The phone ringingwakes me and I nearly roll off the bed. Thankfully, even if I did, it’s on a low platform, so I probably wouldn’t have broken anything had I rolled off. Coach would have had my head if I came back from break with a broken limb. Especially when I said I fell off the bed.
It wouldn’t even be sexy time that caused it!
I answer without looking, and there’s a moment when I reflect on how good that feels. This is a new number and only a select few people have it. Ren has my old phone. I’m not sure if I still get calls or not. I’m not even sure if it’s still in service.
The only people who have this number are Ren, the new agent that he set me up with, my therapist, my lawyer, Coach and team management, and a handful of friends. That’s it. My contacts list is very short. There’s a lot of comfort in that.
“Hello?”
“Still asleep?” Ren asks.
I grin. His voice makes everything inside me light up. And that’s just his voice.
Laying back in bed, I close my eyes and sigh. “You didn’t tell me I needed to get up,” I tease. Ren still tells me what to do. What to think. How to breathe. Between him and my therapist, I’ve never felt so… new.
He chuckles. “Time to get up. Shower thoroughly.”
I grin. That means it’s sexy time later. Something special. “Okay.” I get up and head into the bathroom, chucking off my underwear as I go.
“Keep me on the phone. I miss you.”
He’s got some stupid hockey thing, which is totally unfair because it’s Christmas Eve. It kept him overnight and I know he’ll be back late, but I hate that he’s not here.
I’m kind of bummed that his parents and brother aren’t here either.
I prop the phone just inside the shower but out of reach of the water. We talk about what he’s been doing at the stupid event that took him away, but I don’t stay upset because I love to listen to him talk. His quiet, smooth voice with just a hint of an accent.
When I’m clean and get out, Ren tells me to brush my teeth and comb my hair. I do. Then I put lotion on at his instruction.
“Closet,” he directs, and I obediently head for our closet. “See the black bag on the floor?” It doesn’t take me long to spot it and say so. “Put on what’s inside. They’re clean—I washed them first.”
It’s a pair of underwear. The kind I usually wear to bed. I slip them on and then the socks. They’re kind of dressy, which seems a weird choice.
“There’s a garment bag to your left. Do you see it?”
Now that I’m looking, it’s out of place. Why hadn’t I noticed it until now? How long has it been here? “Yes.”
“Put on what’s inside.”
I’m not surprised to find a suit, but there’s a relaxed vibe to it. Not like the uptight ones I wear to games that meet dress code. Ren then tells me to put on the shoes in the shoe box below the bag. They’re cute loafers that I’m not sure go with the suit, but I slip into them.
“Grab a water from the fridge and head to your car. Lock up the house on your way out.”
No detail escapes my Ren. Although I’m curious that he didn’t tell me to get something to eat, too. When I get into my car, there’s a sticky note with an address on my steering wheel.
“Type it into the GPS,” Ren says without me mentioning it.
“Is this a scavenger hunt for Christmas?” I ask. Maybe he’s making a new tradition.
“Not quite.”
Turning on the car, I type it in. “Thirty-nine minutes,” I tell him when the phone switches to Bluetooth and I set it into the carjack to charge while I drive.
“Drive. Have your water gone by the time you get to the destination.”
We talk while I drive, and I sip my water every few minutes. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. It doesn’t have to be anything important or big. Sometimes we talk about things like our ideal weather outside or what we like best about beets. (For the record, I hate eating beets, but I like that they’re a natural dye.)
As I drive and Ren mentions Imry, I find I’m smiling. This last year has been probably the biggest of my life. The best of my life, too. I’ve made so many changes that Ren’s told me to and… they’ve been perfect. My new agent that he lined up and Imry vetted has me working toward a path that I think I’m going to enjoy after hockey. I have a financial counselor and investments.
