Page 9 of Ours to Lose
She ran two fingers over her lips, her gaze falling to my mouth.
My smile widened. It was a good fucking kiss.
One I wouldn’t be against repeating, though I doubted she’d want that. Aubrey was more someone who settled down, and I didn’t have much to offer long-term.
The reminder helped calm my body a few more notches.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, then shook herself from her daze. “I mean, Happy New Year. Well, and also thanks. I mean—” A flush rose to her cheeks. “For letting me kiss you.”
My skin flashed hot at the memory, and I shifted my weight to get my blood pumping a direction other than south. “My pleasure. Did it meet expectations?”
Her brows rose. “Hmm?”
I fought a grin. “Your first New Year’s kiss.”
“Oh, right. Yes. Yes, it definitely did.” She rolled her lips together and pushed from the wall, heading to what looked like a mini fridge on the other side of the room. She pulled out a tray lined with light purple domes the size of hockey pucks and placed it on the nearest counter before crossing to the big walk-in fridge and asking over her shoulder, “How are you even here right now? I thought your flight got in tomorrow?”
I leaned against the wall and watched her work. “I caught an earlier flight on standby. Wanted to surprise you and the family.” Mostly her. I wasn’t as confident my family would be so glad to see me. Not all of them, anyway.
Back at the counter, she intently drizzled dark brown sauce onto the hockey pucks and topped each one with some sort of crumb. “Your dad’s going to be ecstatic. He’s been holding out on making eggnog all week so the holidays will only be official once you’re here.”
Yup. He was the one who’d be glad to see me.
“Evan around?” I asked. No sense avoiding the elephant in the room. She knew its size, shape, and emotional weight better than anyone.
“He’s here somewhere. Probably won’t get home until way later if you want some one-on-one time with your dad.”
“Dad won’t be asleep by now?”
“Evan says he’s usually up late.”
I tensed. “Since when?” My entire life, Dad had gone to bed by nine and been up at five. No alarm, no grumbling. Snores sailed down the hallway five minutes after he said good night, and he’d be well into his second mug of tea, morning paper read front to back, before anyone else stumbled out of bed. I couldn’t remember him staying up this late, even for New Year’s Eve. Not in the past decade.
Her shoulders were stiff in their shrug. “The past year. Maybe two. Sometimes he goes to bed earlier and gets up for a few hours during the night.”
The words struck like a sucker punch, filling my mouth with the bitter taste of guilt. A reminder of the reality I’d soon have to face—the reason Evan knew our dad was having trouble sleeping and I didn’t. That our dad was having trouble sleeping at all.
That there was nothing I could do about it because there was no way to bring back the wife he’d slept beside for thirty-five years and lost.
I swallowed it down. “I’ll text him. Let him know I’m getting in tonight.”
“You didn’t tell him yet? Where were you planning on sleeping?”
My lips tipped up. “I hadn’t planned that far ahead. I had a kiss to make happen.”
She blushed again before turning all her focus to the desserts.
A minute later, two servers in white shirts and black ties came through with empty trays. Aubrey loaded them with the finished hockey pucks, which turned out to be concord grape semifreddo with peanut caramel and French toast crumble. I only had a loose grasp of what that meant, but I’d sure as hell eat it.
After the servers left, desserts in tow, I stood from the wall. “I’ll get out of your hair. Don’t want to interrupt the flow any more than I already have.”
She gave another shy smile, a reminder we hadn’t spoken much in person as adults. Not like we had over texts. There was a familiarity to our messages that our body language and mannerisms hadn’t had the chance to gain.
Maybe that would change now that I was back.
I hoped so. Just standing here in the same room as her brought a similar relief to seeing her name on my phone. A reprieve from the bone-deep weariness that had haunted me the past two years to the point it sometimes took everything I had just to make it through the day. A weariness that being home both eased and made infinitely worse.
I wanted more of that ease. For both of us.
