Chapter 17 Bohdan
Bohdan
Then - Seattle
I’d always thought the only thing I wanted in the world was to play.
It was the only dream I had.
But then I met her and somehow we made this life together, and it’s beyond anything I think I could have ever imagined.
My bag hits the floor beside me, and I drop a shoulder against the frame of our open bedroom door.
It was worth taking the early flight back to be here, to watch Sloan, one hand tucked under my pillow where she sleeps on my side of the bed, gilded by the fading moonlight still reflecting off Puget Sound through our windows, textbooks and markers and her computer spread out over the duvet on her side.
The TV’s still on—ESPN—and I catch a replay of the game earlier.
I played well. I always do.
I’ve already seen the clip, and they’re talking about how I’m the best. Making bets on all the records I’m going to set and titles I’m going to take.
I work hard. But I don’t work hard to be good. Hockey comes naturally to me, and I know that’s lucky—talent that a good chunk of people all over the world would die for.
But the only thing I’d die for is her. Life with Sloan is the only thing I really care about being good at.
It’s hard to explain to someone—how it changes you, probably deep down in your bones, to fall in love young like we did and to get to stay in love because we were lucky to grow together, and we had the same dream at the end of the day: each other.
She’s still asleep, taking faint little inhales, her cheeks pillowy and soft when I sit beside her on the bed.
“Zlatí?ko.” I tuck her hair behind her ear, brushing a knuckle over her cheek. “Sloan, I’m going to shower, okay?”
Her eyelashes flutter before she blinks, sleepy, and opens my favourite eyes on the planet.
I press a kiss to her temple, and I think she’s still half asleep, but her fingers wrap around my wrist. “Bohdan. You’re supposed to be in Tampa until tomorrow.”
Smiling against her skin, I move my mouth to her ear. “Caught an earlier flight.”
“Won’t you be in trouble?” she whispers, and I can feel the shiver run across her shoulders.
“Maybe.” Yes.
But it’ll be worth it.
Her arms wrap around me, hands playing in the hair at the nape of my neck, and I pull her up, gently, so we’re sitting together on the edge of the bed.
She buries her head in my neck, murmuring against my skin. “Six-game road trips are too long. What if you came back and I was an entirely different person? What then?”
“Are you?” I ask, grinning and running my hands along her shoulder blades before moving to the curve of her waist.
“No. But I could have taken up a new hobby.”
Her fingers tug gently on my hair, and a groan catches in my throat. “Did you?”
“Yes.” I can hear the petulance in her voice. “Rabbit husbandry.”
“Then I guess I’m making room for some rabbits.”
Sloan pulls back, smiling softly with a sleepy shake of her head. “Why’d you come back early? I’m okay without you, you know. I miss you, but I promise I don’t sit here every night watching you on TV, pining for you.”
I do worry about her when I’m gone. That something might hurt her, and I won’t be there.
That texts with three facts I love about her won’t be enough from a distance.
That it’ll get too much and too big, and she’ll wish she never followed me to Seattle, that she went to school in Toronto like she wanted.
But I know her better than I think I know myself, and I think even from across the entire universe, I’d be able to spot the subtle shifts in her that tell me when she’s lying, and she’s not.
“Couldn’t go another day without seeing you in your—” I pull the sheet down to see what she’s wearing before flicking my eyes up. “Raccoon shirt. Sexy.”
Her lips purse and her chin tips up. “Tia got me this.”
“Thank her for me, will you?” I give her a dry grin.
“Just couldn’t get the idea of you in this shirt, on my side of the bed out of my head.
Had to book the first flight out or I wouldn’t have made it.
I dream about you and this raccoon shirt on a constant fucking loop.
Thought about getting you some fresh rose petals to, you know, sprinkle them all over the bed before I made love to you in this shirt—”
“Made love to me?” she cuts in, nose wrinkling.
I nod. “Sex, but make it romantic.”
“Make love to me, Bohdan,” she laughs, her voice taking on this stupid, exaggerated breathy quality, and she flops back against the pillow, her hair fanning out everywhere before she rolls her head dramatically from side to side.
“Shut up.” I smile, shaking my head, grabbing her chin to stop her before she gets carried away and knocks us both off the bed.
But all it does is show me how her eyes look under an early-morning sky. How her cheeks are soft, still sleepy, her mouth parted just so, and the swell of her chest just under the navy sheet covering her.
I trace my thumb over her lips, pausing in the full pout of the bottom one. She blinks up at me before she takes my hand, interlaces our fingers, and pulls me down towards her, mouth hovering just below mine when she says, “Well, you came all this way.”
It’s one of my favourite times to be with her—early morning, hazy sky, ocean sparkling as the sun rises, her hands all over me when she strips me out of my suit, nails digging into my shoulders when I spend time between her legs.
Mine all over her, angling her hips the way I know she likes when I’m inside her.
Just us while the stars go to sleep.
The only person who matters.
“I can’t imagine not knowing you.” I move my mouth against her collarbone, teeth scraping her skin, marking her even though I don’t have to.
She’s mine and she always will be.
Her fingers paint down my back, probably the most beautiful portrait in the world because it was done by her hands, and she arches into me, hips meeting mine, her words just a whisper in the dark. “And you’ll never have to.”