All Chapters of The Hockey Star Wasn't My Baby's Father. His Father Was : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

011: RONAN POVMy mother's house doesn't look like a place where anything gets planned. That's always been the trick of it white walls, cut flowers changed twice a week, a kind of soft, expensive stillness that makes you forget she's capable of anything at all.She's in the sitting room when I let myself in, a cup of tea going cold on the table beside her, reading something on her phone with the particular calm of a woman who already knows exactly why her son has shown up unannounced and isn't the least bit worried about it."Ronan." She doesn't look up right away. "I wondered how long it would take you.""You knew." My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, still raw from the rink, from Coach Bryant's office, from the four hours I've spent replaying thirty seconds of useless footage in my head until the words stopped meaning anything. "The USB. The rumor. All of it. You knew before I did."Now she looks up, setting her phone down with unhurried precision. "Sit down, darling. You

013: KIERAN POVI've been treating this whole thing like a rescue operation since the day it started, and it takes watching Elara walk out of a dean's office with her spine straight and her voice steady for me to realize how wrong I've had it.I'm parked outside the administration building when they come out not spying, exactly, just present, the way I've made a habit of being present around the edges of whatever's happening to her this week. I watch Dominic Hale walk beside her, not touching, not crowding, and I watch her let him. That's the part that catches me off guard. Not that he's there. That she isn't flinching away from it.I've spent the last several days building a case in my head that treats her like something fragile that needs shielding from the next blow. Watching her now, unshaken after whatever just happened in that office, I start to wonder if I've been solving the wrong problem entirely. She doesn't need someone to catch her every time she falls. She's shown, over a

015: ELARA POVHe makes it in twelve minutes. I know because I watch the clock the entire time, because counting gives my hands something to do besides shake, because if I stop counting I start replaying Eleanor's voice instead *enjoy it while it's still yours* on a loop I can't seem to shut off.His car pulls into the lot fast enough that I hear the tires before I see it, and something in my chest loosens the second I recognize the shape of it rounding the corner. I hadn't realized, until right that moment, how badly I wanted him to come. Not needed. Wanted. There's a difference, and some quiet, honest part of me has stopped pretending I don't know it.He's out of the car before it's fully stopped, crossing the lot in long, urgent strides, and I don't remember deciding to get out of my own car to meet him. I just do it... push the door open, stand on legs that still feel unsteady from the phone call, and by the time he reaches me I'm already walking straight into him.He catches me

017: ELARA POVThe fragment doesn't fade this time the way the others have. It holds, vivid and complete in a way that makes the parking lot around me feel thin and unreal by comparison.*Dim lamplight. His voice, low, careful, saying my name like it mattered more than anything else in the room. My own voice, unsteady, answering him — "I know. I know this is wrong." A pause, his hand still on my shoulder, waiting, giving me room to pull away if I wanted to. Then, quieter, more certain than I expected myself to sound: "I don't care."*I come back to the present slowly, the car's interior sharpening around me piece by piece — the fogged windows, Dominic's hand still gripping mine, his face close and alert and worried."I'm here," he says. "You're here. Tell me what you saw.""It wasn't just feelings this time," I say, my voice unsteady. "It was words. Real words, both of us, back and forth. You said my name like — like it meant something. And I said I knew it was wrong." I look at him,

019: ELARA POVMia is curled up on the couch when I get back to the suite, laptop balanced on her knees, and she takes one look at my face before she's already closing it and setting it aside."Okay," she says. "Sit. Talk."I sit. I don't know where to start, so I start with the easiest part...Eleanor's call, the parking lot, Dominic arriving in twelve minutes flat. Mia listens without interrupting, her expression shifting through concern and then something harder when I get to the part about Eleanor knowing the exact week."She's unwell," Mia says flatly. "Like, actually. Not evil-genius-in-a-movie unwell. Actually needs-to-be-stopped unwell.""I know.""Okay. Keep going."I tell her about my mother next — the engagement, the lie, thirty years of a wound nobody bothered to close. Mia's quiet through most of it, her eyes going a little glassy near the end, and when I finish she reaches over and squeezes my hand without saying anything for a moment."That's a lot," she says finally. "T