“Ellis!” She slaps my leg lightly but it just makes me laugh until my sides hurt. The harder I laugh, the pinker she gets. I am seconds away from peeing myself when she switches on the ignition.

“I’m not saying anything, but he is handsome as sin,” I tell her when I manage to pull myself together again.

“He doesn’t want me like that,” she says quietly.

“Why?” I’m not laughing any more. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so dejected.

“He’s just being a good guy, that’s all. You know how much I love the Spears, how attractive I think Anders is, but there’s no way I would go there – especially now.” I can clearly see this isn’t the first time she’s thought about this.

“Why not now?” I ask confused.

“Because you’re having a baby with his teammate and we are going to be in each other’s lives forever through little baby Ruin so if things didn’t work out it would be way too awkward.” Wait, she isn’t going to go after Aiden because of me? My baby? I think the baby will bring them closer together in a good way.

“Lyndsey—” I start to argue but she interrupts me.

“Let’s just have fun today okay? No boy talk.” We pull up at a red light so she looks over at me for a second and I can see that the topic alone is weighing on her so I give in.

“Fine. Just know I think you guys would be cute together.” I bite my tongue even though I’m eager to tell her all the reasons she’s wrong. Lyndsey moves on and asks me about what else needs to be done before the baby is born and I go off on a tangent about how unprepared I feel as we drive out of the city.

After about an hour, we pull into the car park and Lyndsey runs to check us in while I check my phone. I promised her I’ll put it away for most of the day so we can focus on relaxing but I’m getting one last look.

I’m glad I did too because Liam has sent me a bunch of pictures of Jack skating with the guys. His smile is wider than I think I’ve ever seen it.

That last picture is everything, Rook sprawled on the ice with Jack standing over him laughing. I can practically hear him through my screen. I love how comfortable he is with Liam and his teammates. For a long time there were no men in his life, and now he gets to have that male influence and I couldn’t have asked for better men.