Page 144 of Just One Look
She said, “I’m sorry I cried. In the bathroom, I mean. I don’t seem to always be so good at … playing.”
“Oi.” He rolled to his side and put his hand on her face, the same way he had in the bathroom. “No. You showed me your heart. It’s a beautiful heart.”
Right now, it was an aching heart, and the tears were rising again. She said, “I don’t even know what that was about, my reaction. And I’ve never done anything like that, like what we just did. Not even close. It was so intense, it scared me.”
“Yeh,” he said. “I know. It scared me, too.”
She lifted her head and studied him. “Really?”
His smile looked a little pained. “Reckon it’s those stunted emotions of ours. Growing pains, eh. Because it wasn’t just playing. Not this time.”
Her hand stilled on his chest, where it had been doing some of its own stroking. “The reason it was so intense is that I’m leaving again. For me, but maybe for you, too.”
No smile now. “Yeh.”
A pause, and she said, “What? You can tell me. Whatever it is.”
“I’ll have some time,” he said. “I’ll be out with the boys every day, once they’re back and I’m cleared to drive. Training with the physio, and in the gym with the squad as well, and on the sideline. Helping where I can. Running the water at the games.”
“Oh,” she said. “You do that? Really? You’ll be the … the water boy?”
“I’m still under contract. And I want to be. But they won’t take me on the road, and you seem to have some time off now and then.”
“Yes.” Her heart was galloping now, somehow. Her heart knew, even though her head didn’t. “What can I do?”
His expression was intense. Troubled. His face … it hurt her. He hesitated, and then he said, “You can go see my family with me.”
