#us ntdp

“babe,” you called, e/c eyes glancing down towards the baby camera on your phone. watching as laela had started to stir. “can you make sure to stir this, please?” right away he hummed, waving a hand at you as he pressed his lips against stella’s chubby cheeks. another high pitched squeal falling from her lips. her little fingers trying to push herself away from his body as she laughed. “and, babe?” his blue eyes were solely focused on your after he noticed how firm your voice was. “no more ice cream. stella’s already had a lot since she spent all day with your mom, and you.” 

his hands shot up in defense of himself, “hey! i can give my daughter as much ice cream as she wants to eat. it’s only fair seeing as i give you all the ice cream you could want, love.” you let out an amused hum before rolling your eyes at him. heading in the direction of the stairs to go up the nursery. “don’t worry, stell bell won’t get anymore ice cream from me. just go and get laela, i wanna spend time with all of my girls.” 

“so demanding,” you teased, blowing a quick kiss over to stella. her brown curls bouncing out of the pig tails jack had given her this morning as she laughed with delight. happy to get any sort of affecting from either of her parents. “i’ll be right back, my loves.” with that you were disappearing up the stairs. leaving the two peas-in-a-pod in a fit of laugh together. you opened the closed door, peaking your head in to see that your baby was slowly starting to wake up. “hi laela, who’s my sweet girl?” you cooed in a baby voice. you carefully picked up your daughter that actually looked like a perfect mix of you and jack. “let’s get your diaper changed, sweet girl, then we’ll go see daddy and sissy? how does that sound?” right away she was trying to make a form of communication at the mention of them. 

all while downstairs jack had stella peering up the stairs as a look out. “is mommy in laela’s room yet, stel?” he asked while looking back at her from over his shoulder. 

“mommy’s in waewa’s woom, dada!” she answered, quickly making her way back to your husband. “ice cweam now?” the blue eyed girl added on once her arms were wrapped around her father’s legs. chin resting on his calf to look up at him. 

jack hummed while smiling down at her, “ice cream now, baby.” in his one hand he held the vanilla ice cream since it was his favorite, and if something was jack’s favorite it was stella’s as well. in the other he bent over to pick up the girl. “now what do we tell mommy?” he practiced, making sure to cover his bases so stella didn’t accidentally get herself or him in trouble. 

“we didn’t have ice cweam, mommy!” she replied as if she was trained to, and she was. the start center set your daughter down so she was sitting on top of the island, making sure to stand right in front of her so she didn’t fall off. “spwoon daddy! spoon!” she cheered, hands reaching towards the ice cream container he had also set down on the quartz countertops. 

laughing he nodded his head, “i’m getting one, princess. see?” he pulled out the silver spoon to show it to her. “now let’s dig into this ice cream shall we?” 

“you know, laela, it's a miracle that you didn’t wake up during your nap,” you stated to your baby. already well aware that you wouldn’t get an answer from her. “normally you wake up crying if you have a dirty diaper.” as you spoke you finished wrapping the filled diaper to throw it in the diaper genie. the whole time she had a gummy smile on her cute little face. hands flailing in the air as she waited for you finished giving her a clean diaper. “don’t worry laela, you’ll be in my arms in a couple of seconds.” with that you made sure that both tabs were stuck down before buttoning her onesie back up. pulling her pants on. “let go see daddy,” you smiled while picking her up. 

the small baby giggle she let out was music to your ears. both laela and stella’s laughs had to be your favorite sounds. you held on to laela tightly, her head resting right on your shoulder meaning she was hungry, while you walked down the stairs. “don’t worry my sweet girl i’ll feed you after i get dinner done.” you kissed her forehead, just in time to hear jack’s voice again.

“one more bite, stell bell.” your mouth dropped open as your feet hit the hardwood flooring, watching as your husband stuck the metal spoon into her mouth. stella sucking all of the vanilla ice cream off of it. 

walking into the kitchen you gasped, “what are you guys eating?” 

stella’s pretty blue eyes went wide as she looked over at her dad, “we didn’t have ice cweam, mommy!” she recited, even though it was bluntly obvious that she had been eating ice cream. the melted dessert lined the corner of her mouth, and dripped down on to both her and jack’s shirts. 

“ice cream,” jack answered with a wide smile, before he put the lid back on the container. 

with your free hand you ran your hand over your face, “i told you no more ice cream before dinner,” you chastised, walking to check on the sauce your husband was supposed to tend to. and right away it was clear that he didn’t. sighing you stirred the white sauce with the wooden spoon before looking back to the rule breakers. laela giggling the entire time from how much you were spinning around. 

“she just wanted one more bite, y/n/n,” jack drawled, trying his hardest to get you to crack a smile. 

right away you saw stella’s bottom lip tremble, afraid she had gotten in trouble with you. “i’m sorry daddy!” she exclaimed, ready to start crying as the crocodile tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. 

“hey shh, it’s okay sweetheart. it’s okay, stell bell,” he answered, quickly pressing kisses all over her face. trying to get her to smile. he then looked back over at you and laeal, nodding over towards your oldest who wasn’t smiling yet. 

fixing your hold on laela you walked the short distance to the island to stand next to jack, his one arm immediately going to wrap around your waist to pull you and your daughter into him. “it’s okay, my love,” you mumbled, stella slowly looking up towards your eyes. “i’m not mad at you stella jane.” as soon as you had said that she was smiling up at you. a toothy grin really. “but i am mad at you, jack rowden,” you added, turning your body so you were facing the hockey player.

his mouth fell open as stella had started to laugh. jack’s blue eyes darted between all three of his girls, his two daughters laughter filling his ears, while you gave him a pointed look. “daddy’s in trouble!” stella called, making her little sister clap her hands together to cheer. 

“why am i in trouble, sweets? i didn’t do anything wrong!” jack exclaimed, his arm around your waist tightening. “i was just trying to make our daughter happy!” 

you gave him a tight lipped smile before shrugging your shoulders. “maybe you’ll remember while i go clean up stella, and you finish dinner,” you suggested. “come on stella girl, laela and i are gonna go clean your pretty face, so daddy can finish our dinner.” 

“you just want to see me shirtless,” he cut off, eyes still closed shut. his arms snaking back around your body as he nuzzled his head further into you chest. “i don’t wanna take it off because then i just have to put it back on before we leave for dinner with my family, and i’m too lazy to do that y/n/n,” spencer then mumbled. 

letting out a sigh you shook your head at how ridiculous he was. too lazy to even take his shirt off and put it back on, when you had spent the day doing nothing. going into the pool with his sisters and then showering before you climbed into his bed to cuddle before leaving for the dinner reservations you and his family had. “why didn’t you just leave it off after we showered, spence?” you then asked, hands running down the cotton fabric of his polo. “i still have to put my dress on.” 

“i’m lazy,” he repeated, lifting his head up before turning it to rest his left cheek on your chest instead of right. “now i’m gonna take a nap because i’m tired y/n/n. wake me up please?” his eyes opened just so he could flash you his puppy dog eyes, the same ones he’s gotten you to give into since you were three years olds. 

humming you pressed a short kiss to his lips, “i’ll wake you up spencey. promise.” with that he closed his eyes once more before brushing his nose against the fabric of the usa hockey sweatshirt you had thrown on after showering. your hands were still running up and down his back while your focus was on the movie. once spencer’s breathing evened out you let your hands curl around the fabric of his shit, untucking it from his shorts. 

biting your lip you glanced down to see that he was still asleep before you let your fingers start to drag over the skin of his lower back, careful to not hit any of his stretch marks not knowing if he was actually asleep yet or not. after a couple more minutes you finally let your fingers start to follow the path that his stretch marks left on his lower back, and right away you could hear spencer’s breathing hitch, and goosebumps litter his skin even though it was the middle of summer. “y/n/n, what are you doing?” he asked in a raspy voice. sleep still evident in his voice, eyes not even opening while he spoke. 

“n-nothing spencey, just go back to bed baby,” you answered, lying right through your teeth. your fingers staying frozen in their place, praying that he didn’t notice where you had them resting on his stretch marks. 

when he didn’t answer you let your body relax before letting your pointer finger start tracing over the divited skin once more, and that’s when spencer’s eyes snapped open. “why are you touching my stretch marks?” he asked, yanking his body away from yours faster then he ever had in his life. he sat back on his heels giving you the chance to sit up and rest back against the headboard. “y/n,” he called, your eyes looking up from your hands to meet his blue eyes. 

when you met his gaze you could see just how vulnerable he looked. he didn’t like the stretch marks on his back, or the ones that were even bigger on his thighs from going from skinny and lanky, to muscler and built. “i do it after you fall asleep when you have a bad game, or a tough lose. i dunno, i part of me thinks it helps you sleep better. and i just - i love them spence.” you whispered the last sentence to him, looking up to his eyes through your lashes. “i love how they feel under my finger tips, all the different shapes i can trace while running my fingers over them, how you can barely tell that they're there unless you point them out or show someone. how good they look when you’re tan, like you are now. and most of all i love that they’re part of you spencey.” 

spencer’s tongue darted out to wet his lips while he stared over at you, eyes never leaving yours. “how long have you been doing it? tracing my stretch marks while i sleep,” he answered, left hand reaching over to grab yours. 

“uh, probably since you first got them spence. i don’t remember totally, but it’s been awhile,” you explained. “i hated not being able to when you were in michigan, but then i realized it would be okay because i’d get to do it for the rest of my life while we’re in boston, and then when you played in the nhl.” 

his head slowly nodded as he took it all in, trying to process the fact that something he was so self conscious about had been touched by you for probably the last six years. he was more self conscious about his, then you were about yours. “well, uh,” as he stumbled over his words you braced yourself for the ones saying he wanted you to stop, only they never came. “i don’t want you to stop love.” 

“if that’s what you want spence, i promise you i won’t.” 

-

you let out a sigh as you walked out of the bathroom with your towel wrapped around your body, one around your head for your hair. your e/c were glued to spencer’s body that was sprawled out on your shared bed. laying on his stomach while scrolling through his phone. probably looking for the highlights of the game, or lack of in bc’s case. the only highlights that resulted from your boyfriend’s team were the ones of the amazing saves he had, but in his mind those couldn’t make up for the fact he let three soft goals in. 

“hey bub,” you called, his gaze not moving from off of his phone. “i left the light on and stuff in case you wanted to shower again, clear your head my love.” 

“‘m fine,” he answered, and the way his shoulders teased gave away that he was in fact not fine. shaking your head you walked back over to flip the light of the ensuite off before padding over to the messy bed. a result of a pregame nap, and the scramble for spencer to get his game day suit on and out the door of your guys apartment without being late to the rink. carefully you climbed up to sit down next to spencer’s right hip, resting on your heels. when he felt the head dip his head turn to look at you, but not before paused the twitter video to turn and look back at you. “y/n/n what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, eyes not even raking over your towel covered figure. 

you shrugged your shoulders before tucking your towel to make sure it would stay up, then reaching up to pull your hair out of its towel. “spencey it’s okay to not be okay after that game, my love. it was a rough one, and you didn’t ha-” 

“i let three soft goals in against a team we beat two times last year,” he snapped back, not at you, but at the fact he let the three goals in. also the fact that he tried to sit and argue with the ref for three minutes over a goal that was clear as day a goal, only stopping when they told him he’d get a penalty if he kept it up. “and because of it we’re going to drop from the number ranking even though we beat them five rip last night.” 

biting your lip you nodded your head, eyes looking everywhere other than his. not being able to stand the pain he held ini his blue ones. that’s when your eyes landed on his stretch marks. first you let your hands rest on his lower back, pinky finger running over the band of his sweats. “i wish i knew what to tell you spence, i just don’t know what to say bub. but i think i have something that might help you relax.” 

before he could get a word out your were leaning over and pressing your lips against the edge of one of his stretch marks, and right away all of the tension released from his body. a small whimper left his lips as you finally pressed a kiss fully against the stretch marks, and that’s when the goosebumps rose on his skin. just like every other time you touched his stretch marks. once you made sure to skin every inch of the marks that littered spencer’s lower back he was grabbing your hand to pull you up to the top of the bed. carefully you crawled up towards the pillows, and as soon as you made yourself comfortable by slouching a little on the headboard spencer’s head was resting against your towel covered abdomen. 

“i dunno what i’d do with you y/n l/n, you talk me down off every ledge after all my bad games,” he whispered, wrapping the rest of his body around yours. his arms hugging your thighs, one hand picking at the fluffy blue towel. “i love you for that, you know?” 

“i hope that isn’t the only thing you love me for spencer knight,” you teased while smiling down at him. “but i love you too bubs, but why don’t you get some sleep okay? you need it my love.” 

alex gives you a nod and then you’re disappearing and pushing past people to find your boyfriend. you search everywhere that you possibly can; you search out in the backyard, you stand around and people watch to see if ryder passes by, but it’s no use. you know there’s absolutely no way he’ll be able to hear his phone so you don’t bother trying to call him, but the handful of text messages you send to him go unread, even 20 minutes later when he’s normally a quick replier. 

you finally resort to searching through rooms. he could be getting some space, he could be talking to one of his friends or teammates, you try to convince yourself to think of happier thoughts, but you can’t help the negative ones that snake their way in. he’s just getting space, he’s just getting space.

you sweep the upstairs first, and with no avail you head down to the first floor to continue your search. you go into a few of the rooms, most of which are empty, but the second you walk into the only bedroom on the bottom floor you wish you hadn’t. there’s ryder on top of someone you can’t quite make out, but the thing you can make out? they aren’t doing anything innocent. and the moan of ryder’s name that leaves the girl’s lips can only confirm what’s happening.

the room feels like it’s spinning, and even though you want nothing more than to run from that room your feet are planted on the carpet. you can’t take your eyes away. it’s like your mind is trying to convince you that this isn’t happening, that your boyfriend of two years that you followed to college wasn’t cheating on you. that this was all just a horrible, horrendous, horrific nightmare, and when you wake up ryder will be kissing all over your face to wake you up.

“y/n?” his panicked voice echoes through your ears. you can barely meet his eyes, and when his brain starts to function again he practically levitates off the girl and is yanking his boxers back on. “baby, i can explain.”

“i don’t want you to,” you can barely manage to get it out. “go back to what you were doing, ryder. i just hope you know it means we’re done.”

you can’t stay in there any longer, and even though you would’ve loved to see his reaction, you turn out of the spare bedroom and start to make your way out of the house with tears blurring your vision. you can vaguely hear alex yelling your name out of the crowd but you try to ignore him the best you can. you shove past people before finally making it out the back door and into the backyard. 

“y/n!” you hear as the back door opens and slams shut. “what the hell happened?”

 you walk over to the pool, careful to make sure he doesn’t see your tear stricken face. “go away, alex.”

you sit down on the concrete and dip your feet in the pool. you can hear alex walking up behind you and then he’s sitting down next to you. “you know, you’re funny if you think i’m gonna leave you alone. what kind of best friend would i be?” it feels like a stab to the heart to say it, but alex knows that’s the truth. he’s your best friend, and that’s all he’ll ever be to you.

“i walked in on ryder,” you choke as you say it. you refuse to look over at alex but you can feel his eyes on you. “he was with a girl, and i bet you can guess what was happening.”

“y/n/n,” alex breathes out, his hands going to rest on top of yours. you bite your lip to keep from crying. “i’m so sorry.”

“dont be,” you laugh and the tears eventually start to fall. you pull your hand away from alex to wipe underneath your eyes. “i was the stupid one. i was the one that followed him here. i was the one that was stupid enough to think we’d actually have a future together. i was the one that was hopelessly in love with someone who probably didn’t even love me a fraction of the way i loved him.”

alex can’t even find the words to say. the girl he had been in love with since they were 11 years old finally had her first heartbreak -- and it was with a mutual extremely close friend. alex couldn’t figure out whether he wanted to kill ryder or make him feel horrible for what he did. “y/n he was head over heels in love with you. i don’t know how much he drank to-”

“him drinking doesn’t excuse anything lex,” you scoff, finally turning to face alex. his heart nearly breaks seeing the tears falling down your face.

“i know it doesn’t. i just don’t understand what could possibly possess him to do that, that’s all, y/n/n.” alex wraps his arm around your body and pulls you closer to him. you let your head fall to rest on his shoulder, and alex presses a quick kiss to your forehead that almost goes unnoticed. “i love you, y/n.”

“i love you too, lex,” you croak out. he shushes you and lets you cry on his shoulder, but in reality that’s all you could want. alex had always been an amazing best friend regardless of his feelings for you. he tried to ignore them the best they could, and they never influenced the way he acted around you - for the most part. the only difference is that whenever he said he loved you, there was a whole new meaning. he really meant it.

“i could kill him if you really want,” alex says and it causes you to giggle, a grin spreading across your lips. “see? there’s that smile i love.”

“i don’t know what i want, i just know that i need you here with me,” you whisper, your right hand going to grab his left.