Page 100 of Ruin The Friendship
We’re back in the infant room, where two young women are feeding the babies their bottles. When they see Fletcher, their eyes immediately widen. One of them is slack-jawed.
He waves. “Hi.”
“You’re Fletcher Graff,” one of the women says.
“Yep. Nice to meet you.”
I withhold my irritation. It’s not his fault he gets so much attention in random places. He’s a pro-hockey player and the captain of his team. Of course, people are going to recognize him.
Tina narrows her eyes at the girl and turns back to us. “Sorry about that. Now, down the hall here, we have our group play area.”
We follow her, and Fletcher subtly leans down to whisper in my ear. “Are you alright?”
I shrug. I’m definitely better now that he’s here, but I can’t stop the itchy feeling just below my skin. “I’ll tell you later.”
Fletcher accepts my answer, squeezing my hand as we listen to what Tina has to say about their facility.
All the kids look happy, so why can’t I shake this feeling?
Ten minutes later, we finish the tour, and Tina waves goodbye as we walk out the door. She gave me some paperwork and information, with lots of reminders to call as soon as possible if I want to lock in the August opening.
Fletcher drags me out to his car, which he thankfully left running. I walked here from my work, and the thought of walking the two blocks back to my car right now seems like too much to handle.
I get into the passenger seat, pull my seatbelt on, and rest my head against the headrest.
“I didn’t like it there,” Fletcher says immediately after he starts driving away.
A long sigh escapes my lips as my eyes burn with tears. “I didn’t either. I couldn’t place it, but something was off.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t just me.”
“It wasn’t.” I take a wobbly breath as I try to stop the tears from falling down my cheeks. “I don’t know what else to do, though. Nothing else has any availability, and I can’t afford to go part-time at work. Plus, I’d lose my health insurance.”
My lip trembles as Fletcher pulls up next to my car in my work parking lot.
“Hey,” Fletcher croons, leaning over and swiping a tear from my cheek. “If you didn’t feel comfortable there, you wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving our baby there. No one is going to fault you for that. It makes you a good mom, with great instincts.”
I turn away, embarrassed to be crying over this. “That doesn’t solve the problem.”
“No, but what if I had a solution?”
My head shifts over to look back at him. “What solution?”
“There’s a daycare at the arena. You’ll be off for most of the summer, right?”
“Depending on when she’s born, yeah. I’d be off until probably the beginning of August. I have some extra PTO I could use to be off another week or two, maybe.” I furrow my brows. “What are you suggesting?”
“Well, what if we look into the daycare the team provides? A ton of the guys use it. I could reach out to some of them, or we could get a hold of some of the WAGs to see if they like it. I could drop her off when I have practices, and if I’m not working, I can stay with her.”
“What about when you have games?”
“The daycare is still available. It’s year-round, all day, every weekday.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I’ve been looking into our benefits a bit more in the last few weeks.” Fletcher shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“You have?”
