Nora didn’t open the door, and three hours later I found myself sitting against it. The wind had whipped up over the lake, and I wasn’t suitably dressed for spending the night out in the open, but I was determined not to move. She couldn’t ignore me forever. I’d sit on her stoop until she had the baby, if necessary.
I dozed a little overnight, but each time I nodded off, my brain started to race, and a few minutes later I’d jolt myself awake. It grew so cold, that I went back to my car and found my jacket on the back seat and an old beanie in the trunk. After pulling them on, I reclaimed my place outside her door.
The lights in the house went off about eleven, and I imagined her sleeping upstairs. When we were together, I often used to watch her sleep. Like when she was awake, Nora was a free spirit, and her long hair cascaded around her. In the bed, she took up most of the room, an impossible accomplishment when she was at a foot shorter than me. She was such a tiny fairy-like creature with delicate wrists and the neatest figure. But just as she filled my heart when she was awake, her body filled my bed when she was sleeping.
At some point, I must have drifted off into a longer sleep. I was having this wonderful dream where Nora had wings, and she fluttered around me like a sprite. Her hair was luminous and had a mind of its own, undulating behind her. She went everywhere with me, fluttering at my shoulder while I was saving goals, and correcting my grammar in my English exam. Sometimes, I stopped and tried to reach for her, but her wings carried her away from me. When I chased her, she was always a few inches out of my grasp. So, I followed her through a meadow and over a fallen log. We came to a fence, and she hovered above it while I climbed over it. A few moments later, she flittered over a group of boulders, and I scaled them, too. Finally, we arrived at a cliff face, and she vanished up it, alighting on the top and looking down at me. I started to climb, but the ground was loose, and I kept sliding backwards as the shale dislodged. Sometimes, I’d make it several feet up, but the next step would cause me to slide back down to the ground.
“José, what the hell are you still doing here?”
Blinking in the bright morning sun, a hand shook me awake and I looked up to find Nora staring down at me.
The sun created a halo around her hair as she handed me a cup of coffee. “Here, you look frozen.”
I wrapped my hands around the hot mug and blew on the scalding liquid, grateful for its heat, and even more grateful she had chosen to offer an olive branch instead of tipping a bucket of water over me, or calling the police.
“I have bacon and eggs waiting inside, if you’re hungry.”
I got to my feet, a little stiff from my uncomfortable night on her back deck, and followed her inside. “Thanks, um, could I use your bathroom?”
She shrugged. “You know where it is.”
After peeing, I stared at my unkempt appearance in the mirror. “You have one fucking chance to save this, José, do not fuck this up.”
When I went back into the kitchen, she was sitting at the table looking out the window, the fork dangling in her hand over her plate. Behind her, the kitchen was in disarray. The frying pan was balanced in the sink, and paper towels, cracked eggshells, a plastic wrapper from the bacon, and coffee grinds littered the work surface. I had an overwhelming compulsion to tidy up the mess and restore order. My eyes flicked to the family room on my right. Cushions had tumbled to the floor, there was a throw that had been discarded on the coffee table, and the seat and back cushions on the sofa were all askew and wrinkled. I wondered if she slept down here last night on the couch. Had she known I’d stayed outside?
I looked back at her; she was still watching the birds hopping along the rail that ran alongside her deck. I went to the counter and ignored the debris screaming out at me, and scooped up the plate of food she’d left there.
“Can I sit with you?”
She sighed. “Sure.”
“You should eat, you’re looking thin.”
Nora stabbed at her eggs and laid her fork back on her plate. “I’ve been suffering a lot of morning sickness, though between you and me, it is a fallacy that it happens in the mornings. For me, it happens twenty-four-seven.”
“Has the doctor given you anything?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to take anything, it might hurt the baby.”
When she spoke, she sat back in her chair, and her hand went to her stomach. There was definitely a little round bump there, and it looked more prominent in the leggings and camisole she was wearing.
I took a mouthful of eggs, and pushed my plate aside. Leaning my head in my hands, I battled against the dirty dishes screaming at me from the kitchen and the dropped pillows in the family room.
“I’m sorry.” The words that slipped out of my mouth weren’t enough, I knew that, but I needed to say something to get the ball rolling.
“For what, José?”
I wanted to say for getting you pregnant but that wasn’t even what I was feeling. Why was I sorry? Tell her José. I tried to figure it all out in my head. “For leading you on for five months, for panicking when you told me you loved me, and for breaking us up. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you found out you were pregnant, and that I wasn’t there to put my arms around you and tell you that everything would be okay, that we can, and will, work this out together. I’m sorry that, for a while, I believed my ambitions meant I couldn’t commit to you, and that I let my fears and insecurities rule my head and my life.”
She looked back at me with tears in her eyes, and I realized that, perhaps, I’d said those things out loud after all. I reached out and took her hand and brought it to my cheek. As I nuzzled against it, I remembered the sweet way she held my face when we kissed. Then I looked back up into her beautiful teal blue eyes. “Mostly, I’m sorry for falling in love with you and never telling you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, then she pulled her hand from my face and stood up. “I should get dressed.”
While she was upstairs, I tidied the kitchen and family room to help ease my anxiety. I wasn’t sure if anything I said made a difference. I’d fucked things up between us so monumentally that I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to repair the damage I’d done.
When she came back downstairs, she looked just like the nymph from my dream wearing a floaty kimono over a diaphanous summer dress. She looked around the spotless kitchen and laughed. “Your OCD?”
I looked down at my feet. “It’s been worse, lately.”
She nodded, and stepped towards me. “Next week, I am scheduled for an ultrasound, it should be clearer than the last one.” She went to a drawer in the island counter, and pulled it open. Taking out a scrap of paper, she handed it to me. “I usually keep it on the refrigerator, but I put it in there because I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see it.”
The ultrasound picture was grainy and it was hard to make out what I was looking at. She pointed to a smudge on one side. “There, that’s our baby.”
The fact she said “our” instead of “my” made my heart leap into my throat.
“Would you come with me for the next one? It’s on Tuesday, at three.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Well, you are the father, and even if we aren’t together…” She walked back over to the window, her arms wrapped around her, as she stared at the lake. “That’s if you want to.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “No strings, of course.”
It took five strides to get to her, and when I arrived, I pulled her into my arms. “Fuck, no strings. This is my kid, and I want to see it. I want to be there at the birth, and I want to watch him or her grow up.” I dipped my head and kissed her on the top of hers. “And, if you can ever forgive me, I want you back in my life.”
“José, please, you don’t have to say this. I know I shouldn’t have kept this from you. I won’t stop you from seeing the baby.”
“I don’t want visitation rights, Nora. I want more than that. Do you think we can start again?” She opened her mou
th to answer me, but I placed my finger on it. “No, not again. What I mean is can we start over. I want to do this properly. Nora, will you go out with me?”
Before she could answer, my phone buzzed on the counter and lit up. Both our eyes went to it at the same time, and I reached out to switch it off.
Nora snatched it up before I reached it. “Oh, God, José look!” she turned the phone around to show me. It was a text message from Coach Peterson.
2 scouts want to meet you, Tuesday next week at 2:30
My face lit up as I stared at the message then, just as fast, my heart sank. I took the phone from her hand and tossed it back on to the counter. “I’d love to come see our baby.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “José, did you read the freaking text? The scouts are coming to see you then.”
I shrugged, as for some reason it no longer mattered to me as much as being there for her. “This is more important.”
“I-it is?”
“I meant it, Nora. I want to be there for you and the baby, and I want you back in my life, and—I’m not going to lie—I want more than for us to just be friends or to tolerate each other for the baby’s sake, I want us back together again. If you can’t do that, I understand. But our kid will not have an absent father, I will be there for every damn birthday, school event, whatever it takes. And I’m starting with this scan.”
She shook her head. “This is your dream, your future, our future. Text coach and tell him you’ll be there.”
My single-mindedness and stubborn nature was what got us to this point, and I needed her to know that going forward, I was putting her and our child first. “I’m coming with you to see our baby.”
She grinned at me. “Yeah, you are. But I’ll rearrange the appointment for Monday. Now text coach and tell him you’ll be there, José.”
I shook my head one more time. “There is something more important that I have to do first.”
“What could be more important than this, José?”
“You. Can I kiss you, Nora?”
She nodded, and I swept her off her feet. Holding her in my arms, I took her mouth and she returned the kiss with just as much passion as I gave it.
When we broke apart, she grinned up at me. “Do you think you can carry me upstairs?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I have never stopped loving you, José. Take me to bed.”
As I stepped forward, she snatched my phone back off the counter, and while I carried her upstairs to her room, she texted Coach Peterson telling him I’d be there.
Nineteen
Nora
“Jesus, I’m nervous. Aren’t you?” José paced up and down the dark room as we waited for the technician to start the ultrasound.
Lying on the raised bed, wearing a most unflattering paper gown, I was more nervous about José’s anxiety than seeing my baby. He’d been a wreck when we were driving to the doctor’s office, talking non-stop about anything that popped into his head.
“Ah, here we are, Mr. Estrada.” The technician turned her screen toward us, and I gasped at how much clearer the image was in this scan compared to the first one. The previous one looked like a fruit pit but on this screen, you could clearly make out the head, torso, arms, and legs. José froze and stared at it. He held his breath so long, I thought he might pass out. Eventually, it all came out in a rush and he sank down into the chair. Tears filled his eyes, and he looked over at me. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Now, I know everyone falls in love with their own baby, and my heart was pretty full of love at that moment, but I couldn’t help but laugh at José. Even though I was sure the baby would be beautiful, the features were still too alien-like for me to use that word to describe what I was seeing at the moment.
All the way back to the car José clutched the printout the technician gave us. “You think it is a boy or a girl?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you have a preference?”
He pulled me into his arms and stooped to kiss my cheek. “Nope. Just as long as it is healthy. Though… if it is a boy, we could sign him up for hockey.”
I nudged him in the ribs. “If it is a girl, we can still sign her up for hockey!”
He grinned at me like a loon. “Well, there you go, either way, I’m going to buy hockey boots.”
“We could find out, um, if you wanted. They now do this blood test early, so we don’t have to wait for the later scan.”
“We could?”
I nodded. “The place is just around the corner, we could go book an appointment.”
“Fuck, seriously? Let’s go.”
José grabbed my hand and we walked to the testing center one block away. Outside the clinic, he stopped and looked at his feet. “I’m so sorry for being such an asshole to you, Nora. I’m never going to let you down again. I promise, I will always be there for you and our little hockey puck.” His hand settled on my belly and the gesture caused a little flutter down there. Was that the baby? I dismissed it, as it was probably way too early to feel any movement.
“You know what I want?” I took his hand and threaded my fingers through his. “I want to forget that ever happened. Let’s not dwell on all the could haves or should haves. You’re here now, and for me, that is all that counts.”
He tilted my chin higher, his lips hovering just over mine. “No, I’m not here now… I’m here forever.”
The test took only a few minutes to do, and we were soon back at the car. “I can’t believe they were able to fit us in today!” I was really excited, and nervous too. I hadn’t really thought much about whether I wanted the baby to be a boy or a girl, but as we were on the cusp of finding out, I felt like I would burst.
“I can’t believe we have to wait until tomorrow for the results!” José was looking pale. Very pale.
“In that case, I’ll have to think of something to occupy you until then.”
The next day, I woke to José holding a plate of toast and eggs and a glass of orange juice. “I read online that you should limit your caffeine, so no coffee for you.”
I took the juice from him gratefully, and gulped down over half of it. I’d had a bit of a craving for orange juice this past week, and was going through gallons of the stuff. “Actually, that is no problem. Since I became pregnant, I haven’t been able to bear the smell of the stuff.”
I started on the plate of food. For almost the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant I was actually ravenous. Perhaps it was the sex last night, or being back in José’s room with all those delicious memories of our nights of passion that we had spent there that caused the uptick in my appetite. I wasn’t sure, but I was damn well going to take it, and I wolfed down my breakfast like a starved man.
“Did they call yet?” José asked after I finished.
“Who?”
“The clinic.”
“José, it isn’t even seven a.m. They are not even open yet.” He looked disappointed. “They said it would most likely be early this evening. I’ll tell you as soon as they do.”
As I languished in bed, I watched him sort out his gear for later. “You nervous?”
“About the results? Yeah.”
“No. I mean about the scouts coming.”
He shrugged. “Excited, but…”
“But what?”
“North Carolina is a long fucking way away.” He sat down on the bed next to me. “Will you come with me if I get it?”
“Let’s not jinx anything by discussing this now. We’ll talk about it later.”
He nodded. “Just so you know, whenever this happens, I am going to want you with me. From now on, me, you, and the hockey puck are a team. Wherever I go, you guys come, too.”
I reached up and pulled him down to me. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I gave him a big smooch and then let him go. “Don’t you have a routine to follow? Go prepare.”
“Mmm, I could maybe squeeze in a little more time with you first.”
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p; I shook my head. “No, this is important, José. Me and the puck will still be here when you get back.”
He frowned at me. “Wait, you’re not coming to the rink with me?”
“I doubt Coach Peterson will allow me anywhere near the rink.”
José shook his head. “But I need you there, you’re my good luck charm.”
I relented. “Okay, I’ll come with you, even if I have to stand outside and send you good luck vibes through the wall.”
By the time we arrived at the rink, José was as cool as a cucumber. In his words, he was in the zone, and he disappeared down the hallway to begin his prep routine. I wandered through to the ice and found a seat on the benches next to Angie. She was pretty much looking as nervous as I was.
Kai and another guy were also at the rink. It seemed the Hurricanes’ scouts were in the market for a forward as well as a goalie.
“José told me you tore him off a strip, and Kai told him about me and the baby.”
Angie looked at the ground. “Sorry, Nora. I know you didn’t want him to know, but I couldn’t bear what he did to you, and I lost my temper.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Hey, no worries. We are back together because of you two.”
There were some noises across the ice, and our players skated out. I hunted around the rink looking for the scouts and spotted them standing in the penalty box, clipboards in hand. This wasn’t a scheduled season game, but a preseason warm up between the coach’s A and B teams. Ordinarily, these games were very informal, and gave Coach Peterson time to assess his new season’s team and look at who might be ready to rise up the ranks. Angie and I were the only spectators, and the emptiness on the bleachers only made me more nervous.
“Do you think he will stay around?” Angie put her fingers in the mesh that surrounded the rink and served to protect the spectators.
“Yeah, I do. We spent the whole weekend at my dad’s place talking. Whatever happens, we are both determined to make this work, and José has promised he will always talk to me if he is feeling overwhelmed.”
Shut Out: Contemporary Sport Romance (Hockey Boyz Book 3) Page 13
