His lips close.
“Listen, it was a wild night and you two got carried away, but I saw you and Hannah together. This wasn’t all on you,” Shep says. “She was as into you as you were her.”
The memory of her kissing me resurfaces. A million fantasies couldn’t have prepared me. Of course, I hoped her hanging out and talking with me meant she was feeling me and maybe she’d agree to spend more time with me when we got back to Moonshot. Bringing her home with me hadn’t really been the plan. A dream? For sure. But I was fine playing the long game.
And then she kissed me. I imagine the way I felt is similar to someone hitting the jackpot at the casino. All-consuming shock followed by euphoria. Maybe I should have slowed things down or…fuck, I don’t know. That’s the truly shitty thing. There isn’t a thing from that night that I’d change.
“Yeah, well, a lot of fucking good that does me now. Whatever she was feeling…she isn’t now.”
“At least you got to hook up with her once,” D-Low says like she was a bucket list item that I wanted to check off. “Was the sex good?”
“Duuude,” Shep admonishes him with a wide-eyeddon’t be such a dick right nowglare, then looks at me like he might still want to know the answer.
“It was the best night of my life.”
Another bout of silence stretches out. The only sound is the liquid swishing around as D-Low tips his beer back for another long drink. When he meets my gaze again it’s with a more serious glint in his eyes. “Damn.”
“Yeah.” I take another drink of my beer too then abandon it. Drinking only reminds me of that night, which reminds me of the mess, which reminds me I fucked this up.
“What do you need?” Shep asks.
“A time machine?”
D-Low sucks air in through his teeth. “Theoretically speaking, going back in time is a lot less realistic than the possibility of traveling to the future.”
I stare at him, silently hoping to convey that his scientific theory shit isn’t helpful right now. He shrugs.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I ask, sinking back into the couch. I appreciate them being here and wanting to help, but so far, I only feel worse.
As our conversations often do, we turn to hockey. We play again Sunday afternoon against Dallas. It’ll be a tough matchup, but everyone is looking forward to it. The last couple games, we seem to have found our rhythm and we’re coming together as a team.
Around eleven, Shep starts yawning and can’t stop.
“I guess I should get him home,” D-Low says with a chuckle. “Ready for bed, roomie?”
“Mmmm…” Shep nods with heavy eyes.
I stand and hug Shep. I do feel a smidge better.
“Thank you guys for coming. You two are the real deal.”
“Anytime,” Shep says then yawns again.
I hug D-Low next.
“Cheer up, Trav.” He slaps my back twice. “She liked you enough to marry you once. That has to be a good sign. It can’t be any harder to convince her to say yes to a date than it was to get her to marry you.”
“Does that logic work when my wife was too drunk to remember?” Actually, I have no idea how much of that night she remembers, but the look on her face when I called her wife tells me possibly very little.
“Some people say that alcohol brings out your true feelings,” he says.
“That’d be more convincing if she weren’t so eager to sign the annulment paperwork.”
He chuckles softly, pulls back, and squeezes my shoulder. “But she hasn’t signed it yet.”
I walk them to the door then head back into the living room. I start to turn the TV back on, but instead, I go to the window and look out at my neighbor’s house. The bedroom light is on, and my pulse picks up. It’s the closest I’ve been to her in days.
Is she over there analyzing everything and wondering how the hell this happened? Regretting it? Regretting me?
