Puck Me Baby

by Lili Valente

  *

  Saunders: Doubtful. So far, telling her how much I miss her has only led to awkward apologies when I sober up and realize I’ve been drunk dialing my ex again.

  *

  Alexi: Hmm… Can I give you some unsolicited romantic advice?

  *

  Saunders: Absolutely.

  *

  Alexi: Until you stop hurting, stop drinking.

  *

  Saunders: That’s good advice.

  *

  Alexi: Yours wasn’t too bad, either. I’ll give it a try.

  At this point I don’t have much left to lose.

  The worst she can say is that she’s never coming back.

  *

  Saunders: She’ll come back. Just give her a reason.

  *

  Alexi: I will. Thanks.

  *

  Saunders: No thanks needed. I’m rooting for you, man.

  Chapter 25

  From the letters of Alexi Petrov

  and Amanda Esposito

  *

  Dear myshka baby elephant dragon,

  I’m bad at this. Very bad.

  I’ve started this letter twelve fourteen times.

  No joke. There are balls of crumpled paper all over the kitchen floor and ink stains on my hand from the pen I just broke a few minutes ago. I was squeezing it too hard, I guess. Who knew pens were so fragile these days?

  Shit. Fuck. Shit.

  I promised myself I wouldn’t start over again, that I’d keep pushing until I got something down on paper, so I’ll do my best to get to the point.

  And the point is I’m sorry.

  I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about the baby I lost and the danger to our baby from the very beginning. I convinced myself I was sparing you needless worry and stress, but you’re right, you’re not a child. You deserved to know the truth—to help me carry that truth, like you said.

  I fucked it all up, from the minute I found out you were pregnant until the night you walked away. It doesn’t matter that the potential issue with our baby was different than the disorder that killed my first child. I still should have spilled everything. I should have been honest with you because that’s what you do with people you love.

  And I do love you.

  So much.

  I should have said that sooner, too. I should have told you that the thought of having a family with you makes me happier than I’ve been in my entire life, and that falling in love with you is the rightest thing I’ve ever done. From the moment I laid eyes on you, myshka, it all felt right, every minute.

  Except these minutes right now, when you’re far away from me and I don’t know if you’re ever coming back.

  Please tell me there’s a way to make this better, a way to prove to you that I’m worthy of a place in your life and in your heart. If you’ll give me another chance, I promise I won’t betray your trust again.

  All my love,

  Alexi

  *

  Dear Alexi,

  Your letter made me cry.

  And it made me feel very loved.

  But I spent a lot of years crying and feeling loved and then crying some more, all leading up to a painful separation I should have seen coming ten miles away.

  Maybe even a hundred.

  I don’t know what to think or which voice in my head to trust. It’s so loud up there these days and the pregnancy brain isn’t helping. I locked my keys in the car again yesterday, the day after I got it back from the police. It’s probably a good thing I’m only working at that office another week. I’m sure everyone on staff thinks I’m a complete space cadet.

  Anyway…

  I’m sorry I can’t give you the answer you want right now.

  But I do love you. So much it hurts, and I guess that’s part of the problem.

  The hurt…

  I’ll be in touch soon. Take care of yourself.

  Best,

  Amanda

  *

  Dear Mandy,

  I’m so sorry I hurt you.

  My biggest regret in all of this is that I brought suffering into your life when all I wanted to do was make you happy.

  Your smile is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Your smile makes me believe that the world is a better place than I think. Or, at least, that it can be better if more of us made the kind of effort you make every single day, no matter what’s going on in your life or what kind of stress you’re under.

  You are by far the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met. And you manage to be those things without being condescending, judgmental, or boring. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, myshka, but you manage.

  You more than manage. You excel.

  You are also funny, sexy as hell, and one of the smartest people I know.

  Give yourself time. I’m sure you’ll figure out which of those voices in your head to trust. But I admit, I hope it’s the one that’s telling you that I’ll know what to do with a second chance. I’m a miserable wreck of a person without you.

  I can’t look at French toast on a menu without feeling like my heart is going to fall out of my chest. Every time I see a pregnant woman walk by on the street, all I can think about is how much more beautiful my pregnant woman is, and how much I wish I could see you, touch you…

  I miss touching you, beautiful.

  But I also miss talking to you and eating tacos with you and lying on the couch with your feet in my lap. Even though your feet sometimes smell like sour beer at the end of a long day.

  That’s how I know this is forever, Amanda, at least for me. I miss rubbing your stinky feet. I would sell my soul for the chance to rub them right now, in fact.

  So I figure I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.

  Miss you. So much.

  Love,

  Alexi

  *

  From the texts of Amanda Esposito and Alexi Petrov

  *

  Amanda: I just read your letter…

  *

  Alexi: You did…

  *

  Amanda: I did. And even though you told terrible lies about my feet—which are not stinky and never smell like sour beer—I would very much like to meet you in your bedroom at your earliest convenience.

  I’m sitting in my car at the end of your driveway, waiting for you to arrive…

  *

  Alexi: I’ll be home in ten minutes.

  Does this mean you’re giving me a second chance?

  *

  Amanda: Yes, baby. It does.

  I don’t see that I have a choice, considering I’m in forever love with you, too.

  *

  Alexi: I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I am right now.

  *

  Amanda: Get here fast, and I’ll see what I can do to make you even happier…

  Chapter 26

  Amanda

  *

  Alexi makes it home in seven minutes, peeling around the corner with a squeal of tires. But instead of pulling into the drive, he jerks his truck to a stop behind my car, leaps out, and makes a run for my door like he’s rushing to put out a fire.

  I jump out as fast as my increasingly large belly will allow, managing to find my feet seconds before Alexi swoops me into his arms for the most savagely sweet hug in the entire world.

  “Thank you.” He kisses the top of my head, murmuring into my hair, “Thank you, myshka. You won’t be sorry, I promise.”

  “I know I won’t.” My arms tighten around his neck. “God, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “So much. Nothing has felt right,” he says, setting me back on my feet and bringing his hands to cup my face. “Nothing. Life is shit without you. Absolute shit. And I’m one cranky motherfucking son of a bitch.”

  I laugh, even as tears fill my eyes. “You? Cranky?”

  “Yes, me.” His lips curve with a wonder-filled smile as he brushes a thumb across my mouth. “Your smile. There it is. I missed it like air and water.”


  “And French toast?”

  He nods seriously. “Yes. Will you move back in? Please?”

  “On one condition,” I say, letting him lead me down the drive toward the house, our boots making footprints in the fresh dusting of snow that fell this morning.

  “Name it,” he says, squeezing my hand tight. “Anything.”

  “You guarantee in writing that the price of oral sex will never go up. I can handle back scratching and morning kisses, but I don’t want to get into a situation where I end up selling the farm to support my habit.”

  He nods with a relieved sigh. “Done. A lock on oral sex pricing in perpetuity. Anything else?”

  “And I want a puppy,” I say. “To keep Baby and me company while you’re gone at away games. I get lonely when you’re gone.”

  “Done.” He stops at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front door. “Though I’m going to do my best not to be gone any more than absolutely necessary. All I want to do is be with you, Amanda Esposito. Every day, every night, for as long as you’ll put up with my cranky ass.”

  I reach up, brushing his hair from his forehead. “Your ass isn’t cranky. It’s your face that’s the main problem. Your ass is completely beautiful, actually.”

  He smiles. “Yeah? You think so?”

  “I do.” I purse my lips as I tilt my head, considering. . “I’m pretty sure, anyway. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it. Maybe I need a refresher course? A little one-on-one time with said ass in private?”

  “That can absolutely be arranged.” He scoops me into his arms and I laugh, but I’m not laughing for long.

  Soon I’m sighing, moaning, chanting his name in a soft whisper as he makes love to me with his mouth. He props me up on pillows so I can watch as he kisses and sucks and licks while his big hands cup my breasts, rubbing my nipples in mind-melting circles. My belly is big, but not big enough to obscure the view, and the combination of seeing my beautiful man’s expression—rapt and turned on and oh so devoted to his work—with the things he’s making me feel is quickly too much. I come hard, crying out as my belly becomes a hard knot at the center of my body, a sound that becomes a gasp of surprise as the baby kicks.

  I’m about to tell Alexi and confess how strange it is to be having sex and be aware of the infant inside me at the same time, but he’s already kneeling between my legs, his cock thick and hard, gliding into me with such perfection I decide it isn’t strange at all. Nothing about this is strange.

  It is right and beautiful and sacred, a miracle I never want to stop celebrating with this man. This incredible, generous, fearless man who’s teaching me what it’s like to be in real love, the kind that bends and bruises, but never breaks.

  Never, no matter what.

  Chapter 27

  Petrov

  *

  Three and a half months later…

  *

  It’s my last game before the baby’s born and the battle that will decide whether the Badgers make it to the playoffs this year.

  Needless to say, I’m amped up, ramped up, and ready to kick ass and carve names into the handle of my stick, where I like to collect the initials of vanquished enemies. Tonight, Timothy Pendleton will have his name added to the collection.

  Surprising our entire division, Portland and Las Vegas established quite a rivalry this season, a rivalry that will end in tears and shame for the expansion team when we deliver their asses to them on a paper plate. We’re not going to give them a silver platter because they don’t deserve the fancy shit.

  “Fuck you, Petrov,” Pendleton growls as I crush him against the boards during a scrum for the puck. “Fuck you, you piece of shit motherfucker.”

  “You kiss my mama with that mouth?” I ask as I lift his stick and steal the puck out from under his little weasel nose with the calm of a priest at morning mass.

  This shit can’t ruffle me anymore. I’ve lived through far worse than anything Pendleton can dish out. As far as he’s concerned, I’m invincible, untouchable. I’m engaged to the most amazing woman in the world, our healthy baby boy is going to be delivered via C-section next Tuesday, and everything I’ll ever need is sitting up there in the wives’ suite, with her swollen feet propped up on the portable footstool I left there for her before the game because there is no reason my future wife should go without pain-alleviating, foot-propping equipment for even three hours.

  With a growl, Pendleton, the one-trick pony, goes for my crotch with his stick, but I’m ready for him this time. I deflect with a karate chop, bringing my glove down hard enough to knock the stick out of his hand and skate away without wasting another precious moment of my life on his ridiculous bullshit.

  He’s obsessed with my crotch; that’s his cross to bear.

  I’m more interested in winning this game and getting home in time to finish assembling the rocking chair we ordered for the baby’s room, because that monster is not playing around. Sure, the fact that the directions are in German with only a few pictures to give non-German-speakers a clue doesn’t help, but it’s the four extra dowel rods that are really gumming up the works. Where did those things come from, and more importantly, where am I supposed to put them?

  I race across the ice toward where Cruise and Saunders are tossing the puck back and forth, hunting for an opening. Behind me, I’m dimly aware of Pendleton crying like a tiny diaper baby to the ref about the mean old man who slapped his wrist, and realize I’m open.

  No one is covering this mean old man, and when that happens, mean old men like to help score goals.

  Smacking my stick on the ice three times, I signal that I’m open. Without so much as looking over his shoulder, Cruise drops the pass perfectly into my wheelhouse. By the time the puck reaches my stick, I’ve already unloaded everything I’ve got into a wicked slap shot that connects with a smack so loud they can hear it in the cheap seats.

  It’s perhaps the hardest shot of my career. The puck careens past the goalie so fast he’s still reaching up in a futile attempt to block its passage when it rips a hole in the back of the net.

  Yes. A hole. Ripped. In the back of the net.

  There’s a moment of confusion, the play continuing for a few seconds before the refs call a time out to verify that yes, indeed, I did score a net-ripper to put the Badgers up two goals in the first period.

  As soon as the replay shows what went down, the home crowd loses their shit.

  The roar is literally deafening. By the time the fans stop screaming, shouting, and cheering my ears are ringing so loudly I barely hear the announcer mentioning a commotion in the wives’ suite and EMTs en route from the front of the arena.

  “What’s happening?” I ask Cruise on our way back to center ice for the face off. “What’s going on in the suite?”

  “Don’t know,” he says, glaring at Pendleton, who is spewing obscenities on his way to the bench. “I can’t hear shit. I have an ear infection. I think I’m allergic to dairy. How are you with dairy?”

  “I’m not talking to you about dairy right now,” I growl. “Mandy’s due date was yesterday. We’ve got a C-section scheduled for next week, but that doesn’t mean the baby’s going to wait for it.”

  “Fuck.” Cruise squints up into the stands. “I can’t see anything, either. Does a dairy allergy mess with your eyes, too? Milk is fucking poison, man.”

  With a hard roll of my eyes, I skate back into position, silently reminding myself that Cruise is a damned good hockey player, but a complete weirdo. How he landed a savvy woman like his fiancée is still a mystery to me and everyone else who puts up with his eccentric ass on a daily basis.

  Once in place, I risk another look up, but Cruise is right, it’s impossible to see anything with the lights glaring down. I glance over at our new assistant coach, who’s scrolling through something on his iPad. He looks up, making meaningful eye contact, but before I can skate over to see what’s going on, the ref blows the whistle for the face off.

  Exercising more w
illpower than I have in a long time, I force my attention back to the puck drop, telling myself that it’s probably nothing.

  The baby is breech, overdue, and in no hurry to make his way out into the world. That’s why the doctor scheduled Mandy’s surgery for next week. All the signs and measurements and OB/GYN voodoo pointed to natural delivery being nowhere in the picture. The commotion is probably just one of the new girlfriends passing out after drinking too much free Pinot Grigio. The skinny ones never know when to stop with the Pinot Grigio.

  The puck drops and Las Vegas wins the draw. Spumonte, the lone Italian stallion in the NHL—this guy somehow managed to become pro-hockey material while growing up on a dairy farm outside of Rome, a story I would love to hear some time when he’s not playing on a team I hate like explosive diarrhea—rockets the puck toward our goal. But our goalie slaps it out of the air and completes a deft pass, delivering the biscuit onto my waiting stick.

  While Pendleton shouts abuse from the bench, something about my grandmother, which is really taking things too far, even for him, I knock the puck sharply to my right, where Saunders is waiting to carry it home. Saunders shoots to Cruise, who shoots to Nowicki, who shoots back to Saunders, who is now in the perfect position to roof one glove-side into the Vegas net.

  Their goalie makes an acceptable effort, but this shot has been kissed by angels. It soars into the corner of the net and snags there, dangling for a moment as if to taunt the other team before falling to the ice by the goalie’s feet.

  This time, the arena doesn’t simply roar, it howls, the cheers so loud the ice is vibrating beneath my skates as I slap Saunders on the back on my way to the bench.

  Before I even make it through the gate, I know something’s wrong. Coach Swindle is waiting for me at the end of the bench, motioning toward the tunnel.

  “Get out of here, Petrov,” he says, wheeling his arm. “You’re done for tonight, son.”

  I shake my head and spit out my mouth guard, but before I can ask what’s wrong, Conner, the backup goalie, hits me in the shin guard with his stick and shouts, “You’re going to be a dad, man! Congratulations!”

  “Fuck, is he serious?” I tug off my helmet and turn back to Coach. “What’s happening? Where is she?”