“Did we really need to come with you for this?” Brady asked, his voice sounding distracted.

Jake looked up from the display case he’d been studying for at least five minutes. His teammate was two cases over, bent over it as he looked inside.

“You guys are the ones who invited me to lunch and said it was okay if I made a quick stop.”

Curtis and Brady told him the store was the best one to find a ring. He hadn’t mentioned that was the errand he needed to run. Since they’d both congratulated him on the proposal their wives had told them about, and he asked about the ring, he thought it was obvious.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were running straight for the ring. Then again, I heard the wedding is in two weeks, so I guess there isn’t a lot of time to waste.”

“What’s up with the quick run to the altar?” Curtis asked as he nudged Jake with his elbow.

Unlike Brady, Curtis was trying to help pick out a ring. Pointing out every ring and asking if it was the right one, wasn’t exactly helpful, but he didn’t sound annoyed about it.

“She’s pregnant,” Jake replied.

He didn’t believe for a second their wives hadn’t filled them in on everything. Kelly said she told them everything going on, without swearing them to secrecy other than when it came to the kids. There was no way Nina hadn’t run straight to her husband and told him all the juicy details of the gossip.

“Is that even possible?” Curtis’ voice was filled with disbelief.

Jake furrowed his brow and looked over at his friend, wondering what would make the idea so implausible. There were plenty of reasons why Jake knew it wasn’t possible, but he was pretty sure Curtis wasn’t aware of all of them.

“Don’t give me that look. Rumor is there’d be some immaculate conception going on if she’s pregnant. Apparently, Nina already wondered if the rush was because of a bun in the oven.”

“So, Kelly mentioned we hadn’t slept together yet. I’m going to have to remind her that we can’t say anything around anyone if we don’t want the entire world to know.”

It was a lesson he already knew, but Kelly had been out of the gossip circles for a while. He imagined the industry she used to be in was just as chatty. He was pretty sure the hockey circle wasn’t as backstabbing, but he only had firsthand experience with one side.

“Hadn’t? That sounds like someone got lucky last night.”

Jake looked over to Curtis in time to see him lifting his eyebrows up and down to go along with his words. Rolling his eyes, Jake shook his head.

“Other than the fact that I’d like to invite you guys to the wedding, I don’t think you need to know much about my love life.”

“Interesting. I thought the whole marriage thing was on hold until Nina could hook them up with DNA testing. They’re supposed to be getting swabbed or whatever today,” Brady said as he abandoned what had caught his eye and came over to lean on the display case to the left of Jake.

Jake sighed and leaned closer to the glass in front of him to try to see if anything caught his eye from a different angle. He’d thought it would be as simple as just walking in and seeing the perfect ring. Ten minutes later, he was sure the perfect ring didn’t exist.

“We’re getting married because we want to get married. I don’t care that we haven’t known each other for years. And I don’t know for sure if we’re getting married in a couple of weeks now, but we are getting married, so I need a ring.”

“Calm down,” Curtis said, smacking his shoulder. “Neither one of us can say anything about a fast wedding. Brady at least waited until the season was over. I knew Hannah when we were kids, sort of, but we’d only reconnected for a few months when I asked her to marry me.”

Since Jake had only known Kelly existed for about six months, he was pretty sure he had Curtis beat on the suddenness of the proposal. The timeframe didn’t change the fact that when he’d heard about the issues with the kids’ grandparents, the first thought he had was getting married.

“Yeah, but this seems kind of weird, right?” Brady asked.

Jake took his eyes off the rings to look over to Brady. The man had lost all appeal of the store and was staring out the front windows. His deep lean against the glass case behind him only reiterated how bored he was.

“Care to enlighten me what’s so weird about it?”

It wasn’t like Brady’s answer would change Jake’s opinion, but he was curious what the man considered weird. Knowing the ring he was looking for wasn’t in the case in front of him, Jake moved on to the next one. When he’d picked out her necklace for Christmas, it took him almost an hour, so he should’ve realized it wasn’t going to be easy to find a ring.

All the metals and jewels just didn’t seem right. They were all too big for Kelly’s hand, yet at the same time, none were big enough.

“I don’t know, man. You’ve only been in town since my wedding and you didn’t even try to date anyone. You just saw her and haven’t given anyone else a chance. Don’t you think you should play the field a little?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Curtis quickly said. “Brady is still getting used to the idea of monogamy. Not everyone is cut out for the dating scene. I say, if you’ve found someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you should go for it.”

Brady grunted. “Monogamy has been great for me. From the sound of it, it’s hard to believe you’re ready to walk down the aisle, though. If you really just bumped body parts together last night, either she has a golden vagina or you’ve been snorting something with her. Both of which, I find a little hard to believe. Frankly, you can do whatever you want with your life, but can we please get out of here?”

Jake glared at his friend, curling his fists as he thought about punching him. There was a line in there that was uncalled for. Brady was lucky Jake was still in a good mood.

“Yeah, I suppose we can. I’m just not seeing anything that feels right. I thought you guys said this was the place to find a ring.”

They’d walked in just after noon, which evidently was a busy time, because the three people helping customers throughout the store were all occupied. Since they didn’t show any signs of directing Jake to the perfect ring. He hadn’t made it through every display in the building, but he’d seen most of the engagement rings.

“Brady said this was the place to shop, and that’s only because he found Nina’s monstrous ring here. I have a feeling you’re not worried about how big the ring is, so maybe this isn’t the right place for you. Let’s grab something to eat, then we’ll point you in another direction.”

The idea of another direction didn’t sound too promising. Jake thought maybe doing some research online was the better way to go, but he didn’t mention it. Whatever alternatives they came up with were probably places he could check out online before looking like an idiot staring at rings.

“It’s pretty clear Brady either needs some food or to take a nap. Is he always this grumpy this time of day?” Jake asked.

He turned away from the jewelry and led the way out of the store. He’d thought maybe once he made a move to leave that Brady would run ahead, but the other man brought up the rear. Jake hoped that his choice for food was better than rings. After a grueling practice, Jake was starving.

The three of them had gone out for post-practice sustenance before, but Brady had never seemed so moody. It made Jake wonder if there was something up. Maybe after Brady got some fries or something in him, Jake would hazard asking. As it was, he felt it would probably only aggravate the situation, since his question about Brady being grumpy earned him a light smack on the back of his head.

“I’m not grumpy. I’m just trying to bring some reality back to this conversation. I have absolutely no footing to critique a relationship, but you and Kelly seem like total opposites. You’ve got a charity that helps get people off drugs, and she’s a recovering addict, who used only a few months ago. That alone screams friction to me.”

Jake listened to Brady’s words, slightly tuning them out as a young blonde walking with an older couple caught his eye. He’d just seen the side of her face, but something seemed familiar about her. The group was walking into a building, so he got a better look at her face when the man held the door open for her.

“Is that Mia?” he asked.

“Mia who?” Brady replied as he looked where Jake’s finger pointed.

Jake, Brady and Curtis hadn’t made it too far out of the jewelry store before he stopped to figure out where they were going to eat. The other two were the “experts,” so he’d expected one of them to lead the way, but no one had made a move.

“Fiona and Simon’s nanny,” Jake said.

“The one who was screwing Brian?”

Brady moved forward as he asked the question. The group had already entered the building, so it wasn’t like he could get a better view or anything.

“Yeah, I’m sure that was her, and something about the couple she was with looked familiar. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think I’ve seen them before.”

Remembering faces wasn’t Jake’s thing. The hundreds of fans who sat in immediate view around the ring were probably the cause of that. He saw so many faces on game days that he just couldn’t handle trying to remember all of them.

He didn’t think the couple were necessarily fans. They just reminded him of the fact he needed to get better about remembering some faces.

“You want to go check it out? They just walked into my go-to place for lunch, so I’m sure we’ll be welcome.”

Jake glanced over at Brady as he spoke, so he saw some humor spread across his face that didn’t echo in his tone. Jake wasn’t sure what the funny secret was, but something told him to see what Mia was up to.

Usually when he was around the house, Mia wasn’t. So, it wasn’t like he had a good handle on the woman. As it was, Kelly had planned to fire her after Nina confirmed the affair was legit. He wasn’t sure if that had happened yet, but she was supposed to be at work if it hadn’t. The soap opera of it all was hard to keep track of.

“You sure? We could just walk by and look in the window. Maybe if I get a better look, this nagging feeling will go away.”

If he was alone, there was no way he’d go in. He didn’t want Mia thinking he was following her around. Not that she would immediately jump to that conclusion, but she wasn’t exactly the model of good character, so maybe she’d be suspicious.

“You’ve got me curious,” Curtis said, starting to walk towards the building.

Jake thought about stopping him and telling the guys they should find somewhere else to eat, but his feet didn’t listen to the idea. As they walked the fifty feet to the restaurant, his brain kept going through images, trying to pinpoint where he’d seen the couple. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure he knew them for some reason.

“Shit,” Curtis muttered as soon as they got to the building and looked through the glass window.

Instead of going inside, he kept walking. Jake looked to see what he’d seen that changed their course of action. Seeing Mia and the couple in the booth right next to the window was obviously part of it, but Jake still couldn’t place them, so he was confused. The older woman had her hand on Mia’s almost like she was comforting her. Jake thought maybe that meant they were related, but Mia’s light skin tone and blonde hair didn’t really match the couple, so they probably weren’t her parents or close relatives. At least that was Jake’s initial reaction.

Brady didn’t seem to have any reaction, but he followed silently behind his best friend as Curtis took them to a restaurant a few doors down. It was a little nicer than the diner option. It wasn’t going to answer any questions, though.

“Just the three of you?” a brunette hostess asked.

Jake was too busy burning holes in the back of Curtis’ head to really pay attention to the woman. His friend paid no attention to him as he confirmed the hostess’ question and followed her to a table. With Brady between him and Curtis, Jake tapped Brady on the back to see if he had any idea what was going on. Brady looked over his shoulder and shrugged.

“No idea. I got the same sense you did that they’re familiar, but I couldn’t tell you where I saw them,” he whispered.

Groaning, Jake was getting frustrated. When they were seated at a table in the back, he waited only a few seconds after the hostess left to try to get some answers.

“What was that all about? I thought we were going to go in, so I can figure out who they are.”

“Shh,” Curtis said harshly as he picked up his menu and pretended to look at it. At least it looked like he was only glossing over it. “We didn’t need to go inside, because I already know who they are.”

Jake nodded, supposing that made sense. When Curtis didn’t immediately say anything else, he kicked him under the table. It came in handy that they were sitting across from each other, with Brady next to Curtis.

“I stopped you from going in because I’m pretty sure it’s not good news that Mia is eating lunch with Brian’s parents. You weren’t at the visitation very long and didn’t come to the funeral, but I heard them talking to people at both, and it was clear who they were.”

“Shit,” Jake said a little louder than he meant to.

A woman with a kid sitting at the table across from them glared at him. Jake tried to look apologetic, but his head was busy thinking about what in the world was going on in the diner. Was Mia working with the McKinneys to get custody of the kids? From what he’d just seen, it seemed like a strong possibility.

There was no way Jake was going to be able to eat. He needed to get home and find out what Kelly knew about the new wrinkle, and if she’d heard anything about the DNA testing. Without more than a wave, he got up and left his teammates behind. He was sure they’d understand, especially since Curtis’ almost morose tone made it clear he was thinking along the same lines of something big being up.