Chapter 4
Four
Lainey
Okay, so maybe moving into a new house isn’t so bad.
Not when I’ve inherited friends like this.
My Christmas tree is standing in the corner of the family room, adorned with the lights that Kailey and Harper untangled a few days ago.
My kitchen is full of delicious food brought by Veronica and Vi, and the scent of freshly baked banana bread (made by—which may surprise some, but definitely not me, considering how he loves his Faye—Gray) wafts through the air.
And laughter rings out all around.
Tomorrow Ollie and I will put the ornaments on the tree and maybe I’ll steal Harper’s sugar cookie recipe so we can make and decorate some.
Ollie will like that.
And now that it’s not just the two of us any longer, I don’t have to worry about sneaking down at midnight and downing them all while in a fit of creative fury.
My lips twitch.
Ben used to call it that—when I’d wake up out of a dead sleep and have—yes, have—to get my laptop and ended up writing for hours.
Faye is a consistent writing gremlin, chipping away at her word count day in and out.
I’m…or well, I was before it became a real job with real deadlines and contracts to fulfill, a binge writer—the words rushing out of me like a flurry, like a storm, barely remembering to eat or drink, to go to the bathroom, hell, to sleep.
It was almost like my body was taken over by demons and the words had to be exorcised.
Now, things are much steadier.
Mostly because I have a four-year-old who needs me—and he won’t be happy if I just toss him a protein bar a few times a day.
And because I had a husband who needed me.
Who needed my body and most of my attention, my ability to drive to doctors’ appointments and sort out prior authorizations with our insurance company, my emotional regulation system to deal with a colicky newborn, my organizational skills for meal-planning and bill-paying and house-organizing, my—
“When are you going to write a hot hockey hero, Lanes?”
I blink, dropping back into reality with the full force of a meteor impacting Earth.
That is to say, cratered, burned, never to be the same again.
Only this time it’s not about the past—
Or maybe it is.
Hell.
Maybe it’s that my friends have found hot hockey heroes of their own. They’re not perfect. Their relationships aren’t always free of complications (definitely not).
But it’s real.
And my reality…well, it was so far away from what they have that I feel it in the cratered remains of my heart, my soul.
I loved Ben.
It’s just…
“Earth to Lainey,” Luna calls softly, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Sorry. Plot bunnies,” I lie.
She grins.
“About your hot hockey hero?”
Now I grin. “Nah, I’ll stick with my immortal, sword-wielding, magical heroes, thank you very much.”
“Who are all six-and-a-half feet tall, have six-packs and gorgeous hair, and have a penchant for damsels in distress.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “My heroines kick serious ass, as you well know.”
“Okay then, so they have a penchant for kickass, sassy heroines who refuse to be rescued.”
My mouth tips up. “Precisely.”
Luna sighs heavily.
“Now what?” Harper asks, rubbing her hand over her belly.
“I foresee many a late night in my future.”
“Because Reese is going to keep you up?” Kailey asks, nibbling at a sugar cookie.
“Nope.” She pops the P. “Because Lainey’s books are.”
Faye chuckles. “Oh, the humanity.”
I laugh and then I’m firmly pushing the past aside, focusing on the present, on the food and the laughter and sifting through the remaining boxes left to unpack.
Pulling off the lid of the plastic container, I smile at the pictures inside.
“Ollie sure was adorable,” Faye says.
“Was?” I tease.
Her cheeks go pink and she starts stammering, but before I can fully let her off the hook, Luns is coming close. “What’s the hubbub over here?”
Faye and I lock eyes—
Because hubbub?
Only Luna.
“Aw,” she says, her attention quickly distracted by the photos. “Ollie was so cute.” She picks up a frame. “Was this your husband?”
I nod, guilt from my earlier (and less than charitable) thoughts churning through me. “Yeah.”
“You guys were so young.”
More guilt.
For so many things but most of all because…
I’m here.
And he’s not.
“Yeah,” I whisper, touching the edge of the frame that houses the picture of Ben and Ollie, the former is holding a giggling baby Ollie, and their smiles are contagious.
It’s one of my favorite photos.
“We were high school sweethearts,” I say softly.
“And in love like most teenagers—stupidly, that is.” I look up, my lips twitching.
“And passionately. So yeah, it’s not exactly a surprise that we ended up with a baby on the way when we were just starting our senior year in college.
We got married, Ben finished his degree while I worked and took care of Ollie.
I always meant to go back, but the timing never worked out and then I got busy with writing and Ben got sick and… ” I shrug. “I had other priorities.”
“Yeah,” Luna says, “I bet.” She reaches forward, squeezes my hand. “Sorry to bring up bad thoughts.”
“Don’t apologize.” I squeeze back. “It wasn’t all bad.”
I realize my misstep even as their faces change.
“Ignore me,” I say. “It’s just that we were young and things were tight and, God, we were young. There were tough times but we loved each other.”
A blip of quiet, then Veronica reaches over and touches my knee. “We know you did.”
Vi nods, her eyes telling me she sees through to the subtext of my words, that she does it far more effectively than any other person in the room.
Not a surprise considering she deals in love for her job.
And the evidence states she’s damned good at it, considering what she says next.
“Sometimes the people we love can’t love us back in the way we need,” she tells me gently. “And sometimes love grows and matures and changes in a way the person you love can’t meet it.”
Faye’s fingers squeeze mine, her lips parting—
“And that’s why Violet is the Blue Line Matchmaker!” Smitty booms.
We all jump and I turn to see the guys standing in the hall.
“Sorry,” Leo says as he walks into the living room. “Ollie was tired, so we wrapped up a little early.”
Harper’s face gentles—and I know mine does the same as he turns to show us Ollie sacked out on his shoulder.
“Sugar cookies!” Smitty’s voice echoes through the room, but my son is already used to his antics and he doesn’t so much as twitch. “Killer!”
“Want me to put him in his bedroom?” Leo asks.
I nod. “That would be great. I’ll be right up.”
He slips from the room, and even before I can tell the girls to leave the dishes, my friends are up on their feet, grabbing plates and cups.
“We got it,” Faye says. “You go take care of Ollie Monster.”
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I know,” she whispers back.
“Mom!” I hear. “We played so hard Ollie fell asleep,” Veronica’s son, Alex says.
He’s twice Ollie’s age, but a total sweetheart.
“Well,” Veronica says, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, “it sounds like everyone had a good time.”
“It was awesome!” he exclaims. “Ryan got a jackpot on the quarter game and we got two thousand tickets.”
“Whoa,” Veronica replies, ruffling his hair, but her eyes are on Ryan’s.
And his are on hers right back.
“That does sound awesome,” she says after a moment.
He looks away.
She looks away.
And I, well I glance at Faye.
My friend just subtly shakes her head.
Later then I’ll figure out what the deal with those two is.
Because there’s tension and longing and…the potential of an HEA.
And speaking of tension—or rather, the absence of the type of tension that has Veronica’s cheeks going pink and Ryan’s jaw flexing as he looks away from her—Sawyer winks at me as he snags a tray from the coffee table and starts to carry it from the room.
We’ve slipped right back into the friend zone, thank God.
Even if I can still remember every single second of our night together.
“I thought you needed to head to that charity event,” Aiden says.
“I do,” Sawyer replies, not stopping his trek to the kitchen. “But the dishes will only take a second.”
Aiden frowns.
But Sawyer’s already disappeared with the platter, and then I’m zipping upstairs to tuck Ollie into bed.
By the time I come back down, Reese is crying, demanding a diaper change, and Gray, Vi, and Faye are sorting out the leftovers in the kitchen, and Leo’s shepherding a tired Harper toward the door, Smitty and Kailey on their heels.
But it’s Sawyer who draws my focus time and again.
How he makes everyone laugh as he does the dishes.
How he spots a missed bowl tucked into a corner of the counter and washes that too.
How he smiles and jokes and works.
Even though he has somewhere to be and didn’t sign up to clean my dirty plates and cups and platters.
Even though he does it all with an easy aplomb, as though it isn’t a big deal.
And maybe it isn’t according to him.
I just—
When his eyes come to mine for a brief moment I wonder how everyone doesn’t see what I see.
How everyone misses it.
But then he blinks and it’s gone, replaced with his steady, even self, and then I’m wondering if I imagined it all.
Or if the worry I glimpsed deep within those striking blue eyes is truly there.