"She likes everything. Yesterday she tried to eat a sock."
"A clean sock?"
"Does it matter?"
He grins, feeding Harper more rice while I work on the lo mein. This—eating takeout on the floor with Tylerwhile Harper tries new foods and makes hilarious faces—this is everything I didn't know I wanted.
"Tell me more about practice," I say. "About the team."
Tyler leans back against the couch, Harper now in his lap, trying to grab his chopsticks. "Danny sits with me at lunch now. Like, regularly. We actually talk about hockey, about plays, about the game. Not just small talk."
"That's good."
"And some of the first-line guys, Carter and Williams, have been acknowledging my assists during games. Saying “good job,” and asking what I saw on certain plays." He's still got that slightly disbelieving tone, like he can't quite accept this is real. "Coach pulled me aside yesterday to talk about moving me to the first power play unit."
"Tyler, that's amazing."
"Yeah. It is." He's quiet for a second, watching Harper try to grab a noodle. "I keep wanting to say it's all because of what you did. And it isn't. Not all of it."
"Tyler—"
"Hear me out." He looks up at me. "Coach had documentation on Reaper he'd been keeping for months and never used. Carter and Williams already thought Reaper was running shit badly—they told me as much in the locker room the morning after. They just weren't going to be the ones to say it. The crack was already there. You—and then me, in his stall—we leaned on it hard enough that it actually opened up. But the crack was there before either of us got near it."
"So you're saying I committed assault for nothing?"
"I'm saying you did the unthinkable thing. And then I did the thing I should have been doing since October. And both of those mattered, but I don't get to hand you all the credit for it, and you don't get to hand it back to me. It was—all of it. Coach. The team. You. Me. The thing that finally gave."
He pauses and looks at me carefully.
“Coach lifted the ban today.”
The words hit before I fully process them. “What?”
“He said the policy was a mistake and that you’re welcome back at the arena effective immediately. He’s having operations issue a family-section credential by the end of the week.”
“So… he apologized for barring me?”
Tyler shrugs. “Not in so many words. He said something about how the original decision was ‘informed by a culture this team is no longer prioritizing.’ Which is corporate speak forwe got it wrong.’”
“Hm.”
“I told him I’d pass on the news. It’s up to you whether you want to come back or not.”
I think about it. Two weeks ago, I walked into that arena, did what I did, and walked out under an indefinite ban. The thought of going back makes my stomach tighten. But the thought of Tyler scoring a goal and looking up to find me in the family section—looking up and findingusthere, me and Harper—that does something else entirely.
“I’ll think about it,” I say eventually.
He grins. “That’s all I’m asking.”
We go back to the lo mein, and Harper steals a noodle she absolutely should not be eating, and I realize as I'm pulling it gently out of her mouth that this is the first time Tyler has refused to credit me for something in months, and I love him for it.
We finish dinner, and I take Harper upstairs for her bath while Tyler cleans up. By the time I get her in pajamas and bring her back down, he's got the living room tidied and a bottle warming. We do Harper's bedtime routine together like we always do now—Tyler holds her while I read a story, then I hold her while he gives her the bottle, then we both stand in the nursery doorway watching her fight sleep in her crib.
"She's getting so big," Tyler murmurs.
"She’s going to be nine months old soon."
"Oh, wow." He sounds amazed. "Feels like yesterday she showed up on my doorstep."