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“All of us,” Ciaran says easily. “If you want another question, you know what to do.”

Zayn huffs out as a signal that we’re a lot of work, before turning around again.

“Take the puck and skate around the goal before shooting this time,” I suggest, my eyes narrowing on him. “We should at least work this into our practice.”

Zayn bobs his head in agreement and begins to skate. He’s wearing padding to get used to them, and I can see he’s enjoying this. If he wants to play hockey, he easily could. I need to ask Noor if that’s something she’s open to. We’d want to pay for it, simply due to the cost.

I don’t care how well she does for herself, hockey is an expensive sport.

“Nicely done,” I grin, shaking my head as he sinks the puck.

“How do you know my mom?”

“We met her before you were born,” I reply, enjoying his wide eyes. When we talked about doing this with Zayn, Noor told me not to lie. So, fuck the contract.

“Hmm.” Knowing he needs to hit another puck to get more answers, he follows my instructions.

Unfortunately for him, he has to skate away and back to do it.

“He’s going to figure it out,” Ciaran says under his breath watching him.

I’ve been scared of a lot in my life, but being a father doesn’t scare me anymore, not after getting to know Zayn. It’s not going to ruin my life, my future is stable, and I don’t give a shit what people think.

I’ve been in a relationship with two other men since I got my contract with the Snow Canyons. At some point, the coach asked me why it was so important that we play together and I responded with the truth. It’s not illegal to be in a relationship with multiple people.

Ci may not have wanted to be open about it, but I know better than to lie to my coach. I think these wiley bastards are bred to know when their players lie, and I didn’t want to chance fucking up having him on my side.

When it comes to marrying Noor, we’ll figure out how to make that work. Maybe it should be Arran. Fuck a duck, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Zayn comes down the ice with his face drawn into a determined look, his skates giving him enough speed that I’m worried if he’ll be able to stop properly. Instead, he slides to a stop, ice flying before he hits the puck.

“Okay,” he says, breathing heavily without looking to see if it went in or not. Alastair smirks at the confidence, but Zayn is right not to worry. “Why doesn’t Grandpa Emil like you?”

I whistle under my breath, but Alastair takes this one.

“He’s judging us for the actions we made when we were young and dumb, and he’s right to,” he says, sighing. “We messed up⁠—”

Zayn stands in quiet judgment, and I know he’s waiting. We aren’t going to make him sink more pucks in order to get it.

“I need to preface this by saying that you should never be mean to someone, ever. If you like someone but don’t know how to tell them, you figure it out,” I begin.

“Bullying is also wrong, every time,” Ciaran adds, squatting in front of Zayn. “We have to repair what we broke, and that’s why we’re here.”

Our son drops his stick as he starts to put the pieces together. Being six means that he has a strong sense of justice, not that he’s dumb. I don’t understand the idea that children aren’t able to work through complex situations. You simply have to explain them correctly.

Something I don’t think we’re doing now.

“You…”

“The situation doesn’t matter, because I don’t want you to think any angle shows we were right to do what we did. There aren’t any. Excuses aren’t what we want to give you,” Ci explains. “For a long time, we didn’t know where your mom was, and we had to live in a world that was really fucking sad. We’re here to start over with her, but not forget.”

“Forgetting means we could fuck up again,” Alastair murmurs.

We shouldn’t be cursing around Zayn, but I’m sure he hears worse.

“You’re dating her,” Zayn mumbles. “But you’re scared. You don’t walk her inside the house at night, only to the door. Arran doesn’t do that.”

That’s an interesting thing to fixate on, little man. Damn.