Blocked Shot (Love on Thin Ice #1) Read online

“Hey, beautiful. Any good news?”

  Hannah knew the good news in question was on the job front, not the baby front. They’d agreed to take the test together. They were going to try the regular pee-on-a-stick variety to see what it said. If it was negative, they were still deciding whether they’d wait a few days and try again or try the blood test.

  The latter option would cost quite a bit more money and there was debate about who got to cover the costs. Hannah thought that since Curtis was paying for their food and giving her a place to stay, she should obviously pay for a medical test involving her. He didn’t have to be providing for her to come to that conclusion, but she threw those things out there to try to persuade him.

  Every time the subject came up, he made it clear that he’d pay for it all. He’d come home one day with seven pregnancy tests to prove that point. The tests were just sitting there waiting for her to get home.

  “It depends on your definition of the word good. I found out I have to move to Alaska if I ever want to work again.”

  The other side of the phone erupted in laughter. Hannah was glad someone found it funny. She was to the point she wanted to laugh, because otherwise she’d cry, but the tears weren’t coming.

  “She blacklisted you. I had a feeling that was what was going on, but thought it was too low even for her.”

  “I fully understand now that nothing is too low for her. Anyway, I’ve had about a gallon of water today to make sure I don’t get shy when it comes time for my performance. I’m about ten minutes out and hopefully won’t burst the second I get in the door.”

  Hannah would figure out her options job-wise after she had an idea whether she was pregnant. If she wasn’t, moving to find work would be a lot easier. She didn’t see Curtis letting her take his kid to another state without a fight. At least for the time being she didn’t have to think about going to another painful interview. Knowing that no one would hire her gave her that freedom.

  Chapter 16

  Curtis impatiently waited for Hannah to get home. He’d been home from practice only a few minutes before she called to let him know she was on her way. Every day since she’d told him about the potential pregnancy, he’d fought telling anyone that he might be on his way to being a father. It made every conversation with anyone other than Hannah short and a little on the weird side.

  He was so afraid he’d slip up and jinx things that he’d practically stopped speaking to other people. Brady had been testing his resolve. His friend knew something was up, but hadn’t come close to guessing. Some of the guesses were pretty comical, like Curtis getting his dick stuck in his zipper and partially ripping it off. Curtis had no idea where he came up with the ideas.

  Amid the inner battle of trying not to blurt anything out, Curtis fought not to get his hopes up. Hannah had said she hadn’t been regular since she started the shots and all the research seemed to say a couple months wasn’t long enough for her system to return to normal. There were stories out there that it was possible, but they were so few that he worried she wouldn’t be pregnant.

  If she wasn’t, he feared she’d move out. Things seemed to be going good for them. They’d fallen into a natural routine, easily sharing the space around them. Curtis knew she was going a little stir-crazy not having a job and the uncertainty that built, but he did what he could to distract her from it.

  Well, everything he could think of that didn’t involve sex. Not that he didn’t want to fuck her every way to Sunday. He had taken it upon himself to make sure her desire to slow down and learn about each other wasn’t overlooked. They’d had sex, a lot of sex, before they’d gone on their first date, so Curtis was trying to counteract that. Living together without said first date was even more bizarre than the sex, but he thought they were making it work.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a sound from the front door. He was sitting in the living room staring off into space, but the noise trained his eyes on the door. Hannah had a key, but he’d left it unlocked.

  She opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind her and taking a deep breath as she leaned against it. God, she was beautiful. How she hadn’t found a husband in the years since high school was beyond Curtis. Someone before him should’ve at least tried to make her happy, but from her stories of past love, not a single guy stuck around for more than a couple weeks.

  He was grateful for that fact, even if it made him scratch his head. It made him wonder if Nina had her hands in Hannah’s relationships even more than the stupid sex scale rankings.

  Hannah’s hair looked like the wind had played games with it, as the red strands settled wherever they wanted. The emerald green pantsuit she wore fit snug to her thin frame, no signs of her belly starting to grow. It was too early for that kind of thing, but Curtis still pictured it.

  Picturing it made it even harder to convince his dick to settle down. Being erect all the time was really annoying when he’d decided to take a break from sex. Thankfully, Hannah wasn’t there in the locker room before games. That was pretty much the only time it wasn’t obvious he was horny.

  He got off the couch and walked over to the woman he without a doubt was in love with. She could claim he’d imagined a version of her since he was denied her in high school and fell in love with that person, but Curtis knew it was her in the present he loved. Everything about her drove him wild, and there wasn’t another woman out there he wanted to be the mother of his children.

  Yes, he was already planning out their whole family. One kid wouldn’t be enough, especially with how hot the pictures he dreamed up of Hannah pregnant were. He didn’t think constantly being pregnant would be comfortable or looked upon happily, so he figured one baby every three years sounded about right. That would give them three or four kids, hopefully a nice mixture of boys and girls.

  “I’m sorry your ex-best friend is such a bitch.”

  Lightening the mood seemed like the right thing to do. She’d already been talking about moving to Alaska, something he felt she was only partially joking about. There were no pro teams in Alaska, so he hoped he could talk her out of it if she was serious. There were plenty of teams on the west coast that he could see about being traded to, and chances were Nina hadn’t made any calls over there.

  “I don’t get it. Messing with my life and laughing in my face when she heard I might be pregnant wasn’t enough? It’s not like she fired me and needed to warn potential employers I stole from the company or something. You’d think there’d have to be charges brought against me to make it legit.”

  “Is that how she got you on the blacklist?”

  Anyone who took the time to get to know Hannah would know what a crock of shit that was. Employers sadly only looked at a piece of paper and didn’t take that time. If they were even looking at a piece of paper. They clearly weren’t looking at Hannah’s resume. Something with Nina’s letterhead probably meant a little more to them.

  “I don’t know. The lady doing the interview today just said I needed to make nice with Nina if I wanted to get hired anywhere in town. She said a gas station wouldn’t even hire me based on what Nina was spreading around. I should’ve asked what exactly was being said, but it wouldn’t matter. Nina has everyone wrapped around her fingers.”

  Curtis rubbed his head to fight an oncoming headache and shook his head. That was messed up. Since he’d been worried about his own career because of Nina, he knew how it felt.

  He pulled Hannah into him so he could wrap his arms around her. He wanted to protect her from the world, but it was hard when she still wanted to have her independence. Curtis’ money situation didn’t require her to work if she was okay letting him take care of everything on that front. He hadn’t specifically told her that because of the whole independence thing and letting her make her own choices.

  He figured if he talked about making her dependent on him, she’d run. He didn’t want to take Nina’s place in her life as far as controlling it went, and it was going to take time to prove that.

&
nbsp; “Are you ready to empty what I’ve heard is close to an exploding bladder, or do you want to hold off so you can digest some more? I’m game for either option. We’ve been waiting for weeks to find out, so a few more hours aren’t going to hurt anything.”

  Hannah squeezed him and thumped her head against his shoulder. She was so frustrated that she had to be tied up in knots. Maybe instead of adding the stress of the pregnancy test, the right suggestion would’ve been taking her up to bed and giving her a massage. It wasn’t too late to offer, but he hoped she’d be ready for the tests.

  “I’ll let you pick out the three you think are the most reliable, since you’ve been doing all the research on them.”

  She pulled away from the hug and grabbed his right hand, leading him to the stairs up to their bathroom where the tests were waiting. He ended up getting a dozen of them, mostly different manufacturers, but some the same. He wasn’t sure she’d even seen he’d bought a few more tests. It was complete overkill, no question about it, but he wanted the earliest detectors with the best accuracy.

  The off brands probably wouldn’t provide that. Their boxes said they did, though, so he bought them anyway. There was a good chance he’d bought every kind offered in the city.

  “Do you want me to be in the room with you, or should I wait outside until you’ve peed on them all?”

  Curtis wanted to be as supportive as he could, but he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable with him hovering. They were already to the bathroom, both probably unknowingly almost running to get to it.

  “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but an assembly line with you handing me the sticks wouldn’t be the worst idea. I usually can’t pee if I think someone is listening in, but I wasn’t joking about the gallon of water. I have to go, and I don’t think it’s going to matter if it’s being broadcast on TV.”

  There was no question whether she was a private person, unlike Curtis, who didn’t bother closing the door at home when he had to take a leak. That part of their personalities had surprisingly not clashed while living in close quarters. Curtis had worried about that and whether his lack of experience living with another person would be hazardous to the relationship. Hannah just seemed to take it all in stride.

  Neither one of them said anything else as they went through the process of setting up the three tests. Once the juggling of urinating on three small test strips was done, the tests were put on the vanity and Curtis set a timer on his phone. They all had slightly different times, so he decided to set it for the longest and figured a little extra time for the others wouldn’t hurt things.

  That meant they had fifteen minutes to find out if they’d be parents. It was still early in the process, but if all the tests said the same thing, chances were good they had their answer.

  “While we wait, I wanted to throw an idea by you as far as your employment searching goes.”

  Thankfully, the bathroom attached to their bedroom was big enough that they could stand in the middle of it together without one of them having to wait in the doorway. Curtis reached out for Hannah’s hand, which she gave him a little hesitantly.

  “If you’re going to say I don’t have to worry about getting a job because you’re rolling in cash, please don’t. I know you feel guilty for the thing with Nina and potentially getting me pregnant, but I don’t need handouts. I’ll figure something out.”

  Curtis rolled his eyes. He’d told her his feelings had nothing to do with either of those things, even if he hadn’t made it clear exactly what his feelings were. Hannah could be weird and awkward, which was all most people got to see of her, but her shyness was an act. Okay, maybe not totally an act, but it was a defense mechanism for sure.

  She didn’t want to get hurt; most people would share in that sentiment. Instead of embracing the possibility of hurt, she hid and in doing so didn’t have much real-world experience that hadn’t been dictated by Nina.

  She’d told him herself that she didn’t think she could trust the things she felt for him, which was a key factor in him abstaining from sex. He didn’t want the emotions and desires that went along with that to cloud how she felt when they were just being two people learning about each other.

  “If I thought you’d go for it, I would’ve suggested that a week ago after you came home pissed off about idiot recruiters not being able to string two words together.”

  Curtis wrapped the arm he held around him and brought her in closer to his body. Not close enough that he couldn’t see her face as she stared up at him, but close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her body.

  “I was just thinking that since you work with money for a living and I have a lot of money, there’s some potential there for you to take over making sure I’m not wasting it all.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but Curtis continued his explanation. He’d anticipated her reluctance at the initial request.

  “It’s not like I’d be making up a job for you. I currently have a firm that does it for me, but that firm works with at least half the team, so they’ve got plenty of clients. I would just be your first. You know, a reference you could use to start your own accounting business or something. If you’re any good at it, I could maybe even convince some of my friends to switch over.”

  The idea had popped in his head not long after the news she’d lost her job. After she described the first few interviews, he’d anticipated Nina doing something to make Hannah’s life even rougher. He’d thought about broaching the subject then, but the timing felt off.

  “We’d have a contract, not that I see anything causing a rift between us in the future, but I think it’d be good for both of us to make sure the agreement is all written out and signed so relationship issues don’t get in the way. I know how pissed you get when I leave the toilet seat up, and I don’t want you transposing numbers to get back at me without a little protection.”

  It was a joke, and Hannah actually saw it as one and laughed. Any time he could make her smile was a moment Curtis cherished since their short time together had been so rocky. The light that had only touched her eyes sporadically in the last weeks seemed to shine with something new, possibly hope.

  “I can think about it, right? I’ve never really thought about starting my own business. Maybe I should talk to a lawyer and see the logistics behind it.”

  Before the ball could really get going on the possibilities, Curtis’ phone started beeping. The idea of Hannah having a new spin on life was a good distraction as they waited for the results. Curtis had no idea how he would react no matter what the results were.

  Cheering if they were positive seemed a little much, but he didn’t think he’d be able to help it. On the other side, hiding his disappointment wasn’t going to be easy either. He really wanted that baby to be in there.

  They had to walk a few steps to see the results, which they did hand-in-hand. Hannah’s hand gripped tightly and he was pretty sure they both held their breath.

  Curtis had studied the boxes, so he immediately knew what each stick said, even on the two that let lines do the talking. They weren’t pregnant.

  Chapter 17

  “Hey, we really need to start thinking about what to do with the stuff in my apartment. I’ve got a little over a month to try to figure out if I’m torching the place, moving some of the stuff in here or just letting the landlord deal with it.”

  Over the two months that had elapsed since Hannah had moved in, she’d made a few trips back to pick up more clothes and essentials, but everything else in the apartment probably had an inch of dust on it. It was hard to believe she’d been living with Curtis for all that time. It felt like no time had passed because of how easy the cohabitating was.

  After they’d found out she wasn’t pregnant, a fact that was well and truly confirmed when she got her period, they’d just settled into a pattern of playing house. He never asked, or even hinted, he wanted her to leave, and she didn’t want to.

  Their relationship was s
trong as far as she could tell. Sex had returned, with condoms used every time. They’d done so much reading about getting pregnant after the shots that Hannah had decided not to go back on them.

  She wished she would’ve read into them more than knowing they weren’t a pill she had to take every day. Nina had recommended going on the shot, so Hannah had blindly followed based on the information her friend passed along. There were little things like that Hannah was learning she should’ve considered a bit longer before saying yes.

  They weren’t actively talking about having kids, but Curtis slyly threw out baby name ideas and sometimes pointed out kids when they were at a restaurant so he could say things like “See that kid over there. Our little girl will look exactly like that but with your red hair.”

  It was impossible not to love the guy. It felt sort of like a romantic comedy come to life, where Hannah somehow got to be the star. It was surreal, a dream she really didn’t want to wake up from.

  Curtis turned the page of the magazine they were attempting to read together. They were curled up on the tan couch in the living room, a familiar position for the pair. Hannah had already finished reading about some hockey superstar coming up in the ranks. It was hard not to compare the kid to Curtis. There were so many differences, like the fact the kid was picked first in the draft, but Hannah noticed the same work ethic in a few of the quotes.

  He wasn’t on Curtis’ team, but there was talk of trades all the time. Hannah feared those talks. He hadn’t mentioned anything to her, but living the life of an athlete’s girlfriend wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  There were the trade talks – literally a guy could be dressed for a game in ten minutes and be told he was moving across the country – and injuries were always a worry. Curtis had only been in one other fight, but every time he was slammed into the boards or tripped or slashed or just generally roughed up, Hannah held her breath until she saw him skate away with no sign of pain.