Page 53 of Divorced from Number Thirty-Eight
But…it’s what we do.
I nudge her back so she’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, fixing the Velcro on her splint she didn’t quite manage to attach evenly. “Shower go okay with the bandages?” She has some stitches and burns that needed treatment.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “Everything’s clean and dry.”
I want to check, but…
Rest.
And hockey.
And patience.
So instead, I snag the pair of socks I kept out, tug them on her adorable feet, pressing a kiss to the top of each afterward, and though I want to linger, she needs to rest. I move to the dresser and grab the remote, setting it and my phone on the nightstand next to the container of Bri’s cookies, just in case she needs a midnight snack.
“For your calls,” I explain when confusion flickers across her deep brown eyes. I give her the passcode then point to the cookies. “For your tummy. And—” I wink as I tap the remote. “Because you’ll want to watch the Grizzlies game later.”
She smiles and it’s so beautiful, I know the right thing to do is to walk away, to distance her from the storm that’s my life.
But even now, after so little time together, the thought of leaving her alone in the quiet aftermath of her life…
Is impossible,
Eighteen
Faye
He’s gone before I recover from the wink enough to tell him that while I found the research portion of my hockey books fascinating, I’m still not a hockey fan.
Fan of the players and the behind-the-scenes, yes.
Fan of actually trying to track the puck on TV—or at the arena? No.
I’ve been to a Grizzlies game, having heard that the best way to appreciate the sport is watching a game in person.
And while I enjoyed the energy of the fans—and the adorable intermission games, one featuring tiny hockey players and the other adults trying to ride tricycles on the ice—I’d also learned that hockey wasn’t really for me.
But I don’t get to tell Gray that.
Because of the wink.
And…
The rest of it.
The kisses and the clothes, the meal and the questions. He even put on my socks.
And made sure I had cozy pajamas.
And left me his phone.
And the container of cookies.
So, now it’s nearly game time and I’m curled up in a bed in Gray’s house. Curled up in a bed in the house of the neighbor I’ve been in love with for four years…and that love formed solely from the fantasy of a gorgeous, seemingly sweet man whom I didn’t know but secretly admired.
The real thing is infinitely better.
The real Gray is…incredible.
