Chapter 56 - Bohdan
Bohdan
Three Months Later
“Gavin can’t be our first guest.”
“And why not, Jay?” Talon gives him a contemptuous look, getting a bit too close to his own computer.
Jay flicks his hand, like he can wave Talon off through his screen. “It feels a bit like . . . nepotism, I don’t know.”
I lean back in my chair. “That doesn’t exactly fit the definition of nepotism.”
“I said I didn’t know!” Jay throws his hands in the air before giving me a sarcastic thumbs-up. “Hey, great guest spot covering the game last night, by the way. Real riveting television.”
I arch a brow. “It was the most boring game I’ve ever seen in my life. I didn’t have a lot to work with. What did you want me to do?”
He runs an absentminded hand through his hair. “I don’t know—talk a bit more? Haven’t you been working on that for like a year?”
“It was boring because I wasn’t playing.” Talon flashes us both a grin.
Jay opens his mouth like he’s about to argue when the door to this makeshift office I’ve made in our apartment while the three of us try to sort this out creaks open.
“Hi.” Sloan peeks her head around it, fingers curling against the edges of the wood.
My eyes skate over them—I see her thumb twitch, but she doesn’t start tapping.
“Sloany!” Talon’s grin grows, and he waves his hand in invitation. “Come settle a debate for us. We’re trying to decide on our first guest. Jay says it should be our coach from MSU, but I think it should be Gavin.”
She doesn’t. She widens her eyes at Talon before folding herself down in my lap, hands interlacing around the back of my neck.
“Hey.” I brush my mouth against hers.
“Hi,” she whispers back.
I hear Talon. “Oh. They’re ignoring us.”
“It’s just like college,” Jay echoes.
I still love her in that giant way I did when I was twenty, but it’s not really like college.
Not at all.
Sloan tips her head. “We have to leave for therapy in forty-five minutes.”
My eyes cut to the time displayed across the corner of my computer screen. “Shit, okay. I didn’t notice the time. I’ll be out in a second.”
She presses her mouth to mine again, fingers twirling in the hair at the nape of my neck before she pulls back, hops off my lap, and holds her hand up in goodbye.
Talon waves, a bit manically, craning his neck until he notices the door close. “Therapy? I thought you guys both just went? I keep tabs on your schedules, you know.”
He does. They’re taped to his fridge.
I shrug a shoulder. “Yeah. We did. But we’re going to couples once a month.”
“Everything okay?” Concern darkens Jay’s eyes, visible even through the screen.
I nod. “All good.”
“Seat belts are on, though?” Talon knocks his fist against his desk. “I can fly down at a moment’s notice, you know. I miss your couch. It’s comfortable.”
“Seat belts are on.” I resist rolling my eyes at the dumb phrase he coined to make sure Sloan and I were each taking care of our mental health—meds, therapy, communication. “Tia’s coming up this weekend. Your services won’t be needed, thanks though.”
Talon nods in approval before holding his arms open. “If that’s the case, this first meeting of The Only Podcast to Ever Exist is officially adjourned.”
I think I hear Jay saying that can’t possibly be the name when I hang up and follow after Sloan.
She sits, propped up on the kitchen counter, legs swinging so her feet bump against the cupboards. She raises her eyebrows at me, words catching on barely suppressed laughter. “I can’t believe he convinced you to start a podcast.”
“I think he’s bored,” I tell her, coming to stand between her legs, palms lying flat against her thighs.
“Why, because he’s a kept man now that he’s with someone who makes more money as a professional golfer than he ever did playing hockey in Sweden?” She rolls her eyes, looking a bit more beautiful than she should when she’s being ornery.
I grin, gripping her chin and tilting her head up so I can get a better look at the freckles painted across her cheek. Still the brightest stars in any sky. “I don’t think anyone can really keep Talon Valdez.”
“You can keep me, if you want.” She blinks up at me.
“Yeah?” I ask, and she nods with a tiny smile that I lean down to kiss. “I think I will.”