Page 86 of Clear Shot
Because deep down, I think that’s exactly what he’s going to do.
Chapter 30
Aiden
I get homelate after being gone nearly a week. There were weather delays, so I don’t walk into the house until close to two in the morning. I’d hoped Hana would be awake, but the house is dark and quiet, and I need to get some rest anyway. We have a game tonight, as well as a morning skate at ten. I’m going to be exhausted, but the plan is to grab a nap after the skate.
Unless my beautiful wife wants to ravage me.
I will totally forgo rest for that.
I leave the lights off as I walk through our beautiful new house, trying to work through the disparate feelings plaguing me. For the first time since Hana and I got married, I feel a little of the depression-related darkness lurking in my subconscious. Sometimes it’s gone when I wake in the morning; others, it lingers for days. I hope it’s the former and not the latter this time, but a good night’s sleep will go a long way with that.
Sex will help too.
Not that I’m going to wake her up if she’s asleep. I know she’s been busy turning this place into a home. It’s only been two weeks, but the kitchen is pretty much up and running, and our bedroom, bathroom, and closet are all set up the way we want them. As I pass the great room I pause, looking over at the built-in shelving on either side of the fireplace.
There are picture frames lining two shelves and my curiosity gets the best of me so I walk over there to see what they are.
Damn, my wife is pretty amazing.
The main picture is the one I discovered after the hurricane, the one of us on the beach from the day we first met. Before I knew just how important she was going to be to me. Well, I probably already had a sense of it, but I love the fact that she took a group photo and carefully edited it so it’s just the two of us. It’s mostly our faces and tops of our chests, but at this angle, you can’t tell whether we’re together as a couple or just standing next to each other. We both have big grins on our faces—I think we’d just won a beach volleyball game.
It’s my favorite picture of us to date. We don’t have many but there’s now also a picture someone took on our wedding day. My arm is casually slung around her shoulders and she has a shy smile. Mine is more telling—smug, as if I already knew I’d won the marriage lottery by getting a woman like Hana.
And finally, there’s a photo of our extended family, for lack of a better word—Hana and me; Johan, Sloane and Joanna; Decker and Eden; and Anders, Claudia, and Anderson—on Thanksgiving. Glasses raised, big grins on our faces as we waited for the timer on Eden’s fancy camera to go off.
The other shelf is filled with rescued photos from my old apartment. The one of me at six in my first hockey uniform. The next is me in my high school uniform, followed by a shot of me shooting a backhander in a championship game in the Major Juniors. A group shot of the minor league team I played formy first season, and then a shot of me, Jordan, Anders, Johan, Decker, Slava Yegorov, and Felix smoking cigars after winning round one of the playoffs last season.
That was a good time.
I’m a pretty lucky son of a bitch.
My mood lifts a little, and I take the stairs two at a time. Even if she’s sleeping, I can’t wait to climb into bed with my beautiful wife and fall asleep with her in my arms. She moves into them most nights like it’s second nature and we’ve gotten used to going to sleep that way.
To my surprise, there’s a faint glow coming from the bedroom, like she left the bathroom or closet light on, and I call out soft when I get there.
“Hana?”
“Hey.” She sounds…weird. She’s huddled on the bed, half sitting up, hugging a pillow to her chest.
Something’s not right.
“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately, hurrying over to the bed and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“I have to talk to you about something,” she whispers without looking up.
Dread fills me, but my bladder is a tiny bit more insistent. “Can I use the bathroom first?”
“Sure.”
I go into the bathroom and quickly do my business. I’ve just turned to the sink to wash my hands when a strange piece of plastic gets my attention.
What the hell is that?
Does she have Covid or something? There was a time during the pandemic when the damn tests were everywhere.
But if that’s the case, why would she let me come into the bedroom where I could potentially be exposed? That makes no sense.
