Page 309 of One Winter Knight
Epilogue Two
Carlos
Two months later
“The baby is due soon?” Dimitri asked as we worked out at the training center. The off-season was coming to an end.
While I loved getting to spend all this time with my pack, I was also ready to get back on the ice.
“Yep. It shouldn’t be much longer now. Though she’s ready to evict the baby,” I replied.
“Glad it’s you, not me. What do I know about babies?” Anders grinned.
“You feed them, love them, and change them.” Dimitri gave him a look.
Dusty ran into the workout room. “It’s time, it’s really time. It’s not a false alarm this time. Apparently when her stomach was hurting this morning it was actually labor. She and Fiona are at the birthing center right now.”
“Oh shit. Now? Okay. Let’s go.” I stood. “Did you call Hale?”
“He’s in class. I texted him. I’m sure he’ll joinus as soon as he gets it. Come on, come on, we need to go.” Dusty tugged on my hand.
“Yeah, absolutely.” I grabbed my stuff. “I’m going to go be a dad now. I’ll send squishy baby pictures to the group chat.”
“I think you should put the baby in a bread box like Bucket does,” Anders called.
That was a thought. We didn’t have a bread box. But we had that cart in the dining room…
Dusty had my hand and we were running down the hall.
“Slow down.” Constantine, our assistant general manager, stood there in a suit looking exasperated. “Dusty, how do you keep getting up here?”
“I told you, I have my ways,” Dusty replied.
“I really need to know. It’s a security risk.” His look grew concerned.
Dusty pulled a badge out from his pocket. “I’m doing music and choreography consulting work with the Maimers. They got me my badge already.”
“I see. Where are you running to?” Constantine asked.
“My wife's having her baby for real,” Dusty replied.
“Congratulations. Thanks for all that advice,” he added as Dusty and I were already off to get my stuff.
“Glad to be of help,” Dusty called.
“What advice did you give Constantine?” I asked. Constantine was a numbers man.
“Just some advice on building the Knights legacy,” he replied as I grabbed my stuff.
“Oh, that’s neat.” There had been a lot of trades, retirements, and things going on, though I hadn’t kept up on it. It wasn’t any of my friends. And, well, we’d been busy.
We went down to the garage. I’d been taking my car in case this happened.
Excitement shot through me. We were going to be dads.
It was a lot, especially since the season was starting. I couldn’t exactly miss training camp because I was on paternity leave. But training camp was only a few hours a day. There were a few weeks until the season actually started. My team would let me take a couple of games off and I had a few months to use them.
Saoirse had chosen a birthing center, not a hospital. It was in a fancy building that also held the luxury mom and baby spa she’d spend a week at after discharge to recuperate.
