Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Vivian told herself she didn’t regret Boston. Regret implied she’d made a mistake, and she was sure—all the way to her bones—that she hadn’t.
And that was the problem.
The memory of her night with Dean refused to stay where she’d left it—tucked neatly in a hotel room, behind a door she’d shut weeks ago.
Instead, it resurfaced at inconvenient moments. While she stood in line for coffee. While she folded laundry. While she lay awake at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling, remembering the warmth of his body beside hers after years of sleeping alone.
Loneliness had become something she knew how to carry because it never left her alone.
It reared its head every morning as she made one cup of coffee rather than a whole pot to share.
It sat with her at dinner every night, as she looked at Phil’s empty chair.
It followed her to the bedroom, where she still slept on “her side,” leaving Phil’s untouched rather than spreading out to claim the whole space.
She’d spent the past few months learning to ignore the ache that came from not having someone to tell about the stupid little moments that composed each day.
For years, she’d had Belle to fill that space.
But since returning to Africa to find her nanny in love and shacked up with her brother, the house had grown too quiet, the empty echoes too loud.
Then Boston happened.
Dinner with Dean hadn’t felt like anything extraordinary while it was taking place. It was two people comfortably sharing a meal after a damn long day. The conversation had started easily enough as they traded stories.
Then they started diving deeper. He told her about McKenna, sharing bits and pieces she was certain he hadn’t said to anyone else. And she’d surprised herself by doing the same, talking about Phil, words slipping free before she had the chance to overthink them.
Somewhere between the second and third glass of wine, she’d felt a connection she hadn’t experienced since her husband.
Maybe that was why reaching for him in the darkness after they’d climbed into bed together had seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
There had been no hesitation and no grand decision. Just two people reaching out for each other, deepening the intimacy begun over that meal.
Everything after that had unfolded with an ease she’d long since forgotten. Nothing with Dean had been awkward and there’d been no expectations. Just warmth and kisses…and some of the hottest sex she’d ever had.
Then she’d cried.
She cringed every time she remembered that part. Not because Dean had made her feel embarrassed. Quite the opposite.
He hadn’t judged her or sought to escape the crazy woman bawling in his arms. He’d simply held her while all that loneliness escaped in a wave of tears that had been…freeing.
They had overslept spectacularly, which made sense, considering how late they’d stayed up.
Waking in a panic, with barely enough time to throw their clothing in suitcases before racing to Logan Airport, hadn’t afforded them the opportunity for any awkward morning-after conversation.
Plus, they’d been assigned seats on opposite ends of the plane.
There also hadn’t been time for any discussion about what came next. Not that she expected or even wanted anything else.
She had decided thirty thousand feet in the air, somewhere over Pennsylvania, that what they’d shared was best left in Boston. It had only been one night, one brief moment where two people had found each other at exactly the right time and took what they needed.
No more. No less.
After landing, they’d said a quick goodbye, Dean rushing for the parking garage to grab his car.
The Stingrays had a preseason game that night, and she knew he was worried about arriving to the arena late.
She hadn’t had time to talk, either, as Belle had texted that she was waiting outside the terminal in a loading zone.
And just like that…Boston was over.
Vivian tried to convince herself the night with Dean had filled the well that had been running dry for far too long. She’d needed closeness and he’d provided it.
Now, she was moving on.
Or at least she was trying.
However, Dean kept appearing in her everyday life.
Three days after her return to Baltimore, she’d run into him at the arena.
She’d spotted him outside the training room while dropping some paperwork off to Victor.
She and Dean had exchanged an easy hello that somehow turned into a funny ten-minute conversation about whether the Stingrays’ team mascot secretly terrified children.
A week later, they crossed paths at a charity event benefiting youth hockey programs. Vivian had stepped in as her brother’s date at the last minute, after Belle twisted her ankle while jogging earlier in the day.
Dean had looked very handsome in his navy suit, his beard neatly trimmed.
She’d had a hard time focusing on the formal presentation, her attention drawn time and time again to where he sat across the table from her.
That night, they’d spent nearly twenty minutes talking beside the silent auction tables, deciding what to bid on, until someone whisked him away for team photographs.
Every encounter was brief, but enough. Enough to test her resolve when it came to putting their one night together in the past and shifting back into her normal routine.
Not that her normal routine had been all that normal since her return from Africa at the end of August. In the five years following Phil’s death, Vivian’s life had been practically set in concrete, so predictable, so reliable, zero surprises.
Just a pattern of steps that had made it simple for her to move on following the loss of her husband.
Then she’d upended the routine when she discovered that the book she’d been writing prior to Phil’s diagnosis—the one she had put on the back burner because there was a husband to grieve and a newborn to care for—was about to be passed on to another researcher on her team to complete.
Vivian had stopped wanting things for herself after Pip’s birth, convinced the only thing that mattered was raising that baby girl.
But the book had been her first baby, the culmination of years of work and research, and the idea of someone else stepping in and finishing it bothered her.
A lot. So she’d talked to Victor and Belle about it, and they—both wonderful people—had assured her they would take care of Pip so she could finish the work.
It was the first time in years that she’d done something for herself, and at the time, she told herself that it was a one-off. She’d complete the book, then return to the status quo.
Victor and Belle threw a wrench into that plan by falling in love while she was in Africa.
Not that she was unhappy with their relationship.
No. So maybe it wasn’t a wrench they’d thrown.
Instead, it felt like a flashlight, one that shone too bright a light on everything that was missing in her life.
She’d thought that sleeping with Dean had been a tiny detour, one brief chance to grab something for herself.
Maybe if the man didn’t keep appearing in her life, that would have been true, but the run-ins were wreaking havoc on her mental state…and libido.
The more she talked to him, the more impossible it became to believe Boston had been nothing more than an isolated moment.
And it had to be isolated.
Didn’t it?
Every time they said goodbye, she walked away with that same ridiculous pull low in her gut, as though some invisible thread stretched between them, refusing to break.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
Vivian blinked, realizing she had completely zoned out on poor McKenna, who was watching her over the rim of her iced tea glass.
She and the Stingrays’ marketing manager had met last fall at Victor’s place. Her brother was a big fan of firepits, so on crisp, clear, cool nights when the Rays weren’t playing, he’d frequently invite her and Pip and other friends to join him in his backyard.
She and McKenna had been sitting next to each other, so they struck up a conversation that laid the foundation for what had grown to be a close friendship. McKenna, like her father, was easy to talk to.
“Sorry,” she said. “Can’t quite get my head in the game today. Keep getting distracted by…” Vivian had no idea how to finish that sentence because, friends or not, she wasn’t about to confess to McKenna that she’d had a steamy one-night stand with her father. “Work,” she finished lamely.
Vivian had been pleased when McKenna texted to see if she wanted to grab lunch with her at the little café across from the arena. It was early October, so the weather was mild enough for them to sit outside, soaking in some much-needed Vitamin D in the warm sunlight.
It wasn’t unusual for them to meet two or three times a month for lunch, but that routine had fallen off quite a bit since the end of spring.
Partly because Vivian had been out of the country for the entire summer, and partly because McKenna was in the throes of a new relationship with the Stingrays’ right winger, Tank.
McKenna accepted Vivian’s excuse, asking how Pip was liking kindergarten. It was the perfect way to distract Vivian from her other distraction—Dean—because if there was one thing she loved talking about, it was Pip.
They had just finished their sandwiches when McKenna’s phone pinged.
“Oh damn,” she murmured. “I have to run. My boss just moved up our afternoon meeting.”
Vivian waved her on. “We were nearly finished, and it’s my turn to pay anyway. Go on. I’m just going to finish my drink and enjoy this weather. In a few more months, we’re going to be forced inside by winter. Januarys in Baltimore are brutal.”
McKenna bent down to give her a quick hug. “Talk soon.”
Vivian nodded when the waitress came by and offered to refill her iced tea. She sipped it slowly, enjoying the crisp fall air for another twenty minutes.