Page 130 of Bountiful
Dave’s smile was distant. I poked him with my toe. “Everything okay down there? Did you just hear whatIsaid?”
“Um…” He looked up, chuckling. “Can you say itagain?”
I gave him an affectionate eye-roll. “Is something on your mind? Or maybe we’re all just overtired.” Last night had gotten our adventure off to a rockystart.
“I tired you out last night?” Dave pulled my feet into his lap and squeezed myinstep.
It felt great. “Seriously. Is somethingwrong?”
“Not a thing.” He shook his head to clear it. “Bess asked me a question this morning. She had the strange idea that I should consider a one-year contract extension. But that’s counterintuitive for a guy who’s worried about jobsecurity.”
Now here was a topic I had refused to weigh in on. I knew he was trying to choose between the two-year and three-year contracts. But I wasn’t going to express an opinion, because I didn’t ever want to sound like I was pressuring him to cut his careershort.
“If I took a one-year contract, that’s really a year and a half,” he said. “Because my current one goesthroughJune.”
“Sure,” I said, so he’d know I was listening. But Dave seemed to need to discuss this withhimself.
His glance went to Nicole, who was sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a teddy bear and watching palm trees move in the breeze. “She’d be three when a one-year contractended.”
“Right.”
“I gotta say, I always had trouble with the idea of retiring.” He worried the edge of his phone with his fingertips as he toldmethis.
“Whowouldn’t?”
“Well, a guy with alife.” He gave me a sad smile. “I mean—every athlete has trouble with the transition. That’s just a given. But when I’d looked at my post-retirement years, I just saw… It wasblank. I’d pictured myself standing in my Brooklyn apartment on that first morning, like, what the eff do Idonow?”
I moved my body down the sofa, swinging my legs off his lap so I could get close to him. He wrapped an arm around me. “That sounds hard, honey. I can’t evenimagine.”
“The thing is, I can now. I want to see what you’ve done with the place in Vermont, and I want to be there more than seven or eight weeks in the summer. There’s someplace else I want to be now. If you’llhaveme.”
“Any day of the week,” I whispered, leaning against him, the coffee cup warming my hands. “That sounds wonderful. My house is your house. Literally.” I sipped mycoffee.
He snorted. “But I’m not joking. After I retire, I want to be with you and Nicole. I want to get married and thewholebit.”
I choked on my coffee and thensputtered.
“Oh, hell,” he said, taking the cup from my hands. “I told you I’m a rookie at this relationshipthing.”
That just made me laugh, on top of the coughing andgasping.
“Breathe, baby.” His eyes twinkled. “Sorry.”
“It’s…okay.” I coughed. “Just never expected you tosaythat.”
“Me neither.” He smiled and pulled me into his lap, setting my mug down and then whacking me on the back. “Bess is going to peeherself.”
I laughed harder. There were tears leaking out of my eyes now, and it was anyone’s guess whether they were tears of laughter or happy joy or a side effect of aspirating coffee. But I’d never felt so alive. And I finally understood something crucial—that Dave really did need me. It wasn’t just chemistry. He’d dragons of his own to slay, and Nicole and I were part ofslayingthem.
He needed us as much as we needed him. And now he wasn’t afraid to say so. Strong arms wrapped around me and I leaned back. He leaned down, whispering into my ear. “Thanks for putting up with an amateurlikeme.”
“It’s entirely my pleasure.” It was my turn to be pensive, though. “If you do end up inVermont…”
“Notif.When.”
“Whenyou end up in Vermont,” I corrected, “What will you do tostaybusy?”
“I don’t know yet. But I don’t need to know. You’re there. My family needs me. I liked investing in that house next door. I could do a little moreofthat.”
