Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
Zaiah
Len and I walk hand in hand away from the main lobby of Serenity Ranch and Spa. The sun lingers in the sky longer now than it did when we were here before, clinging to the horizon. Next to me, my little writer is a million miles away, worrying over her lip. A sure sign she wants to break out the laptop when we get back to our spot.
We walk past the other sites, RVs parked with people eating late dinners or staring out over the lake. I was able to reserve us the same site as last time, so once she walks up to the perch above the stone building, she’ll have the most beautiful sunset to write whatever her beautiful mind is conjuring.
Squeezing her hand, I tell her, “I’ll bring up some popcorn.”
Slowly, she gives me one of her heart-melting smiles. “You’re the best.”
I take her words to heart, letting them fill me. Giving myself a pat on the back sounds cliché and dumb, but it’s more than that. Making her smile, making her feel loved, is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
The path in front of us curves and twists, like the contents of my stomach. I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to pull this moment off. I thought I wanted her at my game, in my jersey, screaming my name, but it was the moments between the highlights that stuck out the most. The little things that grew bigger and bigger with time.
We walk the rest of the way in silence, the lake insects singing us their songs. Every once in a while, it’s punctuated by the deep bellow of a toad or the swoop of a bird’s wings as it glides to a stop on the surface of the lake.
When we return to the site, Lenore immediately moves into the RV to grab her laptop while I head to the outdoor kitchen. I take out the little popcorn packets I stored in there earlier and ready my cell phone to play.
I can’t keep a smile off my face when her footsteps sound behind me. Spinning on my heels, I’m greeted with another grin. She reaches up on her toes to kiss my cheek, and when she turns, I discreetly push play on the audio file.
“And now, your starting player. The formidable, the creative, the incredible…” The announcer from the rink draws the word out for more than a few seconds. Lenore stops, her foot already on the first step of the stairs, and she turns to peer over her shoulder as the announcer says: “The most talented writer in the world, Lenore Robertson.” He finishes her name with the same flourish he uses when he announces the starting lineup at my games.
Her gaze morphs from confusion to excitement to bliss, and I’m brought back to when she did this for me, using her own voice in the hallway of our suite. Such an insignificant moment to some, but to me, it meant everything. In that one exchange, she told me she was proud of me, she told me she was thinking of me, and she told me that she thought what I did mattered.
She saunters toward me. “You got RC to say that?”
I nod, pausing the audio file. In the time I look away, she’s already on me, throwing her arms around my shoulders. “Do you really think I’m the most talented writer in the world?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s about a few hundred thousand writers in the world.”
“I like your chances.”
“You’re biased,” she says, moving impossibly closer.
“So?”
She peers at my lips before moving forward. A bubble encapsulates us as I work my mouth over hers, savoring the caress, the feel, the emotion. It’s not just a kiss. It’s a promise.
Too early, she pulls away, but she’s still smiling. “Do you want to know why I was a hundred miles away?”
“Because you have a story idea in your head, and if you don’t write it down, you’ll forget, and no matter what you come up with next, you’ll think it’s not as good as the idea that slipped through your fingers.”
“Poetic.”
“I’ve been living with you for months. It’s bound to rub off.”
She shuffles her feet. “Actually, I caught a glimpse of a notification I received when we were in the lobby, and I wanted to look at it to see if it was something worth telling you about.”
I give her a look. “Okay…”
“Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you checked the views on the YouTube video?”
I side-eye her. “In forever.” If it happens, it happens. I don’t need to agitate myself to death over it, choosing instead to focus on the things I can control.
“You should check it,” she says, shrugging like it’s no big deal.
My brain worries I might obsess again. Falling into old patterns might be easy, I don’t know. But when Len gives me a nod, I know I should.
Pulling out my phone, I connect to the Wi-Fi. I don’t even have the video open in my tabs anymore, so I have to go searching for it. My brain conjures up a few possible numbers since she must be telling me this because people have viewed it, right? She wouldn’t have me open the video to a big, fat goose egg.
The page loads, and my eyes bug out of my head. Surely this isn’t right . I refresh the page. When the number goes up by two instead of decreasing by tens of thousands, I check the video title to make sure I have the right one. But there it is. Me, in my hockey gear, smiling at the camera.
My stomach flips. “This can’t be right.”
Her smile has already stretched wide. “When my article came out in the magazine, people were salivating over seeing the video.” She moves next to me. “Look, there’s a few hundred comments, Z.”
“But—”
“I made the video public because your story wasn’t just yours anymore. It was so many others’, too. Past hockey players, young kids, they all wanted to see you, to know you.”
I peer at her, and she’s blinking rapidly. The moment she locks gazes with me, a single tear falls. “There’s something else, too.”
Pulling out her phone with shaking hands, she brings up her email. She taps the most recent one, then hands the phone over to me.
I read her screen, my heart beating like a drummer on crack.
I read it again to be certain I read it correctly. “It’s—”
Glancing up, I spot Lenore with her fists on her face, knuckles obscuring her mouth like she’s trying not to say anything, but then she bursts. “We started that email account when we signed up for YouTube, and it automatically added it to my phone. The comments started pouring in yesterday.”
“The day your article released.”
“This came in just now. Look, Zaiah, the Rochester Renegades. A farm team. A—”
“They want me to try out.” My voice isn’t even recognizable to me. It’s so filled with wonder and awe. “You did this.”
She shakes her head. “No, you did this. The little boy who didn’t want to get off the ice. The teenager who signed with Warner. The man who never stopped trying. You did this, Zaiah.”
I wipe my hand down my face. I don’t even know what to think. Scooping her up, I spin with Len in my arms. “ We did this,” I whisper in her ear, overwhelmed with every feeling I thought this moment would be.
When I let her down, I shout into the air, pumping my arm. Birds fly off the lake, and I’m pretty sure I violated quiet hours, but holy shit . My hockey career isn’t over.
I have a lifeline.
“I guess we make a pretty good team.”
Spinning, I eye her up as she leans against the countertop. “Are you kidding me? We make the best pucking team.”
“He seems pretty impressed,” she says, pocketing her phone again.
A balloon inflates inside me. “I’m going to do it,” I tell her. “If not in that city, then another. I’m going to be on the winning side of the statistic you wrote about. I know it for sure.”
The look on her face couldn’t be prouder. It might have taken me a hell of a long time to get here, but I’m finally here. I’m not talking hockey either. I’m talking determination and belief. “I hope you’re ready to stay a hockey girlfriend, sweetheart.”
For a split second, worry overtakes me. What would this mean for her? What—
She walks forward, sealing her lips to mine. It’s short and sweet and infused with so much meaning. “All I need is a laptop…and you.”
I have to catch my breath. “You’re serious?”
“Would I joke about hockey?”
“But—”
“But you, Zaiah,” she says, placing a finger over my lips. “It’s you.”
A million thoughts swirl around me in a tornado of emotion. I know what it means to her to say those words. She’s gone all in with me, and I take that realization with a steadfast protectiveness. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t.”
Her phone buzzes in her pocket as I lift her from the ground. Her feet slide around me easily, and I kiss her. I kiss her until my lips strain, until I want to take her back inside the RV, until she knows that I’ll do everything in my power to be the man she deserves.
She breaks away, her breaths coming out in pants. “My phone is going crazy.”
“I thought you were just happy to see me.”
“It could be more teams.”
The thought excites me, but not as much as sharing this moment with Len. I slip her phone out of her pocket and set it on the counter, then I carry her upstairs, her legs still wrapped around me, until we get to the half-moon bed.
We crawl up it, situating ourselves with the best view of the lake I’ve ever seen. The burnt orange of the horizon plays over the glassy water below. It looks like a postcard.
“I used to sit up at night, watching the stars, dreaming about this,” I tell her.
She snuggles in closer. “You deserve it.”
We sit in silence until the pretty colors recede and the stars are the brightest thing in the sky. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve asked for this. For someone to share the good moments and the not-so-good moments. That’s what life is. A mixture of both.
“I should’ve wished for you.”
“You don’t have to,” she says sleepily. “I’m right here.”