It was that time of the year again—the middle of September and the beginning of hockey training camp. What did that mean? New hopes. New teammates.

New head coach.

You heard me correctly. After we lost our series in the playoffs, the general manager and the higher powers decided to shake things up and sign a new coach.

And that wasn’t the only thing to change. We lost a few of our old teammates when they became free agents. And one player retired. He was only thirty-three years old.

“Hey, man,” I said to Mark Milone, one of our forwards. “You look exhausted.”

“I am. Welcome to life with a six-month-old. I swear the kid thinks he’s in college and life is nothing but an all-night party.”

“I’d love to tell you it gets easier,” Jyri Toivonen, our goalie, said. “But I’d be lying. Just be thankful you only have the one.” He had two-year-old twin boys.

Oh, Christ. There wasn’t a chance Holly was pregnant with twins, right? She only mentioned hearing one heartbeat at the doctor’s appointment.

Sean, the third member of the daddies’ club, smiled an evil grin at Mark, which was followed by an equally evil cackle.

“You okay, Josh?” Mark asked. “You look a little pale.”

“He’s right,” Sean said. “You look ready to pass out. If I didn’t know better, I would guess you’d knocked up your girlfriend.” He slapped me on the back. “But we all know the great Josh Hoffer would never settle down with a woman. Why give up his off-ice player status when he doesn’t have to?” He yanked his T-shirt over his head. “Which is a good thing too. If you did that, then who would we live vicariously through?”

“It’s not like Hamilton will ever settle down,” I said, sidestepping the discussion about me. Thank you, Travis, for being the player I was—until my sperm went rogue.

Except even before I’d known Holly was pregnant, the thrill of being a player off the ice had worn thin.

“Holy fuck,” Mark said. “Are you telling us you have a girlfriend?”

I inwardly groaned. Was I really that transparent? “She’s not exactly my girlfriend.” In the seven weeks since finding out Holly was pregnant, we had been enjoying sex—really enjoying sex—and practicing prenatal yoga.

Our future as a family? It was something we both avoided talking about.

Avoidance—our new superpower.

Based on my teammates’ expressions, you would’ve thought I had told them I was dating the Easter Bunny.

“So what is she?” Jyri asked.

She’s my pregnant fuck buddy, who wouldn’t be my fuck buddy if she weren’t pregnant with my kid. But I couldn’t tell them that.

“She’s my friend who happens to be pregnant.”

Well, that was one way to render those three speechless. At the same time.

“And who exactly is the father?” Sean asked, the first to recover. The question was merely a formality. They already knew.

I let out a heavy breath. “Yes, it’s mine.”

“This is better than those fucked up reality shows Becca likes to watch,” Mark said, a little too excitedly if you asked me. “So, are you guys involved, or are you just there for child support?”

I grabbed my jersey from my locker and pulled it over my head. “I’m not really boyfriend material. But I do plan to be there for my child in every way possible.” I didn’t want to be a reincarnate of my father. That much I did know.

But since your father wasn’t much of a role model, the voice of reason asked, how the fuck do you plan to be a good one?

Sean exchanged looks with Mark and Jyri. “So, what do you think, guys? Should we induct him into the group?”

They both looked me over like I was a racehorse for sale. I rolled my eyes.

“Do you think he’s ready?” Jyri asked, eyeing me with skeptical amusement. For some reason, his Finnish accent was always stronger when he found something particularly funny.

“Ready for what?” I asked.

“To join HDF,” Sean said as if it were obvious.

“HDF?”

“Hockey Dads Forever.”

I threw back my head, laughing. Let me guess—one of their wives came up with the name.

Three hours later, a weary team returned to the locker room. I stripped out of my sweaty uniform and headed for the showers.

“So when’s the baby due?” Sean asked, standing under the shower head next to mine.

“February twenty-third.”

He cringed—as did Mark, who was showering on the other side of him.

“What’s so bad about that date?” I hadn’t seen anything in What To Expect When You’re Expecting to make me believe there was anything horrifying about it (or the month) when it came to pumping out babies.

“You could be out of town for a game,” Mark explained. “That’s what happened to me. Took Becca a month to get over it. Took my mother-in-law three months—and some days I think she still hasn’t gotten over it.”

Both Sean and Jyri cringed.

As it were, Holly still hadn’t told her parents about the baby. Her brothers knew. And let’s just say I wouldn’t be traveling to Australia anytime soon to hang out with them.

The phone conversations with them had gone something like this:

“What the hell is your problem?” a rather pissed off Aussie accent said over the phone. It was three in the morning, and I had answered the phone without checking caller ID first, thinking it was Holly.

“You’ve got three seconds to tell me who this is before I hang up on you,” I growled, the sleep in my voice making me sound even crankier. Did I mention it was three in the fucking morning?

It wouldn’t be so bad if Holly’s warm body was next to me. That would’ve helped me get back to sleep after I hung up on her dumbass brother.

And yes, I knew it was her brother—I just didn’t know which one.

“It’s Chris. Now will you tell me why you knocked up my sister? Especially since you two aren’t really engaged?”

I choked back a laugh. It wasn’t as if I had purposely impregnated her. It hadn’t been part of some nefarious plan.

“You do realize this is between your sister and me, don’t you?”

Should I be worried if I received a package from Chris in the mail? Given the poisonous spiders and snakes over there, I was going with a yes.

“And you do realize if you do anything to hurt Holly, I will come over and hurt you?”

Note to self: no opening anything from Australia from now on.

Guess who then phoned me five minutes later? And yes, the conversation with Simon had been pretty much the same. Only a little more colorful.

Mark turned off his shower. “My advice is—do everything in your power to make her happy. Gain as many brownie points while you still can. You’ll be cashing in a lot of them over the next year or so. Trust me on that.”

Sean grabbed his towel from the hook. Drying himself, he asked, “So what’s the vote, guys? Are we letting the rookie here join HDF?”

“I vote yes,” Mark said.

Jyri nodded—with what was best described as an evil grin on his face. An evil grin mixed with hope. “Agree.”

“That makes three of us.” Sean threw me my towel as I turned off the water. I easily caught it with one hand. “But you have to agree to the initiation test first.”

“Initiation test? What kind of initiation test?”

They shared a glance, devious smirks on their faces.

“You have to babysit Jyri’s twins,” Sean said. “Both Mark and I did it. It’s become a tradition.”

I thought about it for a second. “Can Holly help me?” No way was I doing this on my own, even if she knew as much about kids as I did.

They looked at each other, silently communicating their decision between themselves. “Does she know anything about looking after kids?” Sean asked, clearly the group’s leader.

I shook my head. “We’re both going into this parenting thing clueless.”

Their grins were hardly comforting.

“Okay,” Sean said. “Your friend can help you.”

“And after I join the group, you’ll share your parenting secrets?” I was going on the assumption they knew what the heck they were doing. But I could also be way off base on that.

All three nodded.

“All right, count me in.”

“I’ll talk to Kari and let you know when you can look after the kids for a few hours,” Jyri told me.

Was it just me, or did he sound a lot happier than he had a few minutes ago?

“I’ll give you a freebie piece of advice. Try to make it to every single medical appointment that you can. Those are easy brownie points. You don’t want to waste them.”

Oh. Shit.

A memory of last night’s conversation with Holly flashed in my head. Well, not so much a conversation as her mentioning an ultrasound appointment today. In about twenty minutes.

And the clinic wasn’t twenty minutes from here. Not even close.

“Dammit!” I rushed from the shower area, the guys’ laughter escorting me. Yep, they had figured out I’d already fucked up my easy brownie points.

Now, I just had to hope it didn’t cost me too much.