in the air.

I look at my laptop screen. The cursor blinks at the end of the list.

"Ava." Kai's voice becomes softer. "What did you want to tell me?"

My fingers freeze on the keyboard.

There's something I need to tell you in person.

I hear my own voice from the phone call, confident, determined. A woman who had her mind made up.

That woman didn't know he'd spend tonight sitting on her couch with the wreckage of his identity spread across his face. Didn't know he'd talk about falling through ice as a kid.

I notice the exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes.

Telling Kai about the pregnancy would feel like dropping a boulder on a man who just crawled out from under one.