He grins, mouth full, points at me with his chopsticks in a way that would get him benched in some cultures. “Excellent. Ire-taped my stick with the cheap roll and it didn’t make me mad. Growth.”
“Proud,” I say solemnly, and he bows like I’ve knighted him.
The conversation drifts without agenda, which feels like a luxury I didn’t know I could afford. We touch the next things lightly—my return to the clinic in a capacity I choose, not one assigned by panic; his media limits in writing and how to make sure they stick; a schedule that includes naps like they’re meetings. We circle the same word and keep it on the table:ours. Our terms, our rhythms, our bubble with a door we control.
“Thanks for choosing me,” I say, somewhere between the last spring roll and the first yawn. The words come from the part of me that still doesn’t believe it counts unless I say it out loud. “Not just in rooms with cameras. In kitchens with boxes.”
He looks at me like the compliment is oxygen and he forgot to breathe. “Thank you for choosing me back,” he says. “In hallways. In hospitals. In this mess.” He lifts my hand and kisses the knuckles, then leaves our hands knotted on top of the blanket like we’re a single, silly machine.
The monitor emits a small coo that sounds like approval. We both look over, ridiculous, and then laugh at ourselves.
“Want to watch something?” he asks. “We could put on that show about renovating boats and pretend we’ll buy one.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll let our child near open water,” I say, and he feigns offense, hand to heart.
We pick a movie we’ve both seen too many times to stay stressed through and watch until the plot starts to feel like background music. His shoulder is warm under my cheek. The blanket is heavy in the good way. The takeout cartons are empty and stacked in a way that would make Sophie text a photo captionedrecycling? I believe in you.
The night doesn’t ask us to do anything heroic. It asks us to sit still and mean it. We do.
The movie murmurs itself into a soft blur, subtitles ghosting across the screen we’re not really watching. The monitor’s green eye blinks steady. Jason’s fingers trace idle shapes on the back of my hand, spelling nothing and still saying a lot.
“So,” he says, voice pitched low like a locker-room debrief that went our way. “Next.”
“Next,” I echo, and the word doesn’t make my stomach drop. It makes my shoulders drop. “I want to go back on my terms.” I keep my eyes on the not-boat on TV and line the thoughts up. “Clinic two days a week at first, set hours, no walk-ins from the room. Teaching blocks—injury prevention, rehab literacy—so I’m not just patching leaks; I’m building boats.”
He squeezes like he approves of the metaphor I didn’t mean to make. “We write it into your agreement,” he says. “Not a handshake, a clause. You don’t owe your expertise to whoever yells loudest.”
“And you?” I ask, turning my face into his shoulder so I can hear his answer in my bones. “What do you want next that isn’t just ‘more minutes’ and ‘fewer headlines’?”
He huffs a laugh. “I want to still love the game when I’m done with it,” he says after thinking like he means to. “That means boundaries that make it sustainable. Media is limited and scheduled. Practice tape is not content. Post-game I give them ten minutes, not my bloodstream. I stop mistaking ‘available’ for ‘good teammate.’”
“Coach?” I ask, because I know where friction hides.
“I already had the conversation,” he admits, a little sheepish, a little proud. “He didn’t love it; he accepted it. Performance buys leverage. I’ll keep earning the right to draw my lines.”
I nod into his hoodie. “Owner?”
He grimaces. “His counsel is allergic to the wordenforcement, but Julia’s antihistamines are strong.” The smile that follows is crooked and fond. “We’ll keep tightening thepolicy. If they try to soft-walk it, I’ll make noise. Controlled noise.”
“Good,” I say, and I mean the capital letter. “And home?” I add, because the calendar lives here now too.
He shifts under me, not to move me off—just so we can look at the same place on the ceiling. “Home is a rhythm,” he says. “Phones in the bowl after eight. We cook twice a week; we accept help the other five without turning it into a referendum on competence. We put naps on the calendar like board meetings. We label the night-feed log so I can win at that without waking you to tell you I’m winning.”
“Healthy competition,” I concede, smiling. “Sophie as deputy of chaos; my mom on a leash; your sister in charge of emergency casseroles. We do Sunday inventory so we stop playing ‘Which Box Has The Measuring Cups.’”
He tilts his head, amused. “And the rink?”
“I’ll still take ankles and knees,” I say, and the old love for triage warms without burning. “But I won’t take on a player’s whole identity to prove I’m useful. They’re responsible for their rehab; I’m responsible for my boundaries.” I glance at him. “Hold me to that when I start over-functioning.”
“On it,” he says, mock-saluting with two fingers. Then softer: “Hold me to not making every hard thing a hill to die on.”
“Deal,” I say, and we shake on it under the blanket, ridiculous and binding.
Silence settles the good way. The screen flickers a sunlit harbor. The apartment smells like leftover basil and new beginnings, and I hear myself say it without rehearsing: “Thank you for choosing me. For choosing us.”
He doesn’t make it grand. He nods like I’ve identified an obvious truth. “Thank you for choosing me back,” he says, thumb sweeping once over my knuckles. “Every day we keep choosing is the day we stay us.”
The words hit with the quiet force of a puck clean off the tape—no rattle, all flight. I tuck my feet under the blanket and let the future sit next to the present without trying to elbow it off the couch.
