Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
R en
“Are you sure you really want to eat that?” I gesture at the two double cheeseburgers sitting on a paper plate in front of Trix. It sits next to a milkshake and a double order of fries. Most guys on my team could only put away half that amount of food at ten at night, and they’d pay for it in the morning. Then again, they’re not pregnant.
“I’m sure that the baby wants me to eat it.” She dips a fry into a cup of ketchup and shoves it into her mouth. I ordered a chocolate milkshake so Trix wouldn’t have to “eat alone,” as she put it, but I haven’t touched it.
She asked that we leave the hospital and go out for food before I told her what I came to say. “I don’t know whether I’m going to like it or not, and I’m hungry. Can we get some food before you talk and I lose my appetite?” she asked.
“I really hope I don’t make you lose your appetite.”
We drove toward Buttercup Hill and stopped at a burger stand on the road about twenty minutes from home. It nearly killed me to drive next to her and not say all the things I’d been rehearsing in my head during the two-hour flight from Phoenix, but I did what she asked. Felt like the least I could do after the way we left things before my trip.
“Okay, can I talk now?” I ask as she takes a giant bite of the first burger. Her cheeks are flushed in the moonlight, and she looks angelic as she nods.
“Sure. I’m just gonna eat, if you don’t mind.”
“Honey, of course I don’t mind.” I run a hand through my hair, agonizing over the thought that I could possibly mind anything she might do. “That’s what I need you to understand. You’re the first person—the only person—who makes me want to take a step back from hockey. You’re?—”
She interrupts me by holding up a hand, which happens to contain two fries. “Stop. I don’t want you to take a step back. It’s your life, Ren. It always has been. I’m good with raising our child full-time and letting you do what you need to do.” She nods and takes another bite of her burger. There’s no agony etched on her face. She really is okay moving on without me and letting me be a drop-in dad.
“No fucking way.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not taking any time away from you or our child unless I’m on the ice. That’s it. Any other time, I’m yours if you want me.”
She puts down her burger and assesses me calmly. No judgment. She tilts her head. “I do want you. But I don’t want you to sign on because the sex is fun, and you feel obligated to our baby, and then realize that hockey is your one true love.”
“I know I’ve done a shitty job these past weeks of proving that I can have balance in my life. But you and our baby are worth figuring out how to do it. I stepped back from my captain role on the team. It’ll give me some of my time back and take some pressure off.”
“I don’t want you to sacrifice?—”
I hold my finger out, and she stops talking before it even lands on her lips. Tracing the outline of her mouth, I watch her eyes go glassy. “It’s not a sacrifice if it brings me back to you. It’s not. Trix, I haven’t had a real relationship for ten years because I never got over you. I bought the winery because I was hoping it would lead me back to you. I always wanted more than just hockey in my life. I wanted you. Only you.”
I cup her chin in one hand. She looks dumbfounded at my confession.
I suppose I would be as well, but it’s been my reality for so long that it doesn’t seem strange anymore. On the contrary, it seems like the most logical thing in the world to buy a property when you have the money to afford it. But I have to tell her the last part.
“I’d give it all up for you. My whole career.”
Trix bends her head to kiss the palm of my hand. “I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want to be the only thing in your life. But I want to be the part you come home to.”
A lump lodges in my throat, so I simply nod and kiss her temple.
“I told you when I came here that I want balance in my life. Hockey is not my only love. You are too.”
She nods. “I want to believe you, but I’m nervous.”
“You can’t know the future. At some point, you’re going to have to trust me. The same way I need to trust myself to find balance.”
Taking a sip of my shake, I feel like gagging on the thick, sweet chocolate. “This is what you crave?”
She nods. “And I crave you. But not everything we crave is good for us.”
Fuck .
“You’re right, Trix. Not everything we crave is good for us, but I think we’re good together. And I’m not going anywhere.”
I take an envelope from my pocket and hand it to Trix.
“What’s this?” She turns it over to see the seal of the hotel where I was staying in Miami. Inside is one piece of hotel stationery, which she takes in her hands and unfolds.
“You said I should write a letter. I did.”
After reading the words on the paper, she holds it up to me. I see my scratchy pen scrawl from that night, reading, “Do you want to know why I bought a place in Napa?”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why did you buy a place in Napa?
“Flip the page over.”
She does so and reads aloud. “Because I knew you lived there. And when I became a free agent, the first team—the only team—I looked at was the Otters. Because I hoped it would bring me back to you. In ten years, I’ve never stopped loving you.”
Shock registers in the clear blue of her eyes. “You’re serious?”
I nod. “Ten years. So you can think you hijacked my plans with a baby or whatever, but I’m telling you that you were my plan all along. You are the only plan worth dreaming about.”
I pull in a deep breath of air and hold it in my lungs before letting any last bit of resistance drain from me. There was never anything to think about, no chance I was ever leaving, so I might as well tell her the rest.
“You came back.” She says the words slowly, like she’s getting used to them.
I nod. “I guess I don’t want a one-note life that’s focused only on hockey. I guess I was hoping for a complication.”
She barks out a laugh. “Well, you sure as heck found one. Two, actually.” She points to her belly.
We’ve been sitting on opposite sides of a concrete table under an umbrella, but I move from my bench to her side and tuck in close to her. I want to be closer to her when I tell her how I feel. I don’t want a chance she won’t hear me .
“Best decision I ever made. Bar none.”
She looks up at me, those clear blue eyes that see everything and still find joy in wondering how the world works. “Bar none?”
I shake my head. “Best decision. Ever.”
She tips her head against my shoulder, dusting my cheek with the loose tendrils of hair that have fled her ponytail. This is my happy place. I run a finger beneath her chin and turn her face up to mine. I want to see the serene blue of her eyes, and I want to kiss her lips.
I’m gentle at first, tentative because I want to make sure she really wants this. Wants me. She responds, gripping my face in her hands and pulling me tighter against her lips. I delve deeper, swirling my tongue against hers and sucking on her bottom lip until she gasps.
Leaning back, Trix puts her hand over her heart and looks at me with wide-eyed amazement. “I am never going to get enough of you,” she says.
I shake my head. “Same. Not ever. I’m so sorry I made you doubt me.”
We sit in silence for a while, and I pull her tight against my side. No one else is here. Our only company is three empty tables with red umbrellas. Trix lays her head on my shoulder again and I stroke her hair.
“Thank you for coming back,” she says.
“It was fine. Team doesn’t need to fly out until the morning.” I start thinking about the logistics of getting to the next away game if I miss getting back on the jet later. But I’ll deal with that once I get Trix home.
She reaches for my chin and turns my face toward hers, bringing me back to the present.
“No,” she clarifies. “Not tonight. Thank you for coming back to me.”