“Relax.I just have a headache.”
Yvonne jumped out of bed, finding me a pain pill and handing me a bottle of water.I swallowed the pill, then slid to the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing?”Yvonne asked in alarm.
“I have to pee.”
When Yvonne followed me towards the ensuite bathroom I said, “I can pee by myself, okay?”
I winced as I realized that I sounded cranky.“Sorry.”
“No problem,” she said mildly.
She was sitting on the bed when I came out, spine ramrod straight, her face carefully blank even though her eyes looked troubled.I knew she was worried about me, but I also knew that part of what was happening was a trauma response.I’d heard enough about her parents to know that she’d learned that love was conditional, and mistakes were punished.Severely.
But that was then and this was now.
“Yvonne,” I said.“You need to stop freaking out.I’m fine.”
She looked up at me with those stormy eyes that had first given me a glimpse into the woman behind the ice queen façade.
“I’m trying, honestly.It’s just that I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Well you didn’t hit me hard enough to kill me,” I joked, sitting on the bed next to her.
One corner of her mouth lifted in response before she sobered again.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since last night,” she said.“And I want to request a transfer to Seattle.”
Well this was a surprise.
“What?You love Vancouver.And you just helped your team win the championship for the second year in a row.”
She shook her head.“Vancouver was a team I played for.I’ve never made close relationships on the team, or any good friends in the city.It was a place to be, but not a home, you know?”
“And you think that Seattle can be a home?”
“I think anywhere you are will be home for me,” she said.“Maybe I’m moving too fast, but I want us to move in together.I want what you talked about, for us to get married and have kids.I want you to teach me how to operate that barbecue thing you’ll have on the back deck.”
“The grill?”I huffed out a laugh.
“Yeah.”
“Well the season’s over now anyway, so how about if you stay with me for the off-season, and we see how it goes.”
Her face fell.“Oh sure, yeah, of course.”
I placed my hand over hers and waited for her to meet my eyes so she could see the truth in my words.
“I’m not saying I don’t want to get married.To be clear, I’m completely on board with getting married.But let’s take some time living together to figure out how to build a relationship together.See how we both do when we’re in the same place for a while.And then, when we feel the time is right, we’ll get married.”
“Can we at least be engaged?”she asked hopefully.“I really want to make sure people know you’re taken.”
“Do you want to tattoo your name on my ass too?”I laughed.
She gave me an appraising look.“Would you consider that?”
“No, I would never mar this perfect ass,” I joked.
