3. Mallory

It takes forty more minutes for players to start trickling out to their cars. Dylan is wide awake now and fussing so I grab his trusty giraffe stuffy and sing a stupid song to him while shaking the toy and he is entertained enough not to cry. I also tuck myself behind the beast of a security guard so no one notices me.

When the door into the arena opens again and Tate walks through it, everything freezes for me. I watch him like he”s in slow motion, striding confidently, a cocky smile on his lips, his rich blue and gray plaid suit hugging and tugging on all the right parts of his extremely fit body. His eyes are focused on his teammates walking ahead of him. I recognize them as the Westwood twins. He yells something at them, but for some reason, I can”t hear what he says. My brain is making too much noise.

He looks so confident and comfortable in his own skin but he has never looked anything but that. I’ve known him since middle school when his dad retired and his parents moved back to Silver Bay full-time. He walked into school, the new kid, with a family reputation and expectation that would have weighed a lot of other kids down, but not Tate. He didn’t even have the normal new kid jitters. He looked like he knew how lucky we all were for getting him as a classmate and potential friend. And man, I know I felt lucky when he finally talked to me one day and didn’t blink when he found out my last name.

Dylan lets out a frustrated squeal. I’ve been frozen in the past, and in the present, the baby in my arms has had enough.

“Mal?”

I find the courage to look up. He is grinning that gregarious, infectious grin that he’s had his whole damn perfect life. The one that says he knows he won the lottery being born Tate Garrison. Only for the first time, it doesn”t make me smile back. And when his eyes slip down to Dylan that smile evaporates entirely. I watch it fade, searing it into my memory because I honestly don”t think I will ever see it again.

His jaw goes slack. His face loses color. He starts towards me slowly, almost like he’s scared of me. Like I’m an aggressive dog. Or, you know, his worst nightmare.

With every step he inches closer I feel my anxiety ratchet higher and higher. He doesn’t know the bottom is about to drop out of his world, but I do. “You have a baby?”

“Not exactly,” I reply. My voice is barely over a whisper and it’s hoarse. The emotions clogging my throat are trying to tear the words to pieces before I can get them out. I blink and shake my head. Tears flood my eyes and tumble down my cheeks.

“Mallory, what the hell is going…” Tate says softly and takes another few steps. And then I pull Dylan out of the carrier on my chest and turn him so his back is against my front. His face toward Tate.

Tate stops moving mid-step. His eyes scan the length of Dylan, resting for a long moment on his chubby little face. He sees the dimple in the baby’s chin that matches his own. He takes in the color of Dylan’s eyes, the same green color swirling in Tate’s own, that match his mother Jessie Garrison’s eye color perfectly. There is a baby picture on the wall by the staircase in his parents’ house. I saw it the one time I was there. It’s Tate, under a year old, sitting in the Stanley Cup because his dad won it that year. If you put Dylan in that Cup today, you would have a hard time telling them apart, except for the hair color.

More color drains from his face. He”s the color of chalk now. He tears his eyes from Dylan, gives the security guard a curt nod and tight smile, and with a hand on my back, he guides us away, towards the line of very fancy and expensive parked cars.

Once we are away from anyone who could overhear he asks, “Mallory, whose baby is that?”

“Di’s,” I croak out.

“Why do you have Diana’s baby?” Tate’s voice is low and hard and angry. “Is she with you?”

“Tate…” I wondered if somehow he would know. I hoped he would so I wouldn’t have to tell him.

Diana”s death must have hit Silver Bay by now because, although she doesn”t have any family living there anymore, my family knows. It”s a small town and news, especially bad news, travels fast. Silver Bay: Home to Hockey Royalty and Fast-Moving Gossip.

“Where is Diana?” he snaps as we stop and he pulls me in between two luxury SUVs.

“She died, Tate,” I finally managed to choke out as I wipe at the tears on my face. “There was a car accident and she didn’t make it.”

Tate steps forward, his arms reaching for me. I think he”s going to hug me but then his eyes land on Dylan again who is staring right at him with this look of contemplation. Like he”s trying desperately to figure out who Tate is. Tate turns to me with a look very similar, only there is fear fluttering his eyelashes because deep down he is scared to know the answer to the question that flies out of his mouth next.

“Why did you bring Diana’s baby here?”

I don’t say it. I can’t. But I don’t have to. Before I can, the security guard is back. He’s pushed all the luggage we left behind and is standing with it in front of the cars we’re tucked between. “Sorry Mr. Garrison, but do you need me to load this for you?”

Tate nods, pulls a fob from his pocket, and tosses it to the guard. The guy keeps wheeling the luggage farther down the aisle.

“Mallory. Talk.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Why am I such a fucking wuss? This is hard. It’s ugly and brutal but Dylan needs me to be strong, not a fucking coward. I run a hand over Dylan’s thick hair and meet Tate’s eyes. “You know why I brought him here. Look at him. You know.”

“Diana… she’s dead,” Tate whispers and steps away from Dylan and me. He begins pacing in the narrow space between the cars. His hands rake into his hair and his eyes stay firmly on the gritty pavement.

I fight the tears pricking at my eyes. “Yes. Eight days ago.”

“And you have… you have this baby…” His voice cracks and he swallows. He still won’t look at us. “Why? Why do you have this… her baby?”

He wants me to lie. Say anything but the truth. I know. I almost get it. I mean, this is going to flip his world upside down. Change it forever. No matter what he chooses to do. Even if he rejects Dylan and tells me to adopt him or put him in foster care, his life will never be the same. This isn’t something you move on from like an impulse buy you later return.

“Mallory!” he growls my name and stops pacing, but his eyes are still rooted on the ground. “Fucking talk.”

Dylan lets out a whimper and I adjust him on my hip as I take a small, ragged breath. “Because I agreed to bring him to his only living parent.”

Tate’s eyes finally snap up from the ground and lock with mine. I stare at him until the tears swimming in my eyes make it impossible to focus. “Oh my God.” The words rush out of him in a hoarse whisper.

“Mr. Garrison?” the guard calls out and Tate jumps. “All this stuff ain’t gonna fit in your car.”

He rakes his hands through his hair again and brushes past me in the tight space. I turn and watch a couple more players walk by. They call out goodbyes to Tate and he waves but focuses on the security guard and the two bags sitting on the ground.

“Okay. I’m going to call an Uber to take the extra bags to my house,” Tate tells the security guard. “Hold on.”

He pulls out his phone and I slowly walk over to his car, which is a very fancy sports car. A Mercedes so sleek and low and compact I’m not even sure it has a back seat. Dylan and I may also have to ride in that Uber. If he lets us go home with him that is.

“Can you walk them up to the gate and have the gate security give the bags to the Uber with this license plate,” Tate asks and shows the guard his phone screen. The guard pulls a notepad and pen out of his back pocket, jots down the plate number, and nods.

“I can go and do that. And we can take the Uber with the bags,” I interject. “He has to be in a car seat. In a back seat and I don’t know if you… this car has one.”

”It does.” Tate grabs the car seat off one of the suitcases where it is balanced. He stares at it for a second like it”s an alien life force before glancing back up at me. ”You know how to install this?”

“Yeah. Of course.” I nod and take it from him.

The security guard walks away with the extra luggage. I walk to the passenger side and open the only door. The car only has two doors, not four, which is going to make installing this a bit of a bitch. And I can’t do it with Dylan strapped to my chest or on my hip.

I look at Tate who is still the color of a bleached bed sheet. “I need you to hold him a sec.”

Then I hand him Dylan, but he doesn’t take him. The baby is just dangling between us. “Tate! Either hold him or I have to put him on the ground. And he can’t walk yet so he’s just going to sit on the disgusting pavement and cry.”

Tate steps forward, puts his hands under Dylan”s armpits, and holds him. Out in front of him like he”s some kind of rancid garbage. Good, great. We”re off to a fabulous start. Now I”m getting angry. Dylan is squirming and his little face bunches up and I open my mouth to snap at Tate but before I can he pulls his arms in and tucks Dylan against his left side. Dylan”s face is still bunched up and turning red like he”s about to wail. He is staring at Tate like ”Who the fuck are you stranger?” But that”s fair.

I duck into the tiny back seat with the car seat and focus on getting it secured as quickly as possible. It’s a bit annoying and takes longer than normal due to the cramped space but I get it done before Dylan really starts crying.

As soon as my body is upright and out of the car, Tate is handing Dylan back to me like he’s a hot potato. I take the baby and smile at him reassuringly. “It’s okay Dyllie Bear. We’ll get you settled soon, I promise.”

Tate is already getting into the driver’s seat and has the engine going by the time I get Dylan strapped in and give him his giraffe for company. I scurry into the passenger seat and click my seatbelt but Tate doesn’t drive out of the spot. He stares straight ahead through the windshield. A couple more players walk by on the way to their own cars.

“Tate?” I say quietly with a deep inhale. The car still has that new car smell.

He swallows so hard I can see his Adam”s apple strain against the skin at his throat. Tate”s eyes flick up to the rearview mirror and I know he”s watching Dylan through it. ”I”m his only living parent.”

It isn’t a question. There’s no confusion in his voice. Not even shock. There is a strong tone of resignation and it both breaks my heart and brings me a weird sense of calm I wasn’t anticipating. Tate may not like this, but he accepts it.

“Yes. You.”

He drops his head into his hands.