Talia grabs her gym bag and says, “I’m off to work out some of my frustration with you, just so you know.”
“Love you too,” I call after her.
“Yeah, yeah. Try not to overthink your life while I’m gone.”
I laugh softly. “No promises.”
Alone at last, I open my laptop, meaning to pay bills. Somehow, ten minutes later, I’m typingLiam Callaghaninto Google.
I review years of articles and photos, and by all accounts, he’s an elite player—a brutal defenseman, a brick wall on skates with zero hesitation about dropping the gloves when pushed.
The penalty box might as well have his name engraved on the seat.
None of it surprises me.
What does surprise me is what’snotthere.
Where other players have photos of women draped over them, Liam’s are all solo shots, focused, unsmiling, alone.
No puck bunnies hanging off his arm, no gossip headlines linking him to models or actresses, no trace of a girlfriend on social media.
Something about it lifts my spirits.
I thought I’d prepared myself for the possibility that he’d moved on—maybe even married some perfect, put-together woman who fit the life he has now.
I told myself I’d be okay with that, that I didn’t expect him to be a monk.
But seeing that he hasn’t?
That he’s not out there living some glossy, Playboy life?
I can’t help that it makes me feel… happy.
Maybe he, like me, hasn’t found anything as good as what we had.
It’s ridiculous, I know. We were just kids—sixteen when we started, eighteen when I left.
At that age, every kiss, every promise, every heartbreak feels enormous.
I’ve spent years reminding myself we were too young, too intense, that what we had never would’ve survived once real life started pressing in.
I close the laptop and glance toward the couch. Laddie’s fast asleep, one arm flung over his head, completely wiped from the morning at the park. His hair curls against his forehead, cheeks still rosy from the sun.
I smile softly, then slip into the bathroom and turn on the shower. Steam fills the air as I undress, the hum of running water wrapping around me.
For a long moment, I just look at myself in the mirror.
I’m still young. I take care of myself. I look... fine. But my gaze catches on the thin scar that runs low across my abdomen — my reminder of how Laddie came into the world.
He’d been breech when they induced labor at forty weeks. They tried everything to turn him, but nothing worked.
I remember the blinding lights of the operating room, the cold air against my skin, the sound of him crying before I even saw his face.
I’d loved him long before that moment. From the first flutter, the first kick. And I’ve loved him every day since.
But love has a way of dividing you, of stretching your heart wider than you ever thought it could go.
Because I loved someone else once, too.
