Lake
LAKE
I scramble to get my phone out of the pocket of my jacket when it starts to ring. The paper bag with my dinner in it falls on the floor with a not-so-reassuring splat.
“Fuck,” I mutter while I try to both look at the damage and pick up the call.
“That’s definitely a greeting,” Ryker says with a laugh as his smiling face fills the screen. “But who am I to argue? Let’s do it.”
“I dropped my dinner.” I wrestle my jacket off and make my way to the kitchen, where I deposit the bag on the counter. A handful of fries have fallen out of the box and are now lying at the bottom of the bag. I pour them out on the counter and stuff a few in my mouth. I haven’t eaten since lunch, and it’s already well past nine o’clock.
“Are you eating floor fries?” my loving, supportive husband asks with the kind of exasperated sigh that would be grounds for divorce in some parts of the world. Also, on second thought, I’m not flattered by the insinuation that I would eat floor fries, especially when I’m hungry enough right now to actually consider it.
“No,” I say indignantly, then stuff some more in my mouth while I go in search of something to drink. The fridge is getting kind of bare after three days of no Ryker. I mean, sure, there’s broccoli and asparagus and turkey and stuff like that, but we’re getting real low on the kind of food you can just eat without having to cook. Hence the fries and the?—
“Is that a burger?” Ryker asks, and now there’s a wistful edge of longing in his voice.
“Yup.” I grab a plate and plonk the burger down on it, followed by the remainder of the fries. “What did you have for dinner?”
“You don’t want to know. There was brown rice involved.”
“That’s sad.” I eat another fry while I balance the phone against a stack of textbooks.
“I don’t know if you meant for it to sound compassionate, but I’m here to inform you it didn’t. Not one bit.”
“That’s too bad and totally on me.” I take a huge bite of the burger and just about manage to hold in a moan. Food. Finally.
I’m so hungry that it takes me a while to realize Ryker has gone silent. When I glance at the phone, I find him staring at me.
I swallow and take a drink. “What?”
He shakes his head and blinks. “I think I might’ve just discovered a new kink. Eat some more of that burger. And do it slowly.”
“This makes me feel both flattered and a bit dirty, but not in the good way.” I take a bite anyway. Ryk laughs, and a sudden bolt of longing shoots right through me. He’s only been away three days. I should really get a grip because this is just the first of many away games he’s going to be traveling for this season. It’s just that the first one is the hardest.
Common sense fucks off to parts unknown.
I miss him.
It’s an ache in my chest. An absence that can’t be filled by anybody else.
Why, exactly, did I think falling in love was a good idea?
No clue.
But it’s too late now anyway. We’re already here.
And now he’s on his third day of a five-day road trip and everything sucks.
“Congrats on the win,” I say. I watched the Blades eke out a narrow 3-2 victory against Chicago earlier, biting my fingernails to shreds and shouting at the TV. Ryker scored a last-minute goal, and I’ve been on cloud nine ever since.
“Thanks. It was a good game.”
He leans back on a mountain of pillows, and his bare chest comes into view. I hungrily take him in.
“Enjoying yourself?” Ryker asks teasingly.
“Aim the camera a little lower.” My voice has gone husky, and the food is all but forgotten.
He does.
And the abs are just as great as the chest.
With one notable exception.
I let out a string of curses when I see the massive bruise on the left side of his body. You’d think I’d be used to it by now—seeing him like this right after a game when, more often than not, he’ll come out of it looking like somebody’s spent an hour pummeling him with a mallet.
“What the hell happened?” I demand, back going stiff, even though I know perfectly well why his whole side is a nice purplish-blue color.
Ryk frowns and looks down his body, clearly unaware what might’ve caused that outburst.
“Oh.” He laughs again when his eyes zero in on his side, and he catches up. “Got slammed into the boards. It looks worse than it is.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. It looks pretty damn bad.”
I will never understand how hockey players can just shrug off their injuries. Like my husband is doing right now.
“It sucked, but hey, this time I didn’t break anything, so there’s that.”
“You’re a real silver linings type of guy.”
It’s only recently that he’s started making jokes like those, which is a good sign, I figure. I imagine it’s pretty damn hard not to flinch away when giant hockey players barrel toward you at top speed, especially after an incident like that left you with a broken femur not too long ago.
Ryker seems unbothered by the prospect though, so I try to curb the scowling and the overprotectiveness. As if I could do anything to stop him from getting hurt. I mean, I could start following him around everywhere he goes, like a groupie, and then… Yeah, . Then what? Then you’ll jump on the ice whenever somebody approaches him and drive them off? Great plan.
“Stop glaring at the bruise.” Ryker rolls his eyes. “How’s the studying going?”
“Slowly,” I say.
I have an exam coming up, so I’ve been back in the familiar territory of keeping my nose in a book. It’s not that I expected medical school to be easy, but I somehow still underestimated just how much work it entails. I have quizzes every Monday and biweekly tests, and now I have my first block exam approaching. There are three each semester and they’re supposedly like finals. I guess we’ll see if that’s true.
Ryker lets out some kind of cough-snort hybrid. “Which in ’s language means you’re ahead of the schedule you made for yourself.”
I’d argue, but…
“Only by a tiny bit.”
He laughs, shaking his head and wriggling lower on the bed, a sleepy look in his eyes.
“Do you want me to quiz you?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Quiz me?”
“Don’t even pretend like you don’t have flashcards at hand.”
I purse my lips and scrunch my nose. “You know me too well.”
“Or just the right amount. Send me the cards, and I’ll do it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping so you’ll be well rested for tomorrow?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not tired yet.”
He’s lying, but it’s kind of sweet, so I let it go and start scrolling through my phone.
“It’s boring,” I warn him, in case he doesn’t remember he’s not interested in cell biology and histology. “Are you sure you want to waste your evening on this?”
Ryk lets out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, . I would like to help you study because it’s important to you, and therefore it’s important to me. Plus, my career has a time limit, so I need a husband who brings home the bacon sooner rather than later.”
Any mention of a future further away than next week used to make me clam up and fight off nausea. Now there’s a quick flash of discomfort, but it goes away quickly on its own. That’s personal growth right there.
He’s dismantled my distrust, step by step and piece by piece.
“But you have a game tomorrow,” I say.
“Weirdly enough, I didn’t think that disqualifies me from reading.”
He’s way too patient with me.
“But—”
“Just send me the flashcards.”
I do.
His eyes stay on me while we wait for the file to go through, and I feel warm and wanted—two things I never did before Ryker.
“Got them,” Ryker says after a few more seconds. “Oh, man. That’s a lot of questions.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“Baby, I was kidding.”
I blow out a breath and roll my eyes. “Just for that, I hope you’ll be incredibly bored.”
“What are the basic repeating units of the chromatin fibers?” he reads out before he flashes a grin at me. “I don’t want to jinx it, but so far it sounds like you’re getting your wish.”
“Nucleosomes,” I say. “We’ll keep going until you fall asleep, then.”
“I probably will, too, so don’t take it personally.”
“I make no promises.” I study him for a moment. “Okay, don’t roll your eyes at me, but are you really sure you want to waste your evening on this?”
“I get to spend time with you. That’s not a waste of anything in my book.”
I look at his face, so full of love, and simply nod. “Okay. In that case, give me another one.”
“Not so fast. This game also has rules.”
I raise my brow at him while I get up to clean up the mess of my dinner. “I’m listening.”
“For every wrong answer, you have to take off one item of clothing.”
I pick up the phone and purse my lips. “That’s not really an incentive to answer correctly, you know?”
“You’re not going to just give me wrong answers for sex. Have some pride.”
I laugh out loud at that. “You’ve been away for days. Pride left the building a long time ago.”
“Keep it in your pants, Bates,” he says sternly.
“That might be the first time you’ve ever said those words to me. Oh, fuck. Does this mean we’re starting to turn into an old married couple? Pretty soon we’ll just sit in silence because we have nothing to talk about anymore, and when I try to give you a blow job, you’ll tell me you have a headache. Is that where we’re headed?”
Ryker blinks at me for the longest time.
“Wow,” he eventually says. Nothing else. Just ‘wow.’ “Okay,” he says a few seconds later. “New plan. For every wrong answer, I’ll put an item of clothing on. How’s that for incentive?”
I nod approvingly. “Now we’re talking. Now there are stakes in the game.”
“What can I say? I know how to inspire my man. Clearly covering myself up is what does the trick. Now, inspire me too. Take off your clothes and get in the bed.”
“Words to start every good tutoring session,” I say dryly.
“Are you questioning my methods?”
“I would never.” I pause for a moment. “Mr. James.”
Something heated flares through his eyes, and the flame goes even hotter once I start to take my clothes off. Once I’m fully naked, I climb into our bed.
“Ready for this?” Ryker adjusts himself.
“Bring it on.”
I lie on our bed on my side, my phone against Ryker’s pillow, and listen to his low, calm voice reading me the questions, one after the other. I miss two out of the forty-something, so it’s not too bad overall.
He looks at me when he runs out of questions. “Not too bad,” he says, echoing my thoughts.
We’re both lying on our sides now, phones propped up on pillows. He yawns, his eyes clearly getting heavy by now.
“It’s late,” I say softly. “You should get some rest.”
“Can’t I just stay with you?” he asks. Sleepily.
“I love you.”
“I miss you,” he replies.
“Thanks for the quiz prep.”
He laughs softly. “I’m here for whatever you need. Always.”