13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
I consider it.
The answer used to be vague. Something in sports. Something interesting. Something that made enough money and didn’t make me hate Mondays. Now I have a clearer picture.
“I want to run things.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know yet.” I tuck one leg underneath me.
“Events, maybe. Or a youth hockey program. Something where there are actual people on the other end of what I’m doing.
I don’t want to spend forty years approving purchase orders in an office and then retire with excellent spreadsheets and no stories. ”
“You like spreadsheets.”
“I fucking suck at spreadsheets,” I laugh. “I like building something and then watching it happen.”
Rowan nods. “You’d be good at that.”
The certainty in his voice catches me. “You think?”
“Yeah.”
I stare at him.
He reaches for another fry. I smack his hand automatically, but the warmth has already spread into my chest.
“Okay,” I say. “Your turn.”
“My dream?”
“Yes.”
He leans back against the couch. I expect him to think forever. He doesn’t. “Family.”
I blink.
“What?”
“Eventually.”
I stare at him. “That is your biggest dream?”
“I don’t know if it’s the biggest.”
“What else?”
“Job I like. House.”
I gawk at him. “That’s it?”
He looks amused. “What else do I need?”
“A yacht.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Private island.”
His brow furrows. “No.”
“Stanley paying your mortgage.”
He thinks about that one. “I’d take it.”
I laugh.
He smiles. There is something disarming about how uncomplicated the answer is.
Not simple because Rowan lacks ambition.
He works harder than almost anyone I know.
He takes hockey seriously. He takes school seriously.
He has saved job postings and talked about graduate school and still somehow manages to cook actual meals when the rest of Hawthorne survives on protein powder and takeout.
But he doesn’t seem embarrassed by wanting an ordinary life.
A house. A family. Work he doesn’t hate.
Something about that lodges itself inside me.
“What about you?” Rowan asks.
“I answered.”
“Family.”
“Oh.” I think about it. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Probably?”
I smile. “Yeah, of course. I want kids.”
“How many?”
I look at him. It’s a sweet question. I answer with my fingers, “Two.”
He nods.
I say, “Three is when they can unionize.”
He laughs.
I shrug. “I already grew up with Benson. I’ve served my time.”
He smiles. “You love your brother.”
“I do. Deeply. Which is why I know the dangers.”
Rowan smiles. I study him for a second.
“What about hockey?”
“What about it?”
“Isn’t that the dream?”
He shakes his head.
I stare at him for a second, waiting for him to change his answer. “Playing professionally?”
“No.”
That surprises me enough that I put my food down. “No?”
“I knew a long time ago I probably wasn’t going to the NHL.”
“But that isn’t the only place you can play.”
“I know.”
“AHL?”
He gives me a look. “That’s not exactly something I can just decide to do.”
“Fine. ECHL.”
“Maybe.”
“Europe?”
“Maybe.”
I pull my feet underneath me and turn farther toward him. He keeps eating like this is an entirely normal conversation, and he hasn’t just casually dismantled what I assumed was the central dream of every man who has willingly spent most of his life getting slammed into boards.
“And you just don’t care?”
“I care.”
“That sounded suspiciously like you don’t.”
Rowan thinks about it while he chews. “I like playing hockey.”
“Okay.”
“I love playing here.”
Something about the way he says it makes me stop.
Here.
Not hockey.
Here.
I look around my apartment like Camden might somehow be visible through the walls. “So why wouldn’t you want to keep playing somewhere else?”
He shrugs. “I might.”
“You’re really fucking good.”
“I know.”
I stare at him.
He looks over.
“Did you just say I know?”
“You told me I’m good.”
“Yes, and you’re supposed to receive compliments humbly.”
“I said I know.”
“That is the opposite of humble.”
He starts laughing.
I shove his thigh with my foot.
“You want me to lie?”
“No. I want you to say something gracious like, Thank you, Gianna. That means a lot coming from somebody with your incredible hockey expertise.”
“I’m good at hockey,” he says solemnly. “Unfortunately.”
I start laughing. “Much better.”
He smiles and takes another bite.
I watch him for a second before the original question comes back to me.
“But if playing after college isn’t this huge dream for you, why are you trying to get another year here?”
His fork slows.
“You applied to grad school partly because you can still play,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“But you don’t know if you want to keep playing after Camden.”
“No.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do you see why you’re confusing?”
He laughs. “I never said I had it figured out.”
“That might be the first useful thing you’ve said.”
“I applied to grad school. I’m looking at jobs. I’ll figure it out.” That is apparently enough explanation for Rowan.
I stare at him. “You have absolutely no idea what you want.”
His eyes stay on mine for a second. Then they drop to my mouth. “I know what I want right now.”
My smile appears before I can stop it. “Oh, do you?”
He puts his plate on the coffee table. “Yeah.”
I move onto his lap and wrap my arms around his neck. “That was smooth.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“I know.” I smile against his mouth. “That’s why it worked.”
I kiss him, and then I pull back. “Have you ever been in love, Laurens?”
He laughs immediately.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You really just ask things.”
I nod.
“No transition.”
“What transition do you need? We were discussing dreams and families. Love is adjacent.”
“Adjacent,” he says, thinking.
“Answer my question.”
He looks back at the television. “No.”
That surprises me. “Never?”
He rubs my legs. “No.”
I say, “You had a girlfriend in high school, I thought. For how long?”
His eyes come back to mine. “Eight months.”
My eyebrows rise. “Eight months and you weren’t in love?”
He shakes his head, looking at my mouth. “No.”
I want to ask fifteen more questions. I don’t. Mostly because I know exactly what I said about not turning Rowan into a project.
So instead I say, “Ask me anything you want.”
He looks surprised that I didn’t ask more.
“Have you?” he asks.
“Been in love? No.”
He gives me a look.
“I have crushes.” I nod, resting my hands on his shoulders. “Constantly.”
His mouth lifts. “I know.”
“You know?” I question.
He lets his head hang to the side. “G.” He grins. “Come on.”
I laugh.
“Fine. I have never been in love. I love my friends. I love my family. I love this weird little life I built here. Romantic love?” I shake my head. “No.”
He watches me. “Okay.”
I point at him. “Hostile.”
He laughs.
I pull him closer. “I just want to know you.” The sentence slips out more quietly than everything else.
Rowan’s expression softens. “You can ask me whatever you want, G.”
There is no hesitation. No annoyance. No joke about how many questions I ask. Just that.
“You’ll answer?”
“Yeah.”
I scrunch my nose. “Everything?”
“If I can.”
That is somehow worse than anything sexual he could have said. I lean in and kiss him. He laughs against my mouth.
“What?” I laugh against his lips.
“Nothing,” he whispers.
“No, tell me.”
“You ask a hundred questions and then kiss me when I answer.”
“You said something annoying. And I like kissing you.”
I kiss him again. He runs his palms up my waist and presses into me. The movement is so easy and natural that I moan in his mouth. His hands settle on my hips. I brush my thumb along his jaw.
I pull back and whisper, “You know what I like about you?”
He looks suspicious already. “What?”
“You never act like I’m too much.”
His expression softens.
I immediately want to crawl out of my own skin because that was far more sincere than I intended.
So I add, “Which means your judgment is questionable.”
Rowan smiles. “Probably.”
“I talk too much.”
“Yeah.”
My mouth drops open.
He laughs.
“You were supposed to disagree.”
“You do talk a lot.”
“Wow.”
He smiles at me. “I like it.” His thumb moves against my hip. “You’re rambunctious.”
I stare at him. “Rambunctious?”
“Yeah.”
“What am I, a golden retriever?”
He laughs.
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, Rowan. Rambunctious is new.”
“It fits.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” His answer comes immediately. “Not at all.”
I study his face. He means it. That warmth comes back, stronger this time. Rowan looks at my mouth. “It’s cute.”
I squint. “My annoying personality is cute?”
His hands slide farther around my waist. “It’s hot, actually.”
I laugh into his mouth, and he grabs the back of my neck and kisses me.
I thought the best part of having an empty apartment would be finally getting him alone again.
It isn’t.
It’s this.
The food containers are still on the coffee table. Love Island is asking if we’re still watching. Rowan is answering my questions underneath me, and we have spent more time talking tonight than doing anything else.
I don’t feel like I need to leave.
He doesn’t look like he wants me to.