Emergency Medical Dad

LVIII: october, present

"About me?"

I shake my head, "no, he didn't. Right after I got pregnant with you, he had an accident, and it separated us for a long time. We weren't together for too long beforehand so I thought it was a normal breakup until you came along. We were only ten years older than you are now. We weren't old enough to really handle kids, that's why grandma and grandpa helped so much. I lost track of him over time and then he came back at the beginning of the summer while we were staying with his friends."

Connor puts more pieces into his puzzle, "does that mean that Linda and Joey are my grandparents too?"

"Mhmm."

That gets a halfway smile out of him, the first I've seen in weeks, "so we're seeing him tomorrow."

"Yeah," I nod.

"And he's my Dad."

"Yeah."

"And he does want to see us."

"Yes, always," I bend over and kiss his head. "Are you ready to see him?"

He nods enthusiastically, a full smile on his face for the first time in weeks.

He makes it another ten minutes before passing out on my lap. After a half hour of stroking his hair and reading on my phone, I shift his head off my lap and onto a pillow because my leg is falling asleep. It's right around the time that Jorgen tells me they've landed.

Then its play by play.

They're getting on the bus they're using while they're here.

They're heading out to the hotel.

They're in the middle of the before-bed debrief and snack.

He tells me to put on my shoes and get in the car, then hits me almost five minutes afterward with a text that says nothing but alright, come get me.

The hotel is one of the nicer ones in the city, but I suppose if the NHL is paying for it, they can afford a nice hotel.

I find a rather scary parking spot in a parking garage a block down from it and text him where I am.

The sky is a foggy sort of dark, light pollution mixing with the clouds over the city, wind whipping them along.

I keep my hands in my pockets, fully alert at my surroundings, slipping along the sidewalk, head halfway down, halfway up as the individual concrete slabs pass under my feet, marks and old gum smashed into the grain.

The sidewalk is cracked here only twice, a stark difference from the other places I've been this summer.

My phone buzzes again in my pocket. My heart rate is so high I can't quite focus on anything.

Then, "Jessie!"

My head shoots up, spotting Jorgen just a few feet away from me, big and broad and dressed in all black, people skirting off to his either side to avoid being in his way. I'm stifled with half relief and half... attraction. He's almost entirely enticing standing there, something I've never experienced with him before. Normally he's just Jorgen, who I like a lot, not Jorgen who I like a lot. But he's still Jorgen, back to front, a massive, looming, beautiful beacon of light in the last six weeks without him. Dark hair, dark tan, dark eyes, light light light heart.

"Jay." I blurt, breaking into a jog, anticipating the feeling before I hit him, the warmth and his heavy arms. When it happens, it's better than anything I could've imagined, the way his presence eats away at the tension in my body, more than just any hug would.