“So do I.” And I mean it. He’s the balance Queenie needs. He’s her anchor, and she’s his buoy.

“I really don’t want this to strain their relationship.” Hanna motions between us.

“Are you worried it will?” King always seems to be able to roll with things.

“Our lives are completely intertwined now, on so many different levels. We’re their parents, and now we have this unexpected baby on the way. It’s a complex and delicate situation. What exactly are we going to tell them?”

I brush a few stray hairs away from her face, and I am relieved when she leans into the touch instead of shying away. “We tell them the truth. That we share an attraction. That we acted on it and you’re pregnant.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

I wish that it were. “With a situation like this, I think simple is best. We tell them that you’re planning to see a doctor when you get back to Tennessee and that we’re going to go from there. I know we can’t predict the future, Hanna, but we’ll find a way to make it work.” I take her other hand in mine. “Now I have an important question for you.”

“Okay.” She’s still guarded and uncertain.

“Can I give you a hug?”

She covers her mouth with her hand and nods.

This is what I should have done yesterday. I stand and pull her up with me so I can wrap my arms around her. “We’ll figure it out, Hanna.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs into my chest.

“For what?”

“Being you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I Didn’t See That Coming

Jake

IT’S ONLY SEVEN-thirty in the morning, and considering the late hour the kids came in, I don’t expect they’ll be up anytime soon. Since both Hanna and I are woefully underslept, she suggests a pre-conversation nap. I assume I’ll be taking mine on the living room couch, or in one of the spare rooms upstairs, but she pats the space beside her and we both pass out.

I wake up several hours later.

Hanna is propped up on the pillows beside me, her phone in her hand.

“Time’s it?” I mumble.

She chuckles. “It’s after eleven. We should probably get up and face the music, huh?”

The haze of sleep is quick to lift. “It feels a lot like we’re the kids again and we’re about to get grounded for bad behavior.”

Hanna grins. “Seems rather fitting. And Ryan has this disapproving dad look that makes you feel like a scolded child when you do something he doesn’t like.”

I think about that for a second. “Shit, you’re right. He really does. He’s totally going to be the bad cop in that relationship when they have kids.”

“He won’t even have to be the bad cop. He’ll give them the look, and they’ll feel like garbage for whatever it was they thought about doing wrong but didn’t.”

She rolls out of bed and makes a face as she stands there.

I sit up in a rush. “You okay?”

She holds up a finger and her whole body curves in for a second. It reminds me of a cat horking up a hairball. “Hanna?”

She shakes her head. “I forgot about the joys of morning sickness. I’ll be back.” She rushes to the bathroom and closes the door. The water comes on a second later, but it doesn’t quite cover the sound of her retching.

I knock softly and ask if I can do anything for her, like hold her hair, but she tells me she’s okay and it should pass fairly quickly.

I cautiously step into the hall, wanting to give her some privacy. Queenie could always sleep until noon on weekends, but King is regimented. I tiptoe down the hall and am relieved to find the kitchen empty when I get there.

I pour Hanna a fresh glass of water and search the cupboards for dry, salty carbohydrates. I remember Kimmie having terrible morning sickness with Queenie. The kind that lasted all day, which makes the term morning sickness sound pretty damn misleading. She walked around with a box of crackers until that passed.

I find saltines and plain chips. As I’m heading back down the hall to the bedroom with snacks and water for Hanna, I hear the sound of footfalls on the second floor.

The shower is running when I get back to the bedroom. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opens, and Hanna appears, hair wrapped in a towel, body wrapped in a robe.

“I brought you crackers and water.” I hold them up for her to see.

“You are a saint.”

“Hardly, considering the things I’ve done to you while you’re naked.” I internally cringe at the bad joke, but she chuckles.

“In bed you’re the Oracle of Orgasms. Right now, you’re the Saint of Saltines.” She takes the package from me and kisses me on the cheek before she pops a cracker into her mouth. Her eyes fall closed for a moment as she chews.

When they pop back open, I pass her the water and she takes a sip, then another and another.

“Are the kids up yet?” she asks.

“I heard them moving around upstairs when I was in the kitchen.”

“Okay. I’ll get dressed and we can do this.” She blows out a breath. “I don’t know if the nausea is actually morning sickness or nerves at this point. Or both.”

She eats another cracker before she disappears back into the bathroom to change. She’s been naked in front of me plenty of times, but there’s a shift in our relationship now. One I’m going to have to learn to navigate.

Her hair is brushed and she’s back in the clothes she was wearing earlier. She comes to stand in front of me. My shirt is wrinkly from our nap, and I don’t look nearly as put together as she does. She smooths her hands over my chest. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Or as ready as I’ll ever be to tell my adult daughter and my son-in-law that I’m about to be a parent for the second time.

My palms start to sweat as we head for the kitchen. I can hear the low sounds of laughter and the clinking of dishes.

“Morning,” Hanna says as we step across the threshold.

“Morning, Momster, you have a good sleep?” King’s back is to us as he pulls a pint glass from the cupboard and sets it beside the gallon of milk on the counter.

But Queenie is facing us, chopping fresh pineapple for a fruit platter. Her smile turns inquisitive as her gaze shifts from Hanna to me. “Hey, Dad, when did you get here?” Her eyes move over my outfit.

King spins around, brow furrowed as he takes us both in. Like Queenie, his gaze moves over my rumpled shirt. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and Queenie is dressed in a long, flowy shirt and leggings, the same as Hanna.

“I came over early, but I didn’t want to disturb you, so I let myself in.”

“Oh.” The furrow in King’s brow deepens, eyes flitting between Hanna and me.

“Come have a seat, I’ll pour you a coffee.” Queenie motions to the stools at the island. “We were going to make bacon and eggs for breakfast.”

Ryan’s suspicion is clear in the way he keeps glancing at us as he sets two mugs onto the counter. It reminds me a lot of the time I found him sneaking out of Queenie’s room when they first started seeing each other. He’d been painfully honest about the allergic reaction he had to a milkshake that my daughter had been drinking. His face was a swollen mess. Or at least I’d thought he’d been honest. I got a lot more information the next day on the ice when I saw exactly where that rash led. That’s filed under things I never wanted to know about my daughter and my goalie.