"Following." He kissed me once more, quick and cold-lipped. "See you at home."
Home. He tossed it off casually, like it was already decided. His apartment or mine, it didn't matter—we'd made spaces that held both of us.
Rhett's apartment was warmer than mine—better insulation, or maybe the fact that he remembered to adjust the thermostat instead of piling on sweaters until spring. I kicked off my boots by the door and hung my jacket beside his.
I dropped onto the couch, pulled Gram's old project bag from where I'd left it two days ago, and found the scarf I'd been working on. Storm colors—blue and white stripes with a pattern that looked simple until you tried it. It was one of Margaret's designs that she called "deceptively challenging."
Rhett appeared with two mugs, set mine on the side table within reach, and then settled beside me. He had his own project—some carpentry magazine he'd been meaning to read for three weeks.
"You nervous about playoffs?" he asked, not looking up from an article about dovetail joints.
There was no point in lying. "Yeah, the shoulder's getting worse. Coach knows it. I know it. Probably the whole league knows it by now."
"How much worse?"
I finished a row before answering. "Bad enough that Evan's started covering my weak side without me asking. Good enough that I can still throw down if someone needs an attitude adjustment."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I've got." I started the next row, counting stitches under my breath. "Maybe this is my last playoff run. Maybe I've got another season. My body didn't specify in the memo."
He reached out and squeezed my knee once.
I set down the needles and turned to look at him. His hair was sticking up on one side where he'd been running his fingers through it while reading. His flannel had a small hole near the collar I'd offered to fix at least six times. He looked tired but content.
"How are you so calm about this?" I asked.
"About what?"
"All of it. Me falling apart in installments. The uncertainty. The fact that I'm thirty years old and just now figuring out what I want to be when I grow up."
He closed the magazine and set it aside. "You're not falling apart. You're rebuilding."
"Feels the same from the inside."
"Then you're not paying attention." His hand moved from my knee to my chest, palm flat over my heart. "You told Margaret yes. You're teaching Pickle how to trust his teammates. You're here, knitting on my couch instead of spiraling alone in your apartment. That's not falling apart, Hog. That's choosing to stay whole."
"You make it sound easy."
"It's not easy, but it's possible."
We kissed. When we broke apart, he was smiling.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just—I like this. You here. The quiet."
My phone buzzed somewhere in my jacket pocket—probably Jake with another playoff beard update, or Pickle asking if he should start a pre-game ritual involving his lucky socks. The Storm group chat never slept.
I didn't check it. Whatever it was could wait.
Rhett shifted beside me, his fingers reaching out to run up the back of my neck, threading through my hair while he returned to his reading.
My body hurt, but my chest felt light.
The scarf in my lap was maybe two feet long now—far enough along that I could see what it would become. It wasn't perfect. A few stitches were tighter than others in one section where I'd lost count and had to improvise. Still, it held together and kept its shape.
Kind of like me.
