“You. Are. An. Ass.”

I spun at Pepper’s voice. “Damn. I thought I was alone in here. You sure know how to scare a guy, Pepper.”

The game was won, the reporters long gone, and I was just collecting my thoughts before I headed home to Hannah, where Faith had taken her.

Because I had shut Ivy out harder than Eric had Boston tonight.

“Don’t be funny. You’re an ass.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, grabbing my bag. We’d have to leave the day after tomorrow to head back to Boston for game seven.

“She apologized. She came here for you. Wearing your jersey. You wouldn’t even listen to her!” Pepper crossed her arms in front of her chest and stepped in front of the exit.

It was either stand here and listen to her, or run over my buddy’s wife, because chances were, if I went for the back entrance, she’d just hunt me down there, too.

I dropped my bag and sighed. “What the hell is there to say, Pepper? She almost cost Hannah her home. How do I just get over that?”

“You just do! Look. She wrote that article when we were drinking and she was mad, and honestly, I think she was mad at herself because she wanted you so badly and didn’t think you’d give her the time of day after Crosby.”

A little understanding twinged in my heart, but I ignored it. I was stronger than that. I’d seen Ivy’s true colors and there was no going back. “So that makes it okay? The internet lasts forever. Those pictures will be out there when Hannah is fifteen, and forty, and seventy. All because of Ivy.”

“Because of Zach! He’s the one who took those pictures, who stole the article off her hard drive. Who edited it like that. Don’t make her pay for his sins.”

“There’s no paying for these sins, Pepper. I’m not…” I shook my head, looking for words. “I’m not even mad at her. She did what she had to in order to keep her dream job. If I didn’t have Hannah. If my spot was up for grabs on the Sharks, maybe I would have done the same, but I never would have done it to her.”

“She didn’t tell you?” Pepper tried to glare up at me, but her brow was all wrinkled in confusion.

“Tell me what? That’s she’s sorry that she almost cost Hannah a home and got her shoved into foster care?”

“No...she didn’t tell you that she lost her job?”

My head snapped back to her. “I’m sorry?”

“Stubborn, stupid girl,” Pepper muttered.

“A little louder, Pepper,” I prodded.

“Ugh. She’s the one that forced the retraction. Yeah, Langley made all the right calls, but it was Ivy who forced them to print the retraction and get the online version down. It cost her that job.”

Her dream job.

“Why would she do that?” I asked myself more than Pepper.

“Because she loves you, even if you are an asshole and an idiot. She never would have done anything to jeopardize you, let alone Hannah. She got Zach fired. She made amends in every way she knew how, and you...you wouldn’t even listen!” She stomped her foot.

Holy shit, for twins, their tempers matched, but they were completely different in the way they displayed it.

“Pepper,” I said softly, needing her to understand. “Could you trust someone who did that to you? Whether intentionally or not? Would you risk your child?”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s not Hannah you’d be risking, because you know that she didn’t do it on purpose. Jesus, you’re just as stubborn as she is. You’re afraid to risk your heart, and that makes you a coward.”

I blanched.

“That’s right. I said it. Coward. Because Ivy put it all out there, even after she screwed up. She trusted you to accept her apology. She trusted you to protect her heart, and you didn’t. So you. Are. An. Asshole.”

A throat cleared behind me and I turned to see Eric come around the corner, from the hallway that led to the showers.

“Honey, maybe we should take a different line here. Insults aren’t the way to go with Connor.”

“What the hell, man? Were you hiding back there the whole time?”

He nodded sheepishly. “In case you went for the back door.”

“This is fucking great, but I’m done.” I picked up my bag.

“You love her,” Eric said, halting me in my tracks.

“You don’t know that,” I spat back.

“Yeah, I do, because I know you. And it doesn’t make you a coward,” he shot a look at his wife, and she mockingly lifted her lip at him, “for not taking her back. Not after what you’ve been through in your life. My loving wife here doesn’t know the half of it,” he said poignantly toward Pepper.

“We agreed!” she hissed.

“You were losing. I’m just calling a line change, baby.”

“Ugh.”

“Pay attention, Connor,” Eric chided. “You got the raw end of the deal, man. Never had a dad, your mom walked out, you were more responsible than your older sister, in and out of foster care, and finally becoming a parent when you weren’t ready. I get that. The first time you let a woman in, all the way in, it looks like she fucked you over. I’m not arguing that. You have a right to protect yourself because I know what it took to get yourself here.”

“Thank you.” I moved toward the door, and Lukas walked in the door, blocking the exit. “Jesus Christ.” I rolled my eyes.

“It’s an invention!” he declared.

“It’s intervention, and this might be the world’s worst.”

“Point is that you love her, man,” Eric continued. “And that’s something that’s taken you almost thirty years to find.”

“Twenty-eight,” I snapped back.

“Whatever. That shit is once in a lifetime. Are you really willing to live without it because you’re not willing to forgive her venting on a day you’d been an ass?”

Shit. When he put it that way…

“What if she had to read every comment you’ve ever said about her? Because you weren’t always her biggest fan, either,” Eric went on.

“How am I supposed to trust her again?” I asked.

“Yeah, so there’s a secret to that,” Bentley added in as he came from the back of the locker room, Chloe trailing behind him with their bulldog.

“Holy shit. How many of there are you in here? And where the fuck were you hiding?” I snapped.

“We’re it,” Chloe promised.

“Oh, and don’t forget Porter in the hallway in case he managed to escape,” Bentley answered.

“Right, almost forgot about him. And we were in my office,” Chloe told me, “Until we realized that we couldn’t hear anything.”

“So you all staged an intervention? Really?” How the hell was this happening? Was Dr. Phil hiding somewhere, recording this shit?

“I liked my idea better,” Lukas said, folding his arms.

“Which was?”

“Taking your clothes and locking you two in the sauna,” he admitted. “In my country that—”

“Is still not how you solve arguments,” Porter shoved his way in. “Look, at the end of the day, if you love her and she loves you, then it’s even better that you know each other’s shit. That’s real.”

“You’re in on this?” I balked.

“My man, you are a whiny, sad, mopey baby without that woman, and that’s because you love her, and you gave up before it was over. Every person in this room can see that it’s not over. Hell half the arena could.”

There was a mumble of assent from the group.

“You’re going to fuck things up,” Bentley said with a shrug. “Seriously. It’s bound to happen. Fights happen. Perfect is boring. But the minute you learn how to forgive her—”

“She doesn’t need to be forgiven!” Pepper shouted.

“Not now, baby, we’ll appeal to logic in phase two,” Eric promised.

“What the fuck is phase two?” I yelled.

“The sauna,” Lukas answered with a grin.

“The minute you accept that you’ll both make mistakes out of anger, out of fear, out of sheer stupidity, the stronger you’ll be,” Chloe finished.

“And what makes you think I want to be strong with her?” I asked my little group therapy session.

“Do you love her?” Porter asked.

I glared at him.

“Seriously, though. I’m starving, and you’re keeping me from my steak.” He raised his eyebrows in my direction.

“Fine, I fucking love her.” Because I did. “No matter what she did with that stupid article.” Nothing was going to change that. It sucked to admit it, because I didn’t know if we’d ever be what we were before, but it was just a fact.

“I mean, she did pretty much almost get Hannah taken away,” Chloe said to Bentley.

“No, she didn’t. That was Zach. It wasn’t her fault that he was a deceptive ass.” I couldn’t help but defend Ivy. Because sure, she’d written some bullshit back before we were even dating, but she wasn’t responsible for the fallout.

“It was her name on the byline,” Pepper added with a shrug.

“One, he put it there, and edited her shit. And two, stop using reverse psychology on me.” I pointed at her.

“You love her.” She grinned.

“I already said that! Yes, I love her. I’m probably always going to love her because this shit just won’t die. Believe me, I’ve tried. I thought about performing an exorcism on my bed just to get her ghost out of it. Does that make you happy?” I threw up my hands.

“Yes,” she said with a shrug.

“Don’t you think you’d be happier if you just got back together with her?” Eric asked.

“Of course. I’ve never been as happy as I was with Ivy, but there’s a lot of water there—”

“Love can build a bridge,” Lukas said emphatically.

“No more Judds for you! You know, there’s been great music invented since the nineties. Catch up.” I snapped.

“Fucking get over it!” Bentley yelled. “If you let your head run amok, shit gets tangled and the best thing to do is literally get the fuck over it. Learn how. It will save you sooooo much drama in the future.”

Choe glared at him.

“Not with you, honey, you’re perfect,” he told her.

“Steak!” Porter yelled. “I’m fucking starving!”

“Okay!” I shouted. “So what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Yeah, so we have that all worked out,” Pepper said.

“Phase three?” I flat-out mocked her tone.

“Shut up. We’re saving both of you. Now Faith has Hannah at our house—”

“Faith is in on this? Who else? Did you call Boston and see if they wanted to put in their two cents?” Jesus, I was in the middle of a three-ringed circus.

“No, but if that would make this any faster,” Porter mumbled.

“Hannah’s in on it, too,” Eric admitted.

I turned to glare at him. “You got my Hannah in on this?”

“Oh come on, who do you think asked for help in the first place?” Pepper crooned.

That knocked me off my feet.

“Hannah asked you to help?”

Pepper nodded. “She’s little, but she sees a lot. And she sees that you’re both miserable, and her family is ripped apart.” She sighed, and it was huge. And fake. “She just wants her family back…”

“Stop. I draw the line right there.”

“A girl’s gotta try.” She shrugged.

“And what was Hannah’s idea?” I cringed, thinking of the various ideas in her head.

Chloe and Bentley looked at each other. “Well, actually we need to go outside for this part.”

“By all means,” I said, motioning to the door, “lead the way.”

We moved down the hall like a giant blob, with Porter stuck at my side like a piece of 3m strip. “Do you have to walk so close?” I asked, edging my bag over my back to give me more room.

“Yep, I’m supposed to tackle you if you run.”

“Awesome.”

We exited to the player’s lot, and I was relieved to see the paps were gone. But there was a giant, bus-like RV sitting in the middle of the lot.

I dropped my bag into my car, while Porter blocked every entrance to the driver’s side, and then I climbed the stairs into the RV.

“So nice to meet you!” An older lady with purple hair said with a grin. “I’m Rachel and that’s my husband, Richard. We own R&R Bulldogs. Bentley and Chloe here have one of our pups, and they said you’d need one, so we brought our newest litter. None of them are spoken for because we wanted to see if any were going to be show champions, so you can have your pick of the litter. Your friends have already vouched for you.”

A bulldog? Puppy?

“Facetime your sister, now,” I ordered Eric.

He and Pepper argued through facial expressions, but he won...maybe. Either way, he pulled out his phone, and after two rings, Faith appeared on the screen. I snatched the phone away.

“Get my kid, Faith.”

Her smile was shaky. “Sure thing. Hannah?”

Hannah’s sweet smile appeared on the screen. “Hi, Uncle Connor!”

“Hi baby. Want to tell me why I’m hanging out with a bunch of bulldog puppies?”

Her mouth pursed, wiggling from side-to-side in that way she had when she was trying to get out of trouble. “Because Ivy wants a puppy.”

“Uh. huh. Who else wants a puppy?”

“Me! I mean, they’re really cute…” She blinked at me.

“Yes, I know. What’s the deal, Banana?”

She looked down and then back up. “You’re both really sad. You should fix it.”

It was so simple in the eyes of a child. We were both sad. We both loved each other. We were both stupidly stubborn.

Ok, I was more stubborn.

I was also head over heels for Ivy, and if there was a chance we could be happy—that we could last, then didn’t I owe it to myself—to all three of us, really—to try?

“I should fix it with a puppy.”

Hannah nodded, her eyes flaring wide and bright.

“Okay, but you have to stay on facetime and help me pick the right one.”

The thing about afternoon games? They left your evenings pretty darn open. In my case, I was following a very dappled-gray, very pudgy bulldog puppy around my yard, waiting for her to poop.

Of course, Hannah had chosen a girl. It was just my fate to be surrounded by gorgeous women.

The puppy trotted to a patch of grass in the corner as I heard swearing from closer to the pool house.

Then something started beeping loud and obnoxious.

“Stupid. Fucking. Pepper.”

Ivy.

My heart jumped, and for the first time since I’d decided to jump with both feet, I was terrified of landing. What if she’d changed her mind? If my lack of faith killed her love?

What if this had all been for nothing?

What if that fucking beeping didn’t stop?

Ivy appeared, scanning the edges of the yard with her apple watch out like a map. Because it was.

Holy shit, that pinging was her phone.

Pepper really was devious.

I stood completely still, waiting for her to turn.

When she did, my breath caught. She was still in the same jean skirt from the game, my jersey tied at one corner in an attempt to fit her. My game jersey from my first hat trick.

The one I’d been wearing when I realized I was really going to make it in the NHL.

Her hair was loose, and she blew it away from her face as she walked with her head down, coming closer and closer to the ping.

I reached into the bush and pulled it free just as she looked up.

“Connor!” she startled.

“Ivy.”

We stared at each other for what seemed like forever and yet a blink. God, I’d missed her. Missed her laugh, her smile, her taste on my tongue. Missed everything.

I missed her love most of all.

“That’s my phone,” she said softly.

“Seems like it.” I slipped it into my back pocket, taking a page out of Pepper’s book.

“Um. Why are you putting it in your pocket?”

“It seemed more civil than trapping us naked in a sauna,” I answered.

“What?”

“Maybe that’s a had-to-be-there kind of thing,” I mumbled. “Because everyone who loves us conspired to get us here, so I’m just making sure you don’t jet before I say what needs to be said.”

Her chest trembled as she exhaled. “Okay, and what is that?”

“That I love you.”

Her lips parted, but she didn’t come any closer, so I took a step in her direction. “I love you. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I let my past and my fears fuck with our future. I’m sorry that at the first test of your faith, I failed.”

Her entire posture softened. “Oh, Connor. That’s all I’ve been waiting to hear.” Her teeth bit into her lower lip.

“But you don’t look happy.”

“Because what do we do the next time this happens?” She shook her head. “This has almost killed me. I know I screwed up by saving that stupid little venting article, but you wouldn’t even listen to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I took another step.

“And I tried to explain and you shut me out.” Her beautiful blue eyes took on a sparkly sheen that warned tears were imminent.

“I know. I’m sorry,” I said as I moved forward again.

“And you took Hannah. And I couldn’t see her. Couldn’t get through to you. You broke up our family without even talking to me!”

“I know.” One more step.

“And I know we’re not a family, family, you know. But we are. Or we were! And you just threw it away!”

“I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” I shot a quick glance at where the puppy had decided to lay down in the cool grass.

“And I still love you! That hurts the most! I have all this love, and you’re standing there all perfect, and gorgeous, and Connor-like, and I have no idea what you want.” She hugged herself, and I died a little inside, seeing what I’d done to her. What we’d done to each other.

“First, I’d really like you to make your phone stop pinging, because my butt keeps vibrating and that’s just super awkward at a moment like this.”

She laughed and wiped away two tears, then hit a button on her watch and the phone stopped, thank God. “And?”

“And I want you,” I told her.

“How?”

“Anyway you’ll have me. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give, because I’m miserable without you.”

“Say that again.”

“I’ll take whatever—”

“Nope,” she said with a small smile. “The other part.”

“I’m miserable?”

“Yeah, more of that.” She grinned.

“God, Ivy. I’m wretched. Sad, and lonely, and just destroyed. Pathetic, even.” With each word I took a small step, until we were only inches apart. “There’s a ghost in my bed and it’s you, because you’re fucking haunting me.”

A corner of her mouth lifted, no doubt remembering that first conversation we’d had about ghosts in our beds.

“You haunt me, too,” she admitted.

“So maybe we should stop missing each other and just be together,” I suggested. “Because I love you, and there’s not changing that. Ever. And the next time something stupid happens, we’ll remember how this feels, and we’ll hold on tighter. Fight harder. Because we’re too stubborn to let go. That’s why we’ll make it.”

I took her face in my hands, and almost closed my eyes at how soft her skin was, how much I had missed it. “I promise I will never walk out of an argument before you tell me that you’ve had your say.”

She smiled up at me. “I promise I’ll keep my vent sessions verbal.”

“That would be good, too,” I laughed. “Come on, Ivy. Don’t you want to see what happens when two of the most stubborn people on the planet decide to hold on to each other instead of their anger?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

“Me, too.”

“Connor? Kiss me.”

She asked.

So I gave.

Our mouths met in a sweet caress of apology that quickly morphed into a hotter kiss of reunion. Holy shit, I’d missed this. Missed the connection we had with a simple touch of our lips.

Then her arms were around my neck, and I wasn’t thinking about missing anything, because I was focused on taking everything. Our tongues dueled, twisting around each other with the ease of well-known lovers.

“Conn—what the?” Ivy broke away, staring down at the small lump of fur who had planted herself between my feet, obviously not cool with being tossed over for the human.

“Ivy, meet Princess Sparkle Snort,” I nearly choked over the name Ivy had chosen a long time ago.

“You bought a puppy! A bulldog puppy!” She dropped to the ground, hitting her knees right in front of the puppy and scooping her up. “Oh my God, she’s so soft!”

“Yeah, she is,” I said with a grin. “She’s ours, yours, too.”

“Wait. A dog? We don’t even live together. You can’t buy a dog.”

“Just did,” I said with a shrug. “Move in. Problem solved.”

Her jaw dropped. “What? Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack, or a puppy, whichever is more destructive.”

She stood. “You can’t just buy a puppy and say move in.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not what people do!”

“That’s what we can do. When’s the last time you gave a shit about what people thought, Ivy?”

She cocked her head to the side. “You really are serious.”

“I am. You’ve already picked out half the furniture in the house. Hell, you helped pick out the house. Come live in it with me. With us,” I reached over to pet the puppy I would refer to as Snort—never Princess Sparkle Snort.

“She really is cute.”

“She’s part of the package.”

“Are you really bribing me with a puppy?” she feigned a look of shock.

“Is it working?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Then, yes. I’ll fight dirty when it comes to you.” I had no shame when it came to her, period. And now that she was here, I wasn’t letting her go.

She rose up on her toes and kissed me. “As long as you do other things dirty, too, I’m in. You and me forever.”

“Ivy! In front of our practice baby?”

She laughed, worry free and happy. It was right up there with the best sounds I’d ever heard.

“You and me and Hannah?” I asked, wrapping my arms around her.

“You and me and Hannah and Princess Sparkle Snort,” she reminded me as she wiggled her way between us.

“Man, it’s true what they say. Babies really are little cock-blockers!”

“I love you, Connor.”

Scratch the previous, that was still the best sound ever.

Until later when we facetimed Hannah.

And then the four days later when she said it again after we won the Stanley Cup Finals.

And again later that night.