When Dex convinced me to marry him in order to benefit from his health insurance, we agreed the arrangement was a means to an end. How else would I receive the post-surgery treatments ensuring my return to health and to the sport we both love?
You see, we’re both hockey players. Teammates for years when I was the only girl in our Under-10 and Under-15 hockey clubs. We eventually branched out to our men’s and women’s teams in high school and college. But one thing that didn’t change is how the world only made sense with hockey and him in it. Dexter and hockey were ever present, and entwined, in my life.
Which is to say, despite the glaring differences in our athletic journeys, we’ve remained best friends through the years.
He’s a first-round draft pick and captain of Columbus’s NHL team, the Mavericks. I always knew he would be a superstar centerman in the big leagues. Dex deserves all the recognition he’s getting. I’m so proud of everything he’s accomplished.
I, on the other hand, have been working as a manager of a coffee shop in the suburb where we grew up. The job is a necessary supplement to the meager income I earn as a goalie for the Buffalo Blazers, a professional team in the Women’s Hockey Federation.
Correction: I was a goalie.
Until the accident.
On a hot and sticky September evening, my car was T-boned by a teenager joyriding with friends.
At twenty-six, I was still under my parents’ health insurance. Even so, the bills piled up. My parents hired an injury lawyer to recoup medical expenses, but that’s led nowhere.
Meanwhile, my birthday loomed. At twenty-seven, I age out of my parents’ insurance plan.
Enter Dexter to the rescue. My oldest friend. The best guy I know. And, as of November first, my husband.
“Husband,” I whisper to myself, trying out the word. “Husba?—”
The knock on the window of the driver’s side makes me jump.
“Are you coming in? What’s wrong?” Dexter’s voice sounds weirdly nervous. He’s such a worrywart.
“You’re home?” I sound confused and distracted—because I am. He was supposed to be at practice for a few more hours.
We agreed I would call him during the last leg of my six-hour drive from Buffalo to Columbus. I didn’t call, because . . .
Why didn’t I call him?
Not because I forgot. Rather because I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean to leave everything I knew and force Dexter into this arranged marriage. I needed to shore up some composure. Sitting on his driveway to calm myself seemed like a good idea when I was driving down the highway with my erratic pulse and my sweaty hands.
Today, a month after we applied for spousal benefits, I am officially moving in.
With my husband.
“I canceled my meeting with the skills coach,” he says, blue-violet eyes crinkling at the corners. Dex’s beard hides nothing of his soft lips and dazzling smile.
“Pull into the garage,” he instructs when one of the four garage doors open.
I roll inside, my newly purchased ten-year-old hatchback looking like the underdressed guest at a classy dinner party. On one side is a super-decked-out SUV that Dex uses to transport an equally decked-out boat. On the other side is a sleek sports car polished to a shine.
“That’s it? That’s all you brought?” Dex is referring to my pathetic cargo of two suitcases and one hockey bag as he checks my back seat and the trunk I popped open.
“A house as big as yours should already come with a bed.”
“Four, in fact,” he confirms, hauling out my stuff.
It’s my first time here. He gave up his downtown condominium for this place during the darkest time of my recovery. I remember little from those hazy days and painful nights. Vaguely, I recall Dex saying the house purchase was an “investment opportunity.”
“Urban farmhouse” is what the realtor’s website called it when I finally had the energy to look it up. I found the term confusing until I studied the pictures.
“Farmhouse” signals a sprawling mansion with wood beams on cathedral-high ceilings and no neighbors for a mile on all sides.
The “urban” part is code for half an hour from downtown Columbus and worth over two million dollars.
