“Bye, Mom.”
He hung up and tossed his phone down on the bed. It landed with a soft thump next to his empty suitcase. How in the hell was he going to make it two weeks with Shelby? Alex he could ignore—or at least seem to. There was no pretending he could not notice Shelby.
“You are so fucked, Petrov.”
Chapter Ten
In the past, Ian looked for one thing when it came to finding a seat on the team charter jet—Christensen’s big head. If he didn’t see him, he’d definitely hear him because the guy never shut up. It was one of the things they had in common—big mouths always running at full speed.
This time, however, Ian climbed the jetway stairs and kept his gaze aimed at armrest level, hoping to spot an empty row that he could park in and snarl at anyone who tried to sit next to him. He made it three steps down the aisle before Lucy got up from her seat and blocked his path forward. She had dark bags under her eyes and her ten-month-old on one hip.
“Here, take Freya,” she said as she held the baby out to him.
Ian didn’t mean to take the baby. It just sort of happened. It was like seeing a flash of a defender’s jersey in his peripheral and bracing for a hit; he just let instinct take over. Of course that didn’t mean he had any idea what he was doing. As he held the kid out at arm’s length, she eyed him warily.
Back at you, Small Fry.
Lucy picked up her purse from the seat she’d gotten out of. “You and Alex have plane duty. Frankie was on shift yesterday, so that meant it was all me getting up four billion times last night. I swear whoever came up with the idea of twenty-four-hour shifts for firefighters should be made to march to the edge of a cliff and shoved off. I’d do it myself, but I’m too damn tired.”
Ian looked back at the kid. Freya had a mop of red hair, freckles scattered all across the chubby cheeks that grandmothers liked to pinch, and a glint in her eyes that reminded him way too much of her formidable mom. She didn’t look like a non-sleeping demon, but what in the hell did he know about kids?
“Why did you give me your baby?” he asked.
Lucy let out a weary sigh. “Because I’m exhausted and need a nap. Don’t worry, this little fluff muffin has been fed and should sack out after takeoff.” She lifted up the pacifier attached to Freya by a length of ribbon decorated with hockey pucks. “Here’s a binky in case her ears bother her. You and Alex can swap off holding her.”
“Why would I—”
And that’s when he finally looked over at the set of seats next to Lucy’s. It was one of the two sets of four seats that sat facing each other, two on two, that were usually reserved for the team captain. Christensen sat in one chair closest to the window, his body tense as he looked out of the jet. Across from him sat Shelby, dressed all in black with an aggressive electric-blue line sailing across her top eyelids and ending in a little swoop shape that reminded him of wings. She took one look at him, straightened her shoulders, and let out a deep breath as if she’d spent the past sixty years prepping for this moment with absolute dread.
Forget awful, this situation was a fucking nightmare. He was stuck on a plane holding a baby—a baby!—he’d never seen before, while sitting next to his former best friend whom he wasn’t speaking to and across from the woman he had the hots for—thanks, PopPop, for giving me the mental slang of a Boomer—who would rather never set eyes on him again. Even worse? They were all forced to stay together like this for the entirety of a cross-country flight that would last approximately six hundred years.
Ian slid his gaze back over to Lucy. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I never joke when it comes to my sweet Freya.” She blew a kiss to the baby, who was drooling like someone had left a tap on. “She gets grumpy right before she falls asleep. I suggest tucking her in against you and letting her stroke your hair. It seems to calm her down the fastest.”
With that, the team’s PR genius and his personal tormentor walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, sat down in an empty row, popped in her earphones, and closed her eyes.
Meanwhile, he was still standing in the middle of the aisle, blocking the handful of Ice Knights players trying to get to their seats—the lucky kind that didn’t come with a baby, a nemesis, or the woman who had told him to go straight to the penalty box and not come back. The baby wiggled in his grip, her little chin starting to tremble under the weight of her apparent dissatisfaction. His pulse picked up and his mind went blank. This was like holding a live bomb, and he had no idea which wires to cut.
He looked over at Christensen and Shelby. Christensen still sat with his back to the aisle. Shelby just lifted an eyebrow and shook her head. Panic starting to make his palms sweat, Ian adjusted his hold on Freya but kept his arms locked so she was about as far away from him as possible.
Squaring his jaw, he gave the baby a firm look. “You’re not gonna cry.”
Freya’s answer was to let out an earsplitting yowl and turn a shade of purple he hadn’t been aware was possible for a human. Grown men winced. Stuckey, who was known for slamming into people with enough force to knock teeth out, sank down into his seat as
