Hard Fall

by Brenda Rothert

  “If I ever have kids,” Nash said in my ear, “I’m totally doing this shit for them.”

  I grinned. “It’s epic, right?”

  “Who’s the blond hottie?” he asked, checking out Tori.

  “That’s our nineteen-year-old nanny,” I said. “So behave yourself.”

  “Nineteen is legal,” he protested.

  “If you piss her off and she quits, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  “Fine.” He headed in the opposite direction. “Maybe there’s a single mom in the group over by the fireplace.”

  The kids were having a blast and we owed my teammates huge. The Avengers were such a hit, especially Thor and the Hulk. Konstantin spoke halting, heavily accented English so instead of trying to communicate, he grunted and spoke in monosyllabic sentences. Mostly, he growled at them, made them scream, and chased them until they were shrieking with laughter. Annalise now had a new best friend—Thor/Lars—and didn’t leave his side for a second. She and two of her little friends followed him like the Pied Piper and he didn’t seem at all stressed to be the object of so much attention, which was a relief for me because he could be extremely rigid when it came to his routines and social quirks.

  “I think it’s time for cake,” Hadley whispered to me about two hours later.

  “I think it’s time for a nap,” I chuckled.

  “Cake first.” She went toward the kitchen and I followed, lighting the candles as she gathered everything she’d need to cut and serve pieces of cake.

  “Ready?” I asked her, lifting the massive two-tier Avengers-themed cake. She’d run out of time to make it herself and wound up buying one, but it was absolutely amazing, full of intricate detail, little plastic Avengers in the midst of battle, and “Happy Birthday, Annalise” printed on a banner held up by Captain America and the Black Panther. It was such a cool cake, I was almost jealous.

  Hadley started to sing “Happy Birthday,” and everyone joined in, ending with me putting the cake down on a table that had been set up for that very purpose.

  “Thor, will you help me blow out the candles?” Annalise asked Lars, who nodded amiably. He got down on one knee, one of his massive arms around her tiny torso, as she squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, “I wish Mommy and Daddy come home soon.” Then she blew out the candles.

  While the kids ate, drank, and laughed, the adults in the room dealt with myriad emotions, myself included, and I watched Hadley and Nina swipe at their eyes while some of the guys turned away, probably too embarrassed to show any emotion they were feeling since we’d all heard what Annalise wished for.

  “Can we play outside?” Annalise asked once everyone had stuffed themselves on cake and ice cream.

  Hadley looked at me and I nodded. “Sure. I’ll help corral them.”

  “I’m in,” Nash added.

  Before we knew it, all the kids were outside along with most of the parents, playing tag and whatever else four-year-olds did. Hadley and I stood off to the side, watching and sipping wine out of plastic cups.

  “I think she’s had a great day,” I told her. “And it’s all because of you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You got the guys to do the Avengers thing. If it hadn’t been for that, this party would have been a dud.”

  “I doubt it, but it just goes to show how good of a team we make. We did it together.”

  Her eyes met mine and she smiled faintly. “You’re making it really hard not to like you, Wes.”

  “Is that the goal?” I laughed. “To not like me?”

  “We have to put what these kids need before our own needs.”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

  “Mostly. But the sexual chemistry going on lately has the potential to blow up in our faces, and the main people who’ll get burned are those kids. We have to be friends, and have a good relationship, because if we start something and it doesn’t work out, how are we going to co-parent?”

  I sighed. Partly because I was frustrated but also because she was right. And I fucking hated it. But there was no time to respond because the photographer we’d hired approached us with a smile.

  “I’ve gotten a ton of candid photos, and some great shots of both kids with their grandparents, but very few with the two of you. I thought we could do a handful of posed pictures with the four of you, and maybe each of you with both kids? I think it’ll be nice to have a variety to choose from.”

  “Absolutely.” I nodded. “I’ll round up Annalise.” I walked away because it was easier than trying to continue a dead-end conversation in the middle of all this chaos. While I mostly agreed with Hadley, I had a different perspective. We were adults. There was no reason we couldn’t follow wherever this thing between us led and still be friends afterward if it either didn’t work out or it was nothing more than sex. Why did everything have to be so black and white with her?

  By the time the guests had left, and we cleaned up Benny and Annalise and put them to bed, Hadley and I collapsed on the sectional in the living room. It was only eight o’clock, but Annalise had been completely wiped out and fell asleep in the tub. Benny would probably be up again at midnight but at least we had a little quiet time.

  “No offense, but those tiny slices of pizza and the world’s coolest cake does not fill up a guy my size,” I said. “Either we order some food or I might have to start chewing on your arm.”

  “I can make us something—” she began, starting to get up.

  “Oh, shut up and sit down,” I said, shaking my head. “You busted your ass today. You’re not cooking shit.”

  She smiled. “Okay. What about ordering Chinese?”

  “I could do Chinese.” I reached for my phone. “And I have my favorite place on speed dial. What do you like?”

  I placed an order and then we just sat there. It had been a great day, if not a little bittersweet, but fuck, I was tired. And I had both a morning skate and a game tomorrow. I needed to get some sleep, but I was starving and sitting here with Hadley was kind of nice. In fact, it was a lot nice. Too bad she’d made it clear things needed to cool down between us. My dick was definitely annoyed about this new development.

  “Do you think Ben and Lauren would have liked the party?” she whispered.

  “I think Lauren would have complained about how much money we spent, but they would have loved the way the guys dressed up and were here for Annalise and the other kids. They loved our extended Mavericks family.”

  “God, when does it stop? I keep thinking it’s getting better and then there’s a day like today where it hurts so much I almost can’t breathe. I still reach for my phone every damn day to call her…”

  “I know.” I slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her against me. She stiffened for a fraction of a second but then it was like all the fight drained out of her and she collapsed against my shoulder, burying the side of her face in my chest.

  “I can never tell if you’re hurting,” she said after a moment. “I feel so weak because I want to cry every day and you’re kicking ass and taking names.”

  “Believe me, the pain is always just below the surface. I’m not kicking anything and I don’t even know what names I’m supposed to take. I just don’t have the luxury of grieving too long. I have a job that requires a fucking ton of energy and two kids at home that take up the rest. No matter how much I hurt on the inside, I have to keep going for them, for the team, and for you.”

  “I’m so glad we’ve been here for each other. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ve been my rock through all of this.”

  I wanted to tell her she’d been my rock, too, but another few minutes of cuddling and intimate conversation, and I’d never be able to respect her wishes to keep things platonic.

  “I think I just heard Benny,” I lied, sliding out from under her embrace. “I better check on him.”

  I saw the surprise on her face, but what choice did I have? The closer we got, the more I wanted, but if s
he wasn’t there for it, I had to protect myself in addition to the kids. Losing Ben and Lauren had been all the heartbreak I could handle; anything else might break me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hadley

  “And…done. Try complaining about that, Liz.”

  I clicked the Send button and officially sent my story for the magazine about planning a child’s birthday party on any budget. It had been a week since Annalise’s party, and I’d been inspired to write a package, complete with cake recipes, game ideas and a companion story about being inclusive of children of differing abilities at parties.

  We’d talked at our last semiannual retreat about catering to the growing demographic of moms who subscribed to Willow, but I’d never imagined that just a few months later, I’d be in a position to write stories like the one I’d just turned in.

  A confirmation message popped up in my inbox immediately. Liz got the email I just sent her. Scoffing, I looked at the clock on the wall of Ben’s study—it was nine fifteen and the sun had set hours ago. I’d privately joked to other staffers at the magazine that Liz didn’t actually have a home; she just coiled up beneath her desk for a few hours each night to digest whomever she’d eaten whole that day and slithered out a few hours later to do it all again.

  I’d envied her work ethic. But I now realized it was a hell of a lot easier to put in twelve plus hours a day when you didn’t have any other responsibilities.

  I quickly closed my computer so I wouldn’t see any more messages from my boss until tomorrow. I was exhausted. It had been a long day of laundry, taking care of the kids and working. I’d come into Ben’s study around three this afternoon, leaving Wes to take care of the kids.

  My plan to close the door and focus entirely on work this evening had mostly worked. I hadn’t been able to resist turning on the baby monitors that were connected to the kids’ rooms when Wes was putting them to bed.

  He’d told them stories about Ben as he fed Benny his bottle, tasking Annalise with organizing Benny’s dresser drawers to keep her busy. It was bittersweet, tears forming in my eyes as I smiled at his recollections of Ben’s first car, their first NHL game against each other and the time they tried skydiving.

  “I was the chicken,” Wes had told the kids. “I had to tell your dad to push me out of the plane. He was smiling and laughing the whole way down and I was screaming my ass off. Sorry, my butt.”

  “Daddy said ass too, Uncle Wes,” Annalise said. “When Mommy wasn’t around, he said shit, ass and fuck. Mostly when we were watching hockey.”

  Wes had laughed at that, and I had, too, wiping tears from my cheeks. Even after nearly two months, the loss of Ben and Lauren still felt so raw. Every time one of the kids did something cute, I longed for Lauren to be here to see it.

  There was a picture of Ben and Lauren on Ben’s large walnut desk, and I picked it up for a closer look. It was the two of them on their honeymoon in Hawaii, smiling happily as they took a selfie in front of a waterfall.

  Little did they know. I was grateful they’d found their great loves in each other and had two children together. But they’d been taken from this world far too soon. Wes had gotten a call from the local state’s attorney’s office a couple days ago letting us know all the toxicology results were in and the case review was complete. DUI charges were being filed against the driver who’d killed Ben and Lauren.

  Wes had been stoic when he’d told me, but I knew it had to be emotional for him, too, even if he wasn’t showing it.

  It was a gut punch. One person’s stupid decision to drive drunk had cost two beautiful young children their parents. Wes and I both supported the state’s attorney’s decision to charge the driver, but there was no penalty that would come close to comforting me. The world had been a better place with Ben and Lauren in it.

  With a deep breath, I picked up my phone and got up from Ben’s office chair, opening my personal email. I let out a little squeal of excitement when I saw a message from the photographer I’d hired to shoot Annalise’s party. The photos were in.

  I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. There was leftover pizza from the place Wes had ordered delivery from for dinner. I put a few pieces on a plate and set it in the microwave, pushing the buttons.

  “Hey, there’s pizza in the fridge,” Wes called from the family room. “And I already poured your wine; it’s waiting for you.”

  I smiled as I took my plate from the microwave, grabbed a napkin and walked into the family room, where Wes was sitting on the couch watching SportsCenter, his feet propped on the coffee table.

  “I don’t know,” I said as I sat down beside him. “Do you think maybe when others know you want a glass of wine before you even say anything, it might be one of the Top Ten Signs You Have a Problem?”

  Wes shrugged. “I say wine’s not your problem, but your solution.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Also a contender for that Top Ten list.”

  “Did you get your work done?”

  “Yeah. But the viper will have a whole new list for me tomorrow.”

  “She seems like a real bitch of a boss.”

  I scoffed and took a sip of the red wine Wes had poured me. “You know, it’s ironic. I always wanted to be just like her. I saw Liz as someone who took no shit, outworked everyone and made hard decisions. Do you know that when she’s interviewing a woman for a job, she pries for information about whether she has kids or wants them, and she’s less likely to hire them if she thinks someone will need maternity leave or use all their vacation days?”

  “That’s fucked.”

  “It really is. But I was so stupid. I thought it made sense. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I get it. Women shouldn’t have to choose between their career and their family.”

  I took another drink of my wine as Wes said, “Totally agree.”

  “You know you’re missing the hockey highlights, right?” I said, my gaze on the TV screen.

  “I do, and it’s killing me. I’m trying to be all sensitive and shit, and listen to you.”

  Rolling my eyes, I said, “Watch your highlights and I’ll eat. We can talk after.”

  Five minutes later, when I was no longer ravenous, I poured a second glass of wine, and Wes’s attention was focused on me again.

  “Did your mom work?” I asked him. “You never mention your family.”

  “Yeah, she did. My parents were both attorneys, and they mostly did medical malpractice. They busted ass, made a shit ton of money and retired when my dad was fifty-five and my mom was fifty-three. They go back and forth between London and Miami now.”

  “Really? Do you ever visit?”

  He shrugged. “About once a year I go see them and once a year they come here.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you guys are close.”

  “Nah, we’re not. But they’d be there for me if I needed anything. They’re proud of me and all, just doing their own thing.” He looked at me intently, a charged silence surrounding us, making me wonder if he was going to kiss me or keep talking. “What about you? You’ve never mentioned your family, either.”

  I sighed softly. “There’s not much to mention. My dad left my mom when I was two and we never saw him again. My mom wasn’t the best mom, but she wasn’t the worst, either. My brother and I kept our heads down and got good grades, because we wanted to get out of the little town where we were born in Iowa. Our mom died of cancer when he was twenty and I was eighteen.”

  “I’m sorry, Hadley.”

  “Thanks. It was a long time ago.”

  “Do you still keep in touch with your brother?”

  “Yes, when I can. He’s a Navy SEAL, so he has to go off-grid a lot, and I never really know where he is. But I’m crazy proud of him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Griff. Short for Griffin.”

  “Does he know about Ben and Lauren? And about us getting the kids?”

  I nodded. “We email pretty often. It works better since h
e’s in other countries and his hours are different than mine.”

  “Hope I can meet him sometime.”

  “I’m sure you will. I told him I’ll send him pictures from the party.” I picked up my phone from the couch. “Which reminds me, the photographer sent the pictures.”

  I opened the email and scooted closer to Wes so we could look at them together. He put an arm around me and I snuggled in, my heart pounding from the intimacy. It had been a long time since I’d snuggled with a man. Like years. The men I’d slept with in the past were just hit-it-and-quit-it types, and honestly, I’d been ready to quit them before the hitting was even over.

  “That’s awesome,” Wes said when I opened the first photo.

  It was Annalise posing with all the Mavericks players who’d dressed up as Avengers for her party. She was beaming, and so were they.

  I scrolled through the pictures, Wes and I oohing, aahing and laughing at most of them. Then I got to the first one of the two of us with Benny and Annalise. I was holding Benny and Wes had his arm around Annalise as she smiled, her cake off to the side.

  We were both silent as we took in the picture. I was bombarded with emotions. It was supposed to be Ben and Lauren in that picture with their babies. The four of us looked like a family, and even though we lived as a family every day, it was another thing to see us posed like one in a photo.

  “Damn,” Wes whispered.

  I blew out a breath and set my phone aside. “I didn’t expect to feel so…I don’t know, sad, I guess.”

  “It’s hard. Ben was such a great dad. I already feel like a piss-poor imposter. And then to see that picture, it just…”

  “I know.” I hugged his chest. “We just have to take this one day at a time.”

  “You want to watch a show or something? Get things feeling a little lighter?”