the small laundry room adjacent to the kitchen, put them in the washing machine, and started it up.
“I don’t do laundry,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “I use laundry service and dry cleaner.”
“You never do laundry?” she asked in surprise.
“I never learn.” He paused. “This is bad, right? I’m a big laundry loser.”
She laughed. “You’re funny. And no, you’re not a loser, but I can teach you if you want.”
“Maybe next time?” He winked at her and she smiled back.
“What about chicken and dumplings? Do you like it?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t tried chicken and dumplings?” She looked up at him as she moved back into the kitchen.
“I never tried, no.”
“Well, let’s fix that tonight. You’ll stay for dinner?”
“Yes. Thank you.” The last woman to cook him dinner had been his sister, when she’d come to visit a couple of months ago, and he loved home-cooked meals. Occasionally his friends’ wives cooked and invited him over, but that wasn’t often enough for his liking.
“I just have to make the dumplings when it’s time,” she said. “You want to watch a movie until then?”
“I don’t watch many American movies because I don’t understand everything.”
“Well, we can make it a teaching lesson, where I explain things to you, or we can skip the movie and just talk.”
“Let’s talk.”
They settled on the couch and she turned to him curiously. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I was thinking more about all that kissing…” He leaned in to do just that.
The next game was on a cold March evening a few days later and Charli got to the arena a little early. Sara was already in the seats with Niko, who ran to Charli the moment he saw her.
“Miss Charli, are you here to see my dad play?” he asked, hugging her tightly.
“I’m here to see the whole team,” she said, taking his hand and letting him lead her to her seat.
“Will you sit next to me? I can explain all the plays to you.”
“Of course.” She grinned at Sara. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“Hey, Charli!” Whitney and Hailey waved, along with Amy, who’d just arrived.
“You were let out tonight?” Charli teased Amy.
She chuckled. “It happens once in a while. It’s getting close to the end of the season so I was given a reprieve.”
“Oh, not fair!” Hailey laughed. “You can come to any game you want as long as we have time to find a sitter.”
“No one takes care of our babies like we do,” Amy said primly, “so it’s difficult to find someone I trust.”
“It’s like she gave birth to them,” Hailey said, shaking her head.
They fell into easy banter and Niko, of course, kept up a running commentary on everything going on, from the players warming up on the ice to where his mother stood behind the bench. Charli found his enthusiasm heartwarming and wondered if all the players’ children were this passionate about the game. Niko already played hockey and talked about it incessantly at school, so there was no doubt he would follow in his father’s footsteps if he could.
“So tell us about you and Miikka,” Hailey asked once Niko had moved down to talk to some of the other kids he knew. “We need the deets.”
“He’s nice,” Charli said. “We’ve been spending time together.”
“And?” Amy prompted, making a circular motion with her hand to indicate they needed more information.
“And…nothing?” Charli wasn’t used to talking about stuff like this and there wasn’t that much to say anyway. Other than a couple of heavy-duty make-out sessions that stopped at second base, she had nothing to report.
“You haven’t gotten naked yet?” Whitney asked.
“No.”
“This must be serious,” Amy said, whistling under her breath. “He’s going slow.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to just jump into bed with him,” Charli protested. “I mean, did you guys?”
Hailey and Whitney burst out laughing.
“Jake and I started as a one-night stand,” Whitney said. “Then I found out he was still legally married—but separated—and it took us four years to get back together.”
“And Kane and I were phone buddies for months before we met in person,” Hailey told her. “So yeah, the night we finally met, I jumped on that. Oh, and got knocked up too.”
Charli’s mouth fell open. “Really? And he was okay with someone he just met being pregnant?”
“Well, it took us a little while to wrap our heads around it and get to know each other as a couple, but yeah. He was always going to step up and be a dad, no matter what happened with us