Page 10 of Married to Number 22
“I just can’t believe that she’s gone. That they’re all gone—my mom, my sister, Grams. I—” My voice breaks and even though it’s not the impetus that brought me here, that had me spending every free moment of the last week of my life on the internet, searching for Aiden, for where he might live, until I finally found his address and knew that if I waited for the light of day, reason would take over and I would shove the stupid marriage contract back in the box of my childhood memories and just deal with what lay ahead alone.
Alone.
God, I hate that word.
That reality.
“I woke up the morning after she was gone,” I push out, “and realized I have no one. My brother. My dad. They’re…” I trail off, eyes stinging.
He waits as my thoughts spin and my words find a way back.
“They haven’t changed,” I finish. “And I found the contract when I was packing my stuff up to take over to Gram’s place, and then I saw you on TV”—both of those statements are true—“and it seemed like the universe was guiding me toward you, bringing you back to me.” Also true. So true that my throat stoppers up for a long moment and my next words are raspy. “Because you were the one person left who wasn’t likethem.”
He’s silent for a long moment.
Then he sets his fork on the plate, crosses back over to me.
And I get Aiden again—safe and warm, gentle and kind.
“You know what I was thinking?” he murmurs, voice soft, arms tight. “Before I fell asleep last night?”
I shake my head.
“I was thinking about how alone I am. My parents are doing their retirement thing. My siblings are all busy with their families and jobs and lives that don’t revolve around my shitty hockey schedule.”
My heart squeezes.
“And they’re not going to be here on my birthday,” he murmurs.
He shrugs.
But I don’t miss the note of hurt in his words.
“I’m a grownup. I don’t need my family here on my birthday. I know they have lives and jobs and vacations and kids and retirement. I just…” Another shrug. “They’ll call,” he says. “I know they will and they’ll mean the Happy Birthdays they wish me. But I won’t be with them and I’m not with the Breakers anymore so I don’t have them either. And the Grizzles are fine but I don’t know where I’m fitting in with them yet, don’t know my place, not really…” He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m rambling and taking over. I just wanted to say that I know a little of what it likes to feel lonely, so I’m glad—however it came to be—that you’re here now and neither of us are alone.”
He’s still so sweet.
Big and strong and bearded but with a gentle, beautiful soul that feels deeply.
It’s why I fell in love with him as a teenager.
And why I ultimately let him go.
And it’s why I fall a little for him right now.
And maybe it’s why—or maybe it’s just that he’s big and strong and beardedandpressed against me—that I do what I do next.
I flatten my palm over his heart, feel the steady beat below.
“Maybe we don’t have to be alone,” I say as I lift on tiptoe.
His hands tighten on my hips. “Luns?”
“Maybe we can beusagain.”
And then…
I slant my mouth over his.
