Declan #2
I want you here.
I want you.
Our gazes lock and for a fraction of a second, I wonder if she’s reading my thoughts. She stares into my eyes, a cautious smile on her face.
Then she glances away and says, “Okay. Well, thank you.”
Without another look in my direction, she turns and walks toward the guest room. I watch her go.
I lower the volume on the post-game press conference and settle back into the pillow behind me. They interview Linc and then Treyvon about his game-changing catch. Then Coach comes on. A half hour passes and Winona still hasn’t come out of the guest room.
I text our kicker, Tanner Greene.
Declan: Way to save the day.
Tanner: Thanks, bro. Appreciate it. Come back asap. You’re missed.
I set my phone down and glance out toward the hallway.
I don’t know if Winona wants me to wake her up.
I grab my crutches and propel myself to the doorway of her room.
It’s shut, but not latched, so I gently nudge it open a crack.
She’s curled on her side, breathing softly, hair splayed across the pillow behind her.
The sound of a thunder clap shakes the house followed by rain hitting the window panes. Winona stirs, making a soft sound that dislodges something deep inside me. But then she curls in tighter, sighing and tucking her hands under her chin.
She’s still asleep—too peaceful to disturb.
I propel backward, heading to the kitchen. After I wash the dishes and throw away the trash from dinner, I head back to the front room, passing Winona’s door on the way.
Maybe I should wake her. But she doesn’t need to be driving when she’s this worn out, and now it’s raining. And …
I chuckle under my breath. Who am I kidding? I want her here. And I’m just searching for reasons to keep her right where she is.
I sleep better when she’s in the house. What would it hurt to let her stay right where she is?
The rainstorm picks up. I propel to the front door, staring out one of the glass panels flanking the double-tall doors, debating with myself.
Winona grew up in Tennessee. She’s driven in the rain. She’s rested.
There’s no real reason for her to stay.
But … this rainstorm is heavy.
Is it heavy enough to justify her staying here?
I have a jersey she could use as pajamas. Mom has some yoga pants in the spare bedroom left over from when she and Dad stayed here.
Another clap of thunder booms like a signal.
I leave the window and swing back to the guest room. This time I pop the door open wider, stepping inside and staring at her for just a moment before I say her name.
For the first time since my injury, I’m in no rush to get back to the game and my season. As soon as they clear me, my time with Winona will end. She won’t have any reason to come here. I’ll be swept up in my job.
I shake those thoughts and quietly speak her name into the dim light of the bedroom. “Winona?”
“Hmmm?” She rolls over. And then, in an adorably groggy voice, says, “No. Not now. Just gimme a minute.”
I almost back out of the room.
Then she rolls over again.
“Declan?” She mumbles my name, but burrows more deeply into the pillow. “Why is this bed so cozy?”
The kind of smile she draws out of me feels rare and private. Like she’s the only person in the world who could elicit it from me.
“I don’t know. It’s not nearly as comfortable as my bed.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize how they sound.
Winona’s eyes go wide. Then her brows draw down and she studies me.
“I mean, I slept here,” I clarify. “It’s a good bed. Mine is better—for me.”
She nods, still not making any effort to lift her head or get out of bed.
She rolls onto her back, stretching like a cat. “Is it raining?”
“It is.” I pause. “And you are welcome to stay … here … in this room. I’ve got a jersey, yoga pants and a toothbrush.”
“All set for sleepovers?” she asks. “And you wear yoga pants? This I need to see.”
“No.” I shake my head, laughing. “They’re my mom’s pants from when she stayed here.”
“I was joking, Declan.” She sits up. Her hair is wild and her face looks more rested with a soft, drowsy glow that makes her look irresistibly beautiful. This is Winona off the clock—unguarded and relaxed. The sight of her tugs at me.
When she glances at her shoes, tucked under the chair in the corner of the room, I simply say, “Stay.”
Winona’s quiet for a beat. She glances around the room, and then she nods.
Thunder roars, a burst followed by a rolling roar. Then lighting strikes, lighting up the room in stark lines. The room immediately plunges into darkness.
“Declan?”
I can barely make out Winona on the bed.
“I’m here. Electricity went out.” I take a breath. “That means the elevator’s out.”
“I can’t see anything,” Winona says, grabbing her phone and turning the flashlight on, she waves it around the room and straight into my eyes.
I shield my face from the light and she laughs. “Sorry.”
“You sure about that?” I ask, laughing.
“Yes.” Her laughter fills the muted darkness like a shared secret.
She pivots her flashlight so it’s aimed down toward the floor.
“Want to shine that for me while I gather up candles and a few other things from the laundry room?” I ask her.
“Sure,” she says. “This is kind of fun.”
My smile, the one that belongs to her, rises up from somewhere deep inside me, pushing my cheeks taut and crinkling my eyes.
With her flashlight aimed at the floor in front of me, her gaze isn’t on me. She can’t see the way she turns me inside out. She has no idea that she’s become someone I need to see, need to have near me.
Not yet.
I’ll tell her.
I need her to know. Even if she doesn’t share my feelings.
We gather candles—battery operated, thanks to Patrick insisting they’re fire-safe—and I set them on the kitchen island. Winona carries the rest, setting a few up the edge of the stairs in the hallway, one on the coffee table, and two on the hearth.
I bend to open the fireplace.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Winona asks.
“Lighting a fire.”
“Declan. You need to rest your leg. Let me.”
I want to fight her, but she’s right. So I propel myself to the couch and she pulls out one of the long matches from the copper canister on the mantel.
When the fire is lit, she turns and tells me, “I need to call Cass and tell her I’m safe.”
I nod, watching the flames play across her skin, highlighting her features in gold and amber flickers.
She steps back and dials her sister.
“Cass?” Winona says, holding my gaze while she speaks into the phone.
“Hey, yeah … No. I’m safe. Just staying at Declan's until the rain lets up.”
They talk for a few minutes. Winona doesn’t take her eyes off mine.
When she hangs up, I tell her, “I haven’t lit that fireplace in ages.”
Her answer is quiet, matching the mellow lighting of the candles and the fire. “Well, it’s just getting cool enough to be the season for a fire.”
“I used to put it on, drag a few of those pillows out and lay on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling after a long week.”
I’m letting her in. No one knows what I do when I’m alone here. Not my teammates. Not my brother. Not my parents. But I want her to know.
“My body would ache despite the treatments—sometimes because of them—but I’d just lay there and breathe. It was always one of the few still moments I had in the middle of the chaos of the season.”
Winona doesn’t say a word. She studies me for a beat, and then she walks to the built-ins under the TV, pulling a couple of the french square pillows out of their cubbies and laying them down in front of the fire. Wordlessly, she calls me over to join her.
I abandon my crutches, covering the short distance by leaning on furniture and lowering myself to the ground when I reach her.
She lays back onto the pillow next to mine, staring up toward the coffered ceiling with the beveled crown molding squares twenty feet overhead.
Her breath is soft, but audible. Like she’s waking up—maybe waking up to my thoughts and feelings about her. I can’t be sure.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and tap my music app, pressing play on one of my favorites
Thomas Rhett starts singing Die a Happy Man.
Winona turns her head toward me. “I love this song.”
I turn my head and she’s right there, staring into my eyes, her face barely a foot from mine.
“Yeah?” I ask, my voice low and full of gravel. “Me too.”
She says, “I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, I figured as much when you sang it in the shower.”
“When I …” I rack my brain for what she’s talking about and then I remember—that first shower when I had my splint on. She could hear me.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she says, her eyes widening slightly.
“You were on standby,” I say.
It feels like years ago. My first shower after the hospital. She waited just outside the bathroom in case I slipped.
“Yes. I was on standby. In your bedroom.”
“In case I needed you.”
“Yes. In case you needed me.”
“And what about now?” I search her face.
“Now?”
“What if I need you now?” My eyes lock on to hers.
“I’m right here,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.