garrett graham ❄︎ good first impression.
pairing – garrett graham x reader summary – garrett graham shows up with sex on his mind and gets introduced to a six-month-old in a duck onesie instead. warnings – established relationship, fluff, garrett holding a baby, domestic softness, suggestive opening, teasing notes from me – just a little blurb based on this ask!! someone give garrett graham a baby immediately. word count – 3.8k
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The thing about Garrett Graham showing up at her apartment with sex clearly, tragically, heroically on his mind was that he didn’t know how to be subtle about it.
He thought he did. He thought turning up in grey sweats and a Briar hockey hoodie with his curls still damp from a shower and that one shoulder leaned into her doorframe counted as casual.
He thought the lazy grin, the lowered voice, the slow drag of his eyes down her body before he even got a full hello out, were all normal boyfriend behaviours and not, in fact, the sort of entrance that made her immediately aware of every inch of her own skin beneath leggings and an old sweatshirt with spit-up already drying near the shoulder.
He had texted twenty minutes ago. you home?
She had said yes.
He had sent back, good.
Which, in Garrett language, meant one of two things. Either he was hungry and about to arrive with enough takeout for three people, or he was in one of those post-practice moods where his body had not quite left the ice yet and all that leftover adrenaline needed somewhere to go.
Judging by the way he looked at her when she opened the door, hair messy, mouth curved, one hand already reaching for her waist like the rest of the evening had been mutually agreed upon by fate and grey sweatpants, it was very much the second.
“Hey, baby,” he said, warm and low, stepping inside before she could fully decide whether to warn him.
“Hi,” she said, and shifted the baby higher on her hip.
Garrett’s hand stopped halfway to her waist. His eyes dropped. For one perfect second, the great Garrett Graham, Briar’s captain, top-line centre, walking highlight reel, man who could read a defender’s shoulder from half a rink away and decide how to ruin his life in under two seconds, stared at the tiny six-month-old baby in her arms with the blank, careful horror of someone who had walked into an exam for the wrong subject.
The baby stared back. She had one fist shoved in her mouth, cheeks round and flushed from her bottle, dark lashes blinking slow and judgmental like she, too, had expected better situational awareness from him.
Garrett’s gaze flicked from the baby to her face. Then back to the baby. Then back to her. “Uh,” he said.
She bit the inside of her cheek.
His brows pulled together. “Did I… miss something?”
That broke her. A laugh came out before she could make it pretty, bright and helpless enough that Pippa startled, then smiled around her wet little fist like laughter was a game she had just invented and expected royalties from.
“No, idiot.” She bounced the baby once when Pippa’s legs kicked happily against her stomach. “This is my niece. Pippa.”
Garrett blinked. “Your niece.”
“Yes.”
“Right.” He nodded too many times, visibly reorganising the entire evening in his head. The door clicked shut behind him with his heel. “Yeah. Obviously. I knew that.”
“You absolutely didn’t.”
“I did.” His eyes dropped to Pippa again, his mouth doing something strange, not quite a grin yet, like he was afraid any sudden facial expression might commit him to childcare. “I just didn’t know she was gonna be… here.”
“She lives a very busy life.”
“Looks like it.” He leaned a little closer, cautious in a way she had literally never seen from him. Garrett Graham had taken hits from men built like refrigerators and grinned blood off his teeth. But faced with one damp, sleepy baby in a yellow onesie covered in tiny ducks, he suddenly looked like he was approaching an unexploded device. “Hi, Pippa,” he said, voice dropping into this awkward, overly polite register. “Nice to… meet you.”
Pippa took her fist out of her mouth with a soft pop and blew a bubble at him.
Garrett’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah. Cool.”
She laughed again, softer this time, because he looked so stupidly sincere about the whole thing. “Garrett, she’s a baby.”
“Okay, sorry I’m being respectful.” He shot her a look, then glanced back at Pippa, who had started patting her own chest with one open palm like she was applauding the conversation. “I don’t know her yet. I’m making a good first impression.”
“You came over to hook up and now you’re networking with an infant.”
“I’m versatile.”
“You’re scared.”
His head snapped up. “I’m not scared.”
“Babe.”
“I’m not.” He straightened a little, like the accusation had challenged his captaincy. “I’m just being careful. She’s tiny.”
Pippa made a happy little shriek at the exact same moment, startling herself so badly her eyes went huge. Garrett froze. She immediately shoved her fist back into her mouth and drooled down her wrist with the calm recovery of someone who had no idea she had just almost sent a six-foot-two hockey player into cardiac arrest.
Her whole chest went warm. Garrett standing in her entryway, still built for sex and hockey, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands because there was a baby in the room and the baby was looking at him like he might be interesting if he proved himself.
She shifted Pippa higher, the baby’s warm little body settling against her side, one socked foot digging into her thigh. “My sister’s anniversary dinner ran late. She asked if I could take her for a few hours.”
Garrett nodded, still watching Pippa like she might evolve in real time. “Right. Cool. Yeah. That’s cool.”
“You can go, you know,” she said, amused, because it was easier than admitting how weirdly sweet he looked standing there trying to adjust. “I know this probably isn’t what you had planned.”
His eyes lifted to hers at once, and the grin finally arrived, crooked and familiar and much easier to recognise. “Depends. Is she gonna be here the whole time?”
She stared at him. He lifted both hands. “I meant for hanging out. Jesus. Don’t look at me like that.”
“You had exactly one thought when you walked in.”
“I’m a man of focus.”
“You’re a man of grey sweatpants and bad timing.”
His grin widened. “You noticed the sweatpants.”
“I have eyes.”
He sucked at his bottom lip. “Good ones.”
“Don’t flirt with me in front of my niece.”
“She doesn’t know.”
Pippa squealed again, louder this time, and slapped her hand against the front of her sweatshirt hard enough to leave a damp little print.
Garrett looked at her. “Okay, maybe she knows.”
“She’s very advanced.”
“Clearly.”
She moved toward the living room, and Garrett followed, slower than usual, his bag dropped near the door, hands shoved into the front pocket of his hoodie like he did not trust them unsupervised. Her apartment had been fully taken over in the last hour by things that were not hers.
A soft blanket on the rug. A half-collapsed baby gym with dangling animals in colours nature had never intended. A bottle cooling on the coffee table. A diaper bag open on the couch, packed with enough wipes, tiny clothes, and unidentified pastel objects to suggest Pippa was planning a weekend away rather than a three-hour visit.
Garrett stopped beside the play mat and looked down at it. “She comes with gear.”
“She does.”
Pippa watched him over her fist, drool shining on her chin. Garrett watched her back. His mouth twitched. “She’s kind of staring me down.”
“She’s deciding if she likes you.”
“Important process. I respect it.”
“She usually likes everyone.”
His head turned toward her, offended. “Don’t say that. I wanna earn it.”
That got her again, the laugh catching lower this time, softer around the edges. She set Pippa down carefully on the blanket, one hand supporting the back of her head until she was settled on her tummy. Pippa made a small grunt of effort, immediately kicked both legs, and then began the serious business of trying to eat a cloth giraffe.
Garrett crouched beside the mat, forearms resting loosely on his knees, the size of him absurd next to all that baby softness. Big hands. Broad shoulders. Hoodie stretched over muscle. Hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked like someone had dropped a golden retriever into a nursery and told it to act natural.
Pippa lifted her head, saw him closer, and smiled so wide her whole face folded into it. Garrett went still. “Oh,” he said, quieter.
She felt the sound more than heard it, tucked under the faint hum of the dishwasher and the cartoonish crinkle of the giraffe toy. His face had changed. His eyes had gone a little softer, caught on this tiny person who had decided that he wasn’t a threat and maybe even funny-looking enough to enjoy.
“She smiled at me,” he said.
“She did.”
“Like, on purpose?”
“Probably.”
“Okay.” He nodded, trying very hard to look normal about this development and failing badly. “Yeah. She’s smart.”
“She likes the ceiling fan too, so don’t get cocky.”
Pippa drooled onto the giraffe. Garrett pointed. “Is that… fine?”
“That’s fine.”
“She’s eating it.”
“She’s gumming it. It’s made for babies.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the giraffe again, then at Pippa. “Carry on, then.”
She lasted maybe eight more minutes before Pippa decided the play mat was a cruel prison and began making the small, offended little sounds that meant she wanted to be upright, involved, and possibly worshipped.
She picked her up first, mostly on instinct, rubbing a hand over Pippa’s back while the baby huffed against her shoulder, warm cheek pressed to the collar of her sweatshirt. Garrett watched from the couch, elbows on his knees now, all that earlier awkwardness hidden under interest he was clearly trying to pretend was casual.
“You wanna hold her?”
The question hit him like a puck to the sternum. His eyes lifted. “Me?”
“No, the other enormous hockey captain in my living room.”
He looked at Pippa, then at his own hands, like he was reassessing whether thumbs were enough. “I mean. Yeah. I can.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I didn’t say I don’t want to.”
“You look like I just asked you to defuse a bomb.”
“That’s dramatic.” He sat up straighter, shoulders squaring. “Give me the baby.”
She paused. “Never say it like that again.”
He rolled his eyes, but there was a nervous edge under it that made her smile before she could stop herself. “Okay, fine. May I please hold Pippa, the baby, respectfully?”
“Better.” She stepped between his knees and shifted Pippa carefully in her arms. “Okay, put your arm like this.”
Garrett’s hands came up, big and hesitant. He had beautiful hands, which was an annoying thing to think right now, but also true. Hands that knew sticks and steering wheels and the back of her neck in the dark. Hands that could be careless with his own body but were suddenly so careful around Pippa that her throat did something strange.
“Support her head,” she said softly, guiding his palm under the baby’s neck. “Yeah. Like that. And this arm under her bum. There you go.”
Pippa transferred over in a warm, squirming little bundle, and Garrett’s whole body went rigid. Alert. The way he got before a faceoff, only if the puck had chubby thighs and one sock sliding off.
“Oh my God,” he said under his breath.
She laughed, one hand still hovering near Pippa’s back. “You’re fine.”
“She’s moving.”
“She does that.”
“Cool. Great.” Garrett stared down at the baby now nestled against the crook of his arm, his voice lowering like volume itself could destabilise her. “Hey, Pippa. We’re good, right? You and me?”
Pippa stared up at him, serious for one second, then reached out with one damp fist and grabbed the string of his hoodie.
Garrett looked at her. “Strong grip.”
“She likes strings.”
“She can’t have it if it’s dangerous, right?”
“Right.”
He immediately tucked the other string away with his free hand, jaw set in concentration. “No choking hazards. I know that.”
“Look at you.”
He glanced up at her, smugness making a brave return despite the fact that he was still holding Pippa like she was made of glass and university liability. “Told you I got this.”
“You’re sweating.”
“I’m post-practice.”
He carefully adjusted Pippa higher, the movement clumsy for half a second before his instincts caught up and his hold settled into something sturdier. The baby’s cheek turned into his hoodie. Her little fist stayed locked around the fabric near his chest, and Garrett looked down at her with such focused, faintly stunned attention that the joke waiting on her tongue dissolved before it could leave her mouth.
Pippa made a sleepy sound and rubbed her face into his chest.
Garrett’s eyes lifted to hers, quieter now. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. She cleared her throat. “She likes you.”
His mouth curved. “Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
“Smart girl.”
“She also likes licking table legs.”
“Still smart.”
She shook her head, smiling, and sat beside him on the couch, close enough that her thigh pressed into his. Garrett didn’t move away. If anything, he tilted slightly toward her, careful not to jostle Pippa, letting the baby’s weight settle between them like something neither of them had expected and both of them were, in their own ways, trying not to overreact to.
The TV was on low, some episode of a show neither of them was watching moving blue light across the room. The apartment smelled faintly like baby lotion and Garrett’s soap and the pasta she’d eaten standing at the counter before Pippa’s bottle because babysitting had made time weird and dinner had become whatever she could fork into her mouth while bouncing a tiny person with opinions.
Somewhere outside, a car rolled down the street with music thudding faintly through closed windows. Normal stuff. Little stuff. The kind of evening that would not have felt dangerous at all if Garrett didn’t look so unexpectedly right with a baby tucked into his arm.
She hated that, a little. The sweetness of it. The way it slipped under her skin without asking. Garrett glanced over and caught her staring.
His grin appeared immediately, soft and unbearable. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
“I’m just watching you panic.”
“I’m not panicking. I’m thriving.”
She laughed and leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, careful of Pippa between them. Garrett’s cheek tipped down for half a second, brushing the top of her hair. It was so absent, so automatic, that it made her chest tighten more than if he’d said something sweet on purpose.
Pippa’s eyelids started to droop. Her fist loosened in Garrett’s hoodie, fingers uncurling one by one. He noticed before she did. “She’s doing something.”
“She’s getting sleepy.”
His voice dropped even lower. “Oh.”
“You can breathe, babe.”
“I am breathing.”
Pippa sighed then, a full-body little sound that ended with her mouth falling slightly open against Garrett’s chest. Garrett went still again, but differently this time. Less fear. More wonder trying very hard not to show up as wonder because he was still a twenty-one-year-old hockey player in grey sweats who had come over intending to get laid and had instead been promoted, temporarily, to furniture for a sleeping infant.
His hand shifted carefully over Pippa’s back, one broad palm almost covering the whole of her. He rubbed once, slow, then looked at her for confirmation.
She nodded. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His mouth softened. He looked back down at the baby. “She’s tiny.”
“She’s actually chunky for her age.”
“She’s tiny,” he repeated, like this wasn’t up for debate, and there was something in his voice that made her stop teasing.
For a second, she wondered if he was thinking about his own family. Sometimes, when something gentle entered the room too suddenly, she could see the way he didn’t quite know where to put his hands around it. Like softness needed instructions. Like if he held it wrong, someone might blow a whistle somewhere only he could hear.
So she didn’t say anything too big. She only reached over and fixed Pippa’s fallen sock, tugging it back over one tiny heel, and let her fingers brush Garrett’s thigh on the way back. “You’re doing good,” she said.
His eyes came to her face. For once, he didn’t grin immediately. “Yeah?”
“Mhm. Natural.”
That made him huff. “Liar.”
“A little,” she admitted, smiling. “But you’re cute, and very brave.”
“I know.” His grin came back, smaller now. “Might put it on my résumé. Can hold one baby under supervision.”
She scoffed softly. “Barely.”
“Successfully.”
“For seven minutes.”
“Still undefeated.”
She laughed softly, and Pippa stirred against him, face scrunching. Both of them froze. The baby sighed and settled again. Garrett exhaled through his nose, triumphant and silent, like he’d just won a championship in not waking up infants. She had to press her lips together to keep from laughing again.
He looked at her, eyes bright. “Did you see that?”
“I saw.”
“Handled.”
“You did.”
“Captain material.”
She leaned into him a little more, her shoulder tucked against his arm, the warmth of him spreading through the old sweatshirt she was wearing. His body was still keyed underneath the stillness, all coiled athlete forced into gentleness, but his breathing had slowed.
Pippa’s small back rose and fell beneath his hand. The room seemed to soften around the three of them, domestic in a way she didn’t want to name because naming it would make it too real and maybe too much.
Garrett was quiet for a while. He didn’t rush to fill the space with some joke about her baby-trapping him or ask if this meant his original plans were permanently cancelled or make one of the million stupid comments he could have made to rescue himself from looking soft. He just held Pippa and let his thumb move, once, twice, barely there over the baby’s back. Then, very quietly, he said, “She smells good.”
She looked at him.
He glanced back. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking something.”
She smiled, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I was thinking you just discovered babies smell nice.”
“Well, I didn’t know.” He looked down again, faintly defensive. “I don’t hang out with a lot of babies.”
“Your loss.”
“Clearly. Pippa and I are boys now.”
“She’s a girl.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
He nudged her knee with his. “Don’t start.”
She smiled down at Pippa, asleep against the big Briar captain like this was a perfectly reasonable place for a nap. Her cheek was squished into the soft cotton of Garrett’s hoodie, one hand curled near his collar, one sock already trying to escape again. Garrett followed her gaze and, with great seriousness, adjusted the sock before it could fall.
Her stomach did something deeply stupid. His eyes flicked to her face, and the grin that spread this time was slow. Warm. A little cocky around the edges, because Garrett Graham could hold a baby for ten minutes and immediately become insufferable about it.
“What?” he asked.
“You look very pleased with yourself.”
“I am.”
“Because you’re holding a sleeping baby?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
“You were shaking when I handed her to you.”
“Yeah, and now look at me.” He nodded down at Pippa with all the confidence of a man who had survived one diaper-free interaction and was ready to write a parenting manual. “Growth.”
“She’s asleep. That’s mostly her doing.”
“Team effort.”
“Sure.”
His grin widened, then softened again when Pippa moved, tiny mouth working against the fabric of his hoodie. Garrett’s eyes dropped, and his hand stilled until she settled. He looked ridiculous. Gorgeous and too big for the couch and smug over the smallest possible achievement, with a baby asleep in his arms and his original plans for the night lying somewhere dead in the entryway beside his gym bag.
She leaned up and kissed the corner of his jaw.
Garrett’s eyes cut to hers, interested immediately despite Pippa, because he was still Garrett and there were some instincts not even a sleeping infant could fully neutralise. “Careful.”
She smiled against his skin. “What?”
“You start kissing me while I’m holding a baby, and I can’t do anything about it.”
“That’s tragic for you.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s one kiss.”
“Yeah, that’s how it starts.”
She laughed under her breath, and Pippa didn’t wake this time, only snuggled closer into Garrett’s chest like she had decided he was acceptable and possibly permanent.
Garrett watched her for a second, then looked back at the girl beside him, his mouth softer than his voice when he spoke. “So,” he said. “How long until your sister gets back?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Garrett.”
“What?” He looked almost offended, except his grin was doing too much damage. “I’m asking because I care about Pippa’s schedule.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“I’m deeply invested in her routine.”
“Her routine is bottle, nap, diaper, maybe scream at a lamp for no reason.”
“Sounds like Dean.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder to muffle the laugh, and Garrett smiled down at her, his hand still steady over Pippa’s back. For a while, they stayed like that. Pippa asleep. Garrett pretending not to be proud. Her tucked into his side with one hand resting lightly on his thigh, feeling the warmth of his body, the slow rhythm of his breathing, the tiny rise and fall of the baby between them. The evening hadn’t gone where he wanted. Not even close.
But when her phone buzzed twenty minutes later with a text from her sister saying they were on their way, Garrett looked down at Pippa, then at her, and frowned. “Already?”
She stared at him.
He shrugged, defensive. “What? We were hanging out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“You like her.”
“She likes me.”
“She’s asleep.”
“Exactly. Trust.”
She smiled so hard she had to look away. His knee knocked gently into hers, and when she looked back, he was watching her with that soft, stupid, dangerous warmth that always made her feel like she’d missed a step coming down stairs.
“What?” she asked, quieter.
He shook his head once, eyes dropping briefly to Pippa before coming back to her. “Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
“Yeah,” he said, and leaned in carefully, Pippa still asleep between them, to kiss her once. Soft. Quick. Warm enough to make her toes curl against the edge of the rug. “But you like it.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling when he pulled back, and Garrett, holding her sleeping niece like he’d been trusted with the Stanley Cup and maybe something more important, looked far too pleased to be proven right.
❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎
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