Other Parents

Synopsis

When seven-year-old Lucy Reeves spikes a fever at school and neither Jordan Reeves nor Tessa Reeves can be reached, it's Maxim Sorokin, the captain of the rival Kingsford Colts, who answers the call, as Jordan's emergency contact. The resulting photograph of a towering hockey star carrying a feverish child through a grocery store goes viral, and suddenly the entire nation of Borealis is asking one question: why is the Colts' fearsome captain on the Reeves family paperwork? Jordan does not handle it gracefully. His official statement, co-written with Naomi Hartley, includes the words "long-time family friend”, a phrase that launches a thousand memes and two separate locker-room roastings. His press conference goes even worse when he accidentally mutters "yet" after denying that Evan Hartley and Maxim are getting married. Meanwhile, Lucy informs her classmates that Uncle Evan and Uncle Max are her "other parents." Her twin Maya adds: "emergency contacts have to be family." And at a charity skate, brother Oliver tells a confused defenseman, "they're getting married after hockey retires." Evan and Maxim have spent a decade hiding their relationship. Now an eight-year-old has done in twelve months what the press failed to do in twelve years. As the internet dissects every interview, every glance, and every matching ring worn on a chain beneath their jerseys, the two captains realize they're tired of hiding. Twenty hours after the latest catastrophe, they post matching statements and come out on their own terms. When the Reeves kids pile onto the couch between them, Oliver says what everyone is thinking: "You're really our extra-parents now. Everyone knows."