Just You and Me, Kid

“Thank you for the flowers!” Beth sent him a text with a picture of her holding a rose and showing off her baby bump. It made Kasperi sick every time she sent him a new picture, showing the progress of the baby.

“Flowers?” Kasperi hadn’t sent her flowers. He hadn’t even noticed it was Valentine’s Day, and if he had, sending Beth flowers would not have been high on his to-do list.

“The roses, dummy. You even signed the card:” she sent another picture of the card attached to the flowers. To Kasperi’s surprise, it read ‘Happy Valentine’s Day Beth! <3 Kasperi!’ And it looked awfully like his handwriting.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, even though he had no idea who had sent them. This thought troubled him more than he thought it should, and that night he found himself heading out to a bar after the game. He hadn’t been out with his friends lately, and they knew something was up. Most of them assumed he had changed now that he’d played in the NHL, that maybe he thought he was too good for them. However, Kasperi’s reason was almost the opposite. Yes, he had changed in the NHL, but not the way they were thinking. He couldn’t stand to be around his friends, so young and carefree, the way he should be. He didn’t feel like a part of that group any more, so he kept to himself.

But that night, he couldn’t help running into one of his old mates.

“Hey Kassu,” Luukas said as he slipped into the seat next to him at the bar. “How have you been?”

“Okay, I guess. You?” Kasperi took another sip of his drink, even though he was already well past tipsy and headed toward drunk faster than he should be.

“Things have been good with school and life, I can’t complain.” Luukas paused and looked like he was trying to recall something. “I went to a Kalpa game last month and I didn’t see you playing, were you injured?”

“I, uh, no,” If he had been sober, Kasperi would have lied. But his brain was not thinking very quickly.

“And Antti heard you were playing on the fourth line now, so I thought maybe you had been injured or something,” Luukas added. He was concerned for his friend, even though they hadn’t seen each other lately.

“No, I just haven’t been playing well.”

Kasperi didn’t say anything else, so Luukas changed the subject. “Are you trying to pick up a girl tonight? I bet there are dozens of girls here looking for guys like you.”

“No, I’m just getting a drink.” Getting drunk, rather.

Luukas had never heard Kasperi turn down the chance to hit on a girl. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Kasperi took a deep breath and finished his drink. “No, not really. There was a girl, back in Pittsburgh-”
“Oh, I see,” Luukas nodded and understood where Kasperi was going.

“-and I may have knocked her up.”

Luukas stopped smiling. “What?” That was not what he had expected Kasperi to say.

“Yup. She’s pregnant. And the worst part is, I think I’m in love with her sister. But her sister is engaged to…..someone else,” Kasperi closed his eyes and rubbed his head. He finally said it out loud to someone, yet he didn’t feel any better. He thought it would feel like a weight being lifted off his shoulders, instead, he felt sick. Or perhaps he felt sick from drinking too much. He got up and stumbled outside before vomiting behind a bush. Luukas made sure he got in a cab, and not knowing where he lived now, he sent him to his parents house.

Kasperi stumbled to bed, ignoring his mother’s questions about what he was doing here.
He was about to fall asleep when he got a text from the last person he expected.

‘You’re welcome ; )’

It was from Hannah. His head was swimming and nothing made sense, but he replied with a question mark.

‘The flowers….’

Hannah sent the flowers? But why? He laughed; this was the first good thing to happen to him in a long time; he actually thought he might cry. ‘Thanks.’

‘I did it more for her than you. She’s jealous that Olli and I are engaged and you and she aren’t (not that you should marry her! Please don’t)’

He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before, but now Beth’s hinting seemed obvious. Of course she would want to get married. To Beth, if a guy knocks a girl up, he has to ‘do the right thing’ and marry her.

Kasperi was not going to do that. He didn’t even know if it was his or not, although he was starting to lose hope that it wasn’t. He drifted off into a drunken, fitful, sleep and dreamed about Hannah and Olli’s wedding being crashed by Beth.


Kasperi awoke the next morning with a pounding headache, and the sound of his father talking to him.

“What is this! Kasperi, this had better not be what it looks like!” Sami anxiously looked at the image on his son’s phone. Kasperi blinked a few times and slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Sami’s face, drawn with lines of anger and concern. Kasperi’s eyes fell to the object in his hand: his phone, displaying Beth’s latest ultrasound. She’d sent him the picture yesterday when he was at the bar, and in his drunkenness, he accidentally set it as his lock screen. He rolled over and put his pillow over his head, hoping that he was still asleep.

“Kassu, please, we can talk about this,” his dad sat next to him on the bed and placed a hand on his back. “I’m not mad, and I haven’t told your mother. I just want to help you.”

Kasperi groaned and reluctantly removed the pillow from his head. “That’s Beth.”

Sami couldn’t remember Kasperi mentioning a Beth before. There was a Hannah, but not a Beth.

“And, is this...a baby?” Sami asked, his voice shaking.

“No, it’s an alien,” Kasperi retorted sarcastically and sat up to look at his dad, seeing his worried expression for the first time. “Um, yeah, it’s a baby, and it’s possibly mine, I don’t know. She won’t take a paternity test, so I won’t know until it’s born.”

It was silent for a moment as Sami took in this information. It came as a shock; this was never something he had expected from his son. “That explains why you’ve been playing so bad. If you’d said something I could have given you time off, or-”

“Thanks, but I really don’t want too many people knowing about this until I know for sure it’s mine.”

Sami nodded. “Okay. But can you at least tell me who she is? How do you know she isn’t using you?”

“She’s...Olli Maatta’s fiance’s sister.” He couldn’t bring himself to say she was Hannah’s sister, or even Hannah’s name. “And it wasn’t a one time thing, it was pretty much the entire time I was staying with Olli. We weren’t dating or anything, although she thinks we are, it just kind of happened.”

Sami looked down at the image on his sons phone again. After having four children he was pretty familiar with a sonogram image. “So she’s about four, five months?”

Kasperi shrugged, he wasn’t keeping track. “She’s due in early July, so yeah, I guess. She’s positive it’s a girl, so she hasn’t bothered to find out the gender. I guess everything is going to be a surprise.”

“Son, if you need anything…” Sami didn’t know what to say. He knew Kasperi could be a bit of a ladies man, but he never expected this. Not now, when he was so young and his career was just beginning.

Notes

We need your help! We're trying to decide the gender and name of Beth's child!! (Whether it's his or not, she's still having a baby)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14kpKeZXUxES43HBmrrCl-M3aNY50QGI4CEtA1taENWY/viewform
Check out this short questionnaire, and let us know your ideas!!
Thank you!!!

Check out the parallel chapter of Film Strips and Hockey Sticks: http://www.hockeyfanfiction.com/Story/37828/Film-Strips-and-Hockey-Sticks/34/