“Hi, Dog. We need to figure out your name.”
He whines and tucks his muzzle under his paw.
“I stopped by your house. It’s really coming along.”
She sets her laptop aside and turns so her knees press against my thigh. It’s natural, comfortable, but no less thrilling. The pillow fortress has remained between us, but each night, it seems to be less and less reinforced as we grow closer and closer by day.
“I still can’t believe you’re doing all this. I’ve been thinking about what happens next. After ...”
Heartland Happily Ever After comes to mind, but what about our happily everafter, or HEA, as Bree calls it? “After our thirty days?” I hold my breath, afraid of her answer.
She nods, not quite meeting my eyes. “I guess we’ll have to see …”
“I got some news today,” I say instead of addressing the question mark between us. “Coach cleared me to return after Christmas.”
Bree bounces from her spot on the couch, disturbing the dog, and hops into my lap, wrapping her arms around me in a huge hug, declaring, “Fletch! That’s wonderful!”
Then she goes abruptly still as if I just told her a bee landed on her arm.
Our gazes meet and she blinks slowly for a long moment.
I lock on her lips as they part.
Instead of our mouths meeting, she mutters, “Um, sorry. I just got carried away with excitement.” She awkwardly disentangles herself from me.
“Can’t say I mind if this is what excitement looks like.” I grin.
Her enthusiasm seems genuine, but I catch something else in her expression—concern—or is that just me?
“Yeah, it is. But the travel schedule, the away games ...”
“It’s your career. Your passion. What you’ve been waiting for. Talk about the best Christmas ever,” she rambles as if nervous, but why?
“One of my passions.”
The dog’s furry ears perk up and if I’m not mistaken, Bree listens intently, having rightly caught the phrasing.Oneof my passions, indicating there are more.
I take a deep breath. “What if we don’t think about the past and how I was a dumb hockey player, or the future and what could happen?”
“Like we focus on right now?”
Without another word, our fingers lace together, and not only do I get a little jolly jingle running through me, but it feels right. Looks right. Well, almost. Something is missing on each of our left hands.
The dog barks, completely oblivious to the potential of the moment.
“That’s one way to remain present,” Bree says.
“What should we name him?” I ask, both to lighten the mood and because we really do need to decide.
“What about Cinnamon?” Bree starts.
“I was thinking Nutmeg.”
“Hmm. Maybe we’re both hungry.”
We laugh simultaneously, somehow harmoniously and sheturns her gaze to me with such depth in her hazel eyes, I see the struggle there—the writer’s deadline pressing on her, the uncertainty about what happens when our arrangement ends, the fear of believing in something she’s convinced herself doesn’t exist.
But also the hint of something else—hope, want, possibility?
