He flicked his tongue at the edges of my bruise—light, reverent. "This okay?"
"Yeah."
"Good." He ran a hand down low over my abs. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
Chapter twenty
Rhett
Iwoke up under a boulder that breathed and snored.
Hog's forearm was slung across my ribs, heavy enough to keep me pinned, his face mashed against my shoulder. His breath came in soft huffs that warmed the spot below my collarbone.
We'd each had beers the night before, and the smell lingered. Light leaked around the edges of the blinds in my apartment. It was a winter morning that made the lake and sky blur into one sheet of cold.
I lay there, listening to Hog sleep.
Memories of the night before returned. The Drop had been packed and loud. Hog was everywhere at once, booming laugh, hand steady at the small of my back whenever someone grabbed me to talk. He'd leaned in close at one point, like he was sharing a secret, and said, "I'm not going anywhere."
It wasn't a promise shouted across a room. It was the simple recitation of a fact.
In the present, Hog shifted and groaned. "Rhett," he mumbled into my shoulder, voice gravelly with sleep, "You're poking me with one of your bones."
"My bones are internal," I said. "That's the whole point of bones."
He opened one eye and tightened the arm lying across my body. "How's the human weighted blanket experience?"
"I like being able to breathe, but maybe that's a niche preference."
He grinned and buried his nose in my neck. We stayed like that until his alarm barked a harsh ringtone that reminded me of Coach Rusk.
"Time to weep," he said, rolling away with a dramatic sigh that tugged the sheet half off me. "Sunrise torture."
"You're the one who keeps giving him reasons to invent new drills."
He swung his legs to the floor and sat there for a second, elbows on knees, head hanging. Then he raked his thick fingers through his hair and searched for his socks.
"I'll make coffee," I said.
"I love you."
He said it like always—a simple reflex woven into good mornings and grocery lists. I nodded and pushed up. "One human-strength coffee coming up. Not whatever you made last week that threatened to strip the skin off my tongue."
"That was a bold roast." He finally located his socks, tugged them on, and then muttered something about tape and practice and "Pickle's tendency to pickles," which I didn't ask him to explain.
While the coffee gurgled, he pushed his arms into his coat at the door. I handed him a travel mug, and he took it with a grunt, then stepped up close to me and kissed my cheek.
"Don't let the lake carry you away," he said. "It's extra dramatic today."
"Go survive your sadistic sunrise drills."
He waved the mug in thanks and clomped down the stairs. I watched from the window as he headed out into the thin winter light, big as a yeti in his coat, breath creating clouds before him.
***
By the time I got to the kids' rink for nine AM practice, voices were bouncing off the rafters. I set cones on the blue line while my group fidgeted in a ragged line, trying to balance on skates and talk at the same time.
"Okay, warm-up laps, then stickhandling figure eights around the cones."
