Page 88 of Bar Down Baby!
On the screen, the game was just starting, the national anthem being sung by a children’s choir.
“I think even if he is into me, it’s probably not because ofmeas a person. More so as me as the mother of his child.” It felt like a lie as I spoke it, sand on my tongue. It was the lie I’d been trying to convince myself of since he found me asleep on my shift. The one that was getting flimsier every time he touched me, looked at me, called me just to talk about nothing when he was on the road.
“The child had to be made somehow,” Kate deadpanned. “You’re saying that he wasn’t into you that night in New York?”
I took a bite of a chicken kebab and thought about this. Barry was in the starting lineup, so the camera scanned across his face and the other four players in their white and orange jerseys. His hair was getting long, but was out of his face, gelled back, though already mussed from his helmet.
Damn, he was hot.
“He was into me in New York,” I finally said. The impromptu date, the easy smiles, the light kisses that turned quickly into deep ones, his huge hands wrapping around my waist and hauling me to him. I shifted and cleared my throat. “He was.”
“So why wouldn’t he be now?”
“It’s complicated now. He’s—” I gestured to the TV where he was staring toward the middle of the ice for the face-off.
Neither of my siblings finished the sentence for me, their faces so similar in their disbelief.
“It’s not that I think I’m not cool enough to be liked by a hockey player.” I did think that, though. Really, really did. “It’s just that in this instance I thinkthishockey player has clouded judgement. He’s biased. It’s the pregnancy hormones.”
Kate gave an eye roll that would have made me wither if I hadn’t grown up frequently on the receiving end of them. “Yourpregnancy hormones are cloudinghisjudgment?”
“Maybe one day, after she’s born, and he knows me better—knows we are capable of co-parenting withoutbeingtogether. Then he can decide if he really wants to be with me.”
Kate scoffed and snatched the remote, turning up the volume.
“You’re acting like he’s a child, but whatever.”
“I’m not!”
“You are,” Jeremy agreed. I didn’t appreciate how much of a united front those two were being tonight, but what I really didn’t appreciate was feeling like they were right.
We quietly watched the first few minutes of the game, and Jeremy slipped into his usual routine of commentating and grunting while I stewed on what they’d said. I wasn’t trying to treat Barry like a child; I knew he was an adult who could think for himself. I just had a really difficult time believing that his affections weren’t influenced by the baby we accidentally made together. Pregnancy at large was a big, messy, feeling soup—I couldn’t even trust my emotions, not when things felt heightened and turbulent all the time. Trusting his felt equally impossible.
Barry’s line was back on the ice for a shift, trying to get a shot on the Vegas net, but when one of his teammates took a shot, the puck flew at Barry’s face and Barry fell to the ice. Hard.
All three of us gasped, leaning closer to the TV.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“And it looks like Barry Wright took a puck to the face,” the announcer said. “On the ice now while the medical staff comes to check him out.”
In the slowed down replay, sure enough, the puck barreled toward his face and slipped just under his visor. He pushed to his feet, which was a relief, but I went tense all over seeing the bright red blood streaming down his face as he skated off the ice. He disappeared immediately down the hall and away from the view of the cameras.
“Holy shit, that was brutal,” Jeremy said.
“Is he okay?” I was standing, but I didn’t remember getting up. I had both hands on my hips, completely distressedwatching the replay again before the game went on without him, the commentators still talking about it.
“Not that uncommon,” Jeremy said. “I bet he’ll be fine.”
“Could he have a concussion? What if they make him play with a concussion?” I asked.
“It’s okay, Hannah, he’s going to be good,” Kate assured me. I believed them, but also, my heart was racing like he might never be okay and maybe he’d have lost an eye from a puck hitting it—could that happen? If the puck hit him right in the eye?
I went to the kitchen for water, mostly so I could do something that wasn’t standing in front of the TV stressed. After downing two glasses, I went back to the couch where both my siblings looked at me with sympathy.
Kate squeezed my forearm.
“He’ll be okay, Han.”
