Chapter 23 Toni
Toni
Iwoke up with a pounding headache and an achy shoulder. I didn’t realize I’d made a sound until Yvonne shot upright from a dead sleep.
“Are you okay?” she demanded sleepily.
She’d woken me up every two hours last night, asking me cognitive questions like she was running a dementia study.
If I hadn’t felt so miserable it would have been cute.
I knew she felt bad about what happened, but it was an honest hit.
I’d taken dozens of similar hits with no problem.
This one just came at the wrong angle, or maybe my balance was off.
Either way, it wasn’t a big deal. My shoulder would heal and my headache would fade. And since it was the last game of the season, I’d have plenty of time to recover. I probably wouldn’t even need rehab.
“Relax. I just have a headache.”
Yvonne jumped out of bed, finding me a pain pill and handing me a bottle of water. I swallowed the pill, then slid to the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing?” Yvonne asked in alarm.
“I have to pee.”
When Yvonne followed me towards the ensuite bathroom I said, “I can pee by myself, okay?”
I winced as I realized that I sounded cranky. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” she said mildly.
She was sitting on the bed when I came out, spine ramrod straight, her face carefully blank even though her eyes looked troubled.
I knew she was worried about me, but I also knew that part of what was happening was a trauma response.
I’d heard enough about her parents to know that she’d learned that love was conditional, and mistakes were punished. Severely.
But that was then and this was now.
“Yvonne,” I said. “You need to stop freaking out. I’m fine.”
She looked up at me with those stormy eyes that had first given me a glimpse into the woman behind the ice queen facade.
“I’m trying, honestly. It’s just that I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Well you didn’t hit me hard enough to kill me,” I joked, sitting on the bed next to her.
One corner of her mouth lifted in response before she sobered again.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since last night,” she said. “And I want to request a transfer to Seattle.”
Well this was a surprise.
“What? You love Vancouver. And you just helped your team win the championship for the second year in a row.”
She shook her head. “Vancouver was a team I played for. I’ve never made close relationships on the team, or any good friends in the city. It was a place to be, but not a home, you know?”
“And you think that Seattle can be a home?”
“I think anywhere you are will be home for me,” she said. “Maybe I’m moving too fast, but I want us to move in together. I want what you talked about, for us to get married and have kids. I want you to teach me how to operate that barbecue thing you’ll have on the back deck.”
“The grill?” I huffed out a laugh.
“Yeah.”
“Well the season’s over now anyway, so how about if you stay with me for the off-season, and we see how it goes.”
Her face fell. “Oh sure, yeah, of course.”
I placed my hand over hers and waited for her to meet my eyes so she could see the truth in my words.
“I’m not saying I don’t want to get married.
To be clear, I’m completely on board with getting married.
But let’s take some time living together to figure out how to build a relationship together.
See how we both do when we’re in the same place for a while.
And then, when we feel the time is right, we’ll get married. ”
“Can we at least be engaged?” she asked hopefully. “I really want to make sure people know you’re taken.”
“Do you want to tattoo your name on my ass too?” I laughed.
She gave me an appraising look. “Would you consider that?”
“No, I would never mar this perfect ass,” I joked.
I leaned forward to kiss her, and as always, it immediately turned hot. We fell back on the bed, hands moving over each other’s bodies, until I did something to put pressure on my shoulder.
When I yelped in pain, Yvonne flew off the bed, looking guilty. “Oh crap, sorry.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of days before we have any sexy times,” I said regretfully.
We both startled as a knock sounded on the door.
“Are you girls awake?” my mom called. “Breakfast is ready.”
“I hope she made pancakes,” I said. “We should celebrate our engagement with pancakes.”
“I did,” Mom called back, clearly hearing me. “Now get a move on. I want to hear about this engagement.”