Center Ice

Chapter 1

"Honestly, Maria, I can't thank you enough." You sighed, phone pinched between your ear and shoulder. You were – stupidly - trying to balance the phone, without hanging it up with your chin, and smooth out the small comforter on your son's little, twin size bed at the same time. "You're honestly my savior."

Maria Hill was a goddamn saint.

Honestly.

You knew she didn't approve of you dating her son, at first, and she definitely didn't approve of the two of you having a child so young. You were both still in college, unmarried, and barely dating before you'd had a little incident involving going on vacation, forgetting your birth control, screwing up the dose schedule, and not using a condom. You'd barely begun your relationship, still in the honeymoon stage, before getting a call from your doctor that your fatigue was not from low vitamin D... but a pregnancy.

Not that you'd have your life turn out any differently, when it came to your son.

You loved that little butthead more than anything on the planet earth. Ezra James Fury – who preferred to be called 'Ez' – was the spunkiest little six year old you've ever met, and took after his dad so much... You'd made the perfect choice to name him after his father.

The accident was something that you'd made sure to talk about, when Ez was old enough to understand what 'death' meant. Nobody prepared you for the questions that you'd started to receive from your son, when he'd gone to daycare and noticed that all the other kids had their daddies... where was his?

That was one of the hardest days in your parenting, to date. You'd had to explain to your – at the time, four years old – son that his daddy and grandpa were in a car accident and lost their lives. That Ez wasn't going to get to meet his daddy until he joined him in the afterlife.

Fucking heartbreaking.

Maria was great, though, and reassured you that you'd done the right thing by telling Ez about his father. Though you'd only gotten to visit her once or twice a year, after her grandson was born, she was a huge help. You didn't have your parents, after drugs and money had ripped your family apart, so having her as a guide was a godsend.

Then, Ez had gotten the flu.

You'd already taken too much time off at your job, due to your own sickness and Ez's strep throat incident, but you'd been forced to call into work – dealing with a vomiting child, high fever, and an Emergency Room visit. Your job wasn't pleased with your attendance, claiming that you were unreliable and that they had to fire you.

Not something you'd wanted to hear over the phone, while your son was strapped to an IV and crying about his stomach aching.

That job was your only source of income. You had too many bills not to have that job. You had rent, car insurance, health insurance, car payments, phone payments, and all the other bullshit payments that you could barely afford.

Plus, you were going to owe a fuck ton of money, after Ez's short stay in the hospital...

You were basically fucked.

Thanks for nothing, American Healthcare.

After voicing your concerns to Maria, she'd made you an offer that was too good to pass up: Come live with her – moving from the coast of California, to central Minnesota – and get back on your feet. She owned a bar, had stable income, had an empty house, and two spare bedrooms that were collecting dust.

She wasn't even going to charge you rent.

It was too sweet of an offer to pass up.

So, here you were... Two weeks into living in the coldest fucking weather you'd ever felt in your life – and it wasn't even fucking winter, yet – and finally unpacked.