Break Noses, Not Hearts • andrei svechnikov

XVIII

Before Andrei and I boarded our flight to Moscow Saturday afternoon and after I had my twenty week ultrasound scan (yes, the baby is confirmed to be a boy), we decided to have a little gender reveal party because it gave the opportunity for us to say goodbye to America for a month and to announce to his teammates that we were expecting a baby soon.

A couple days ago I was handing out invitations to the party at the team's dinner hosted at Jordan Staal's house for an end-of-the-year party before everyone went back home.

"What's this?" asked Pyotr after I handed him the sealed envelope with the invitation in it. Andrei was nowhere to be found, so I used this as the perfect opportunity to get one-on-one with his best friend.

He ripped the paper and pulled the invitation out. His eyes widened as he read the invitation. He showed it to me with a surprised look on his face, which had a picture of Andrei and I facing the camera both holding my ultrasound pictures from the first time we found out I was pregnant. "You're pregnant?" he asked me.

I nodded my head. "Twenty weeks," I responded.

"Wow," he said with awe. "Andrei didn't tell me."

I chuckled. "That's kind of the point. We've only told our parents so far. Knowing that you're best friends with Andrei, I thought you'd be the first person I'd tell," I told him with a smile on my face.

"Does anyone else know?" he asked as he looked around the open room with only Jesperi and his girlfriend, as well as Martin and Nikki.

I shook my head. "I'm handing these out. Everyone will be so shocked," I said.

Pyotr giggled. "Well, now that you mention it, your stomach is quite big, but I thought you've just been eating more," he told me, then I noticed that Andrei was coming back from whatever he was doing.

"Sorry, I was talking with Sebastian about something. Do you need help handing these out?" Andrei asked as he took a few of the enclosed invitations in my hands.

I shrugged. "I dunno, do I?" I chuckled.

Andrei rolled his eyes, then looked at Pyotr, who was just smirking at him.

"What's that look for?" he asked the Russian goaltender.

Pyotr giggled again. "Got a little too excited?" he asked him.

Andrei could help but laugh. His face reddened. "Yeah, and I'm paying the price for it. Shouldn't have let her take the condom off," he responded.

I rolled my eyes. "Bullshit. You wanted it off," I retorted.

Andrei looked back at me and chuckled. "Anyways, I'm gonna hand these out," he said, then walked away from us to hand out his bunch of invitations.

A couple days have past, and now we were in our backyard with those who we invited to the party. Most of the team came, along with the coaches, and our families and friends.

Tatum nudged me in the elbow. I looked at her.

"So, you didn't care to tell me you were pregnant?" she asked me before taking a sip of the apple juice we provided.

I shrugged with a smile on my face. "We didn't tell anyone but our parents until a week ago. Everyone's been saying the same thing: 'Wait, you're pregnant?' Oh my God," I chuckled.

She laughed. She was wearing a pink dress with a black, leather jacket and some corked sandals. "Well, yeah! You tell everyone twenty weeks after you were conceived, which practically is halfway through your pregnancy," she responded.

Andrei came over with Austin, both of whom were wearing a blue piece of clothing. They were laughing up a storm as they came over to their respective girlfriend and now fiancée.