Chapter 21

Marek

I look at the pancake bubbling nicely in the pan before looking over my shoulder at Lilly. She’s sitting in the living room, eyes glued to Moana on Netflix. It’s only about the hundredth time she’s watched it since moving in, and I find myself humming to Maui’s song “You’re Welcome.”

I look back to the pancake and feel pretty darn proud of myself. Lilly surprised both Gracen and me this morning by jumping into the bed with us. We had been wrapped around each other, but luckily the covers were pulled up to our shoulders. Lilly didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about her mother and me sleeping in bed together. She just started bouncing up and down on top of us, saying that she was hungry.

“Lilly, did you go potty this morning?” Gracen asked her.

Lilly grinned shyly and shook her head.

Gracen gave her a stern look—something that I have not yet mastered with Lilly—and pointed to the bedroom door. “Go potty and put on a pair of panties. Then we can go have breakfast.”

Lilly is such a great freaking kid she merely grinned at her mom and in a chirpy, happy voice said, “Okay, Mommy.”

She bounded off the bed and ran out the door.

I turned to look at Gracen, who was smiling fondly after our daughter. I reached out and pulled her closer to me, laying a hard kiss on her mouth. When I drew back I told her, “She’s such a good kid. And she listens to you so well.”

Gracen gave a deep laugh and pushed at my chest. “Oh, she has you so fooled. You haven’t seen Lilly in full-blown tantrum mode that only a toddler can pull off.”

“And I don’t want to see it,” I tell her with a laugh. “You can handle all of that and I get to do just the fun stuff.”

Gracen laughed again. “If only parenting worked that way. Let me get some clothes on so I can go down and make her breakfast.”

“No,” I told her unexpectedly. “You stay in bed and relax. I’ll go make breakfast.” Gracen arched a beautiful eyebrow at me before making a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the door. “Go get her, tiger.”

And now here I am, in my kitchen fixing pancakes for my daughter. It’s amazing how much my life has changed in just a month.

I look over at Lilly again and back to the pancake, which is in need of flipping. I feel a little frisky about my cooking abilities, so I take the silver handle of the pan and give it a sharp snap upward from the flame. I expect the pancake to launch off and into the air, whereby it will tumble three times gracefully, falling back bubbly-side down in the pan. To my dismay, it flies forward and splats against the Italian tiled backsplash behind the stove before it slides down leaving a trail of batter behind.

I snicker to myself, making a note that I will never try to flip a pancake again. I look over my shoulder and find that Lilly still has her eyes pinned on the TV. My neck, however, flushes red as I see Gracen standing there with arms crossed over her chest smirking at me. I give her a sheepish grin and turn back to the stove using the spatula to scoop up the broken pancake from the wall.

“Was just trying something new,” I mutter. “Won’t be doing that again.”

Gracen laughs joyfully over my antics as she walks to the Keurig. “I’m merely impressed you’re actually making pancakes. Most of the time I just use the frozen ones that you can nuke in the microwave.”

Chuckling, I slice a pat of butter to throw into the pan to melt. “I’ll make a note of that.”

After Gracen fixes her cup of coffee, she comes to stand near me at the stove, resting a hip against the counter. She put on a pair of gray yoga pants and a tank top, the form-fitting material leaving nothing to the imagination. She looks sexy as hell, and if Lilly weren’t in the room with us right now, I’d have her on the kitchen floor.

Or the counter.

Or against the wall.

Stop it.

“How many pancakes you want?” I ask her before I start to get a hard-on that I most certainly don’t need to be sporting in front of my child.

“Two.”

I nod and pour some batter into the pan. “Let me make one for Lilly, and then I’ll get you next.”

“I’m in no rush.”

Gracen takes a sip of her coffee and looks over at Lilly. She then looks to me, leaning in slightly, and in a low voice asks, “Do you think she thought there was anything wrong with us being in bed together?”

I shrug. “I have no clue. She seemed okay with it. Is this something we need to talk to her about?”

Gracen shrugs back at me. “I have no clue either. You’re going to find out soon enough that parenting is a lot of trial and error.”

I tuck the spatula under the edge of the pancake as it starts to bubble. I look to Gracen and give her a wink. “I think you’ve done extraordinarily well so far. So whatever you think is best is fine by me.”

The gratitude in Gracen’s smile tells me that my opinion matters a lot to her. She takes another sip of coffee and asks, “Do you need me to do anything?”

I shake my head and slide the spatula under the pancake, giving it a deft one-time flip. “I’ve got to head into the gym in a little bit, and then we’re having a short team skate at the arena. But I did want to ask you a question.”

“What’s up?” she asks.

“We have a home game this Sunday afternoon, and my parents wanted to take Lilly to it. Is that okay with you?”

Something troubled flickers within Gracen’s eyes, but it’s gone so fast perhaps I imagined it. She gives me a bright smile. “Sure. I’m sure she would love that.”

Gracen starts to turn away from me, but I grab her attention before she can do so. “I got another question for you.”

She turns back to me and this time I see that her expression is guarded.

I ignore it. “And we have a home game tomorrow night. I’m sure my parents would love to stay here with Lilly, and I was wondering if you would come to the game and watch.”

Gracen’s mouth drops open in surprise. “You want me to come to your game?”

I chuckle and pull the pan off the flame, setting the spatula down on the counter. I turn to Gracen and put my hands on her hips, pulling her gently into me so I don’t spill her coffee. Her eyes cut briefly to Lilly, who is ignoring both of us, before coming back to me.

“Gracen, I would like you to come and watch my game. I want you to be there. I always did play best when you were watching me.”

Gracen blinks several times before her eyes narrow slightly. “What is this? I need to know the rules.”

My hands drop away from her and I take a step back. “Why does there have to be rules?”

Her voice is feather soft when she replies. “Because I was once an integral part of your life. That included your hockey. You broke my heart before, Marek, and I don’t want to go through that again. Because you left me for a life without responsibility and now you want to play house, want me to come watch your games, and it’s very confusing to me.”

I stomp down the tiny flush of anger that she would even be questioning my intentions, but I don’t let it overtake me. I get where she’s coming from.

“I’m as confused by this is you are, Gracen. I never thought you would be back in my life, but here you are. Here Lilly is. The fact of the matter is, my life is different now, and so are my wants.”

Gracen just stares at me, and I can see she doesn’t quite understand what I’m saying.

“We talked about this last night, Gracie. Remember…We only have right now to work with.”

Gracen’s eyes drop to the floor momentarily before sliding back up to meet mine. She leans in and whispers, “Have you forgiven me? For what I did? For not telling you about Lilly?”

I’m initially stunned she would think to ask this, but then I realize I’ve never even told her what my feelings are on the matter. All she’s ever gotten from me when it comes to my lost years with my daughter is my wrath and my anger. Ever since that day she told me she was done apologizing for it, we’ve not really talked about it.

So I lean into her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Yes. I forgive you. And I’m actually ashamed it took me so long to do it.”

“When?”

Her question is simple and I understand it. When did my feelings about her on that subject change?

“When you told me about the placental abruption,” I tell her quietly. “I mean…my anger had started to melt away before that. I knew when I first kissed you in the kitchen that night I couldn’t be all that mad at you to do that. But that night when you told me you almost died, I realized. You’ve had your own struggles and losses. I guess I just realized that I needed to let it go, because I saw that despite what you went through, you’ve put on a stiff upper lip and moved on. I need to do the same.”

Gracen blows out a breath, clearly relieved by my answer. I hate that she even has room to be relieved—still suffering guilt—but at least now we’ve discussed that.

“So are you going to come to the game tomorrow night? Reed said Josie’s going, so I figured you two could sit together and then maybe all of us could go out afterward.”

Before Gracen can answer, my phone starts ringing. I pull it out of my pocket to check who’s calling, realizing I need to answer.

I look back up to Gracen. “I’ve got to take this. Are you in?”

She gives me a tentative smile. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

“Cool.” I grin at her, and nod toward the pan. “Can you finish that up?”

“On it,” she says cheerily.

I turn my back on her and start walking toward my bedroom for some privacy. I’m able to answer by the third ring. “Jimmy…you got something to report?”

Jimmy Schaeffer is my local attorney. He’s helped me close the loan paperwork on my house when I bought it, as well as reviewed any number of contracts and endorsement deals that I’ve been offered over the last few years. He was the first person I called when I got back to North Carolina after finding out I had a daughter, as I needed to know what my rights were.

“I just got off the phone with Mr. Waller,” he says.

“And?”

“He understands your concerns and assured me he’d have a talk with his son,” Jimmy reports smugly.

I had Jimmy reach out to Owen’s father to pass on my concerns that his behavior was turning stalkerish. I also wanted to share the information that the Moores would not be selling their property to Owen, so he needed to quit bothering them about it as well as bothering their daughter. He also made some veiled threats about restraining orders or going to the press about Owen’s creepy ways, but apparently his father understood the urgency.

“The senior Mr. Waller assured me that Owen would not be a problem for the Moore family again and wanted to offer apologies to Miss Moore and her parents.”

I snicker as I walk into my bedroom. I’ve got to get my workout gear and practice bag together. “And about their loan,” I prompt him.

“As per your request, I asked Mr. Waller to consider extending the loan until the sale of their property went through, or alternatively, I told him you’d gladly pay off the note to remove the pressure from the Moores. Again, Mr. Waller assured us that there was no problem in getting an extension on the note and that he would work personally with the Moores.”

“I assume you’re confirming this all in writing?”

“But of course,” Jimmy answers with a laugh. “It will go out today.”

“Okay, buddy. Thanks for jumping on that for me. Send me your bill.”

“Oh, I will,” he says almost ominously, but whatever he charges me is well worth the peace of mind knowing that I don’t have to worry about Owen anymore. Once I realized that he was really just after the Moore’s property and using Gracen as a pawn, I was pretty confident he wouldn’t be coming around her again after he learned the property was out of play for him. Still, it was just added insurance bringing his father into it, figuring the elder Mr. Waller would be more concerned about propriety than anything and that definitely paid off well, so I’d gladly pay Jimmy’s attorney fee for that call and letter.

I say goodbye to Jimmy and throw my shit into a duffel bag. I’ve got just enough time to sit down with Lilly and Gracen for breakfast, and then it’s off to work I go.