She nodded, “They would love that.” She looked back at me and patted my chest, my stomach really because she was so short with flat shoes on, “Look at you, just like a Chip Gaines,” she joked, and her eyes crinkled in the corners. The exact smile I was used to looking at as a teen. She seemed less unsure of herself now; she possessed a more mature beauty, and damn… I think I was even more attracted to her.
When she moved towards the first jersey on the wall my heart practically stopped.
The Texas Titans. I immediately wished I’d covered that one up. It was agonizing to see her looking at it. That jersey was worn when I couldn’t control my emotions over losing her. I’d been devastated all season. It still held such raw emotion because she was supposed to be there. Watching her looking at it made me feel like I was going through a time warp and losing my footing. I rubbed a hand over my face.
“Here, let’s go upstairs.”
She turned from the frame and smiled at me, her eyes looking glossy.
I turned away from her before I lost it. I was afraid of what she’d say.
“I’m so proud of you,” I heard her say quietly.
I felt my chest swell a little in consolation.
I’d never really felt anything about my accomplishments past the celebration of a goal in the moment, but hearing her say it made me feel genuinely proud of my career for possibly the first time.
I turned back around and reached for her hand and caught her eye for a brief second. There were no reservations there. But those unshed tears in her eyes gutted me.
We made our way to the second floor in shared silence. The house had an open floor plan and a ton of windows; you could see the entire kitchen and living room and outside to the pool from where we stood in the upstairs hallway. She peeked around taking it all in, and her eyes rested on the pool outside.
You could hear the boys’ rambunctious laughter all the way from here.
Smitty grabbed Canyon and was jumping into the pool with him.
Her eyes danced with laughter.
“Always the jokester, right?”
“Smitty or my son?” She countered. I didn’t know Canyon well enough yet to know if he was a jokester like Smitty, but I wanted to. I planned on trying my hardest to find out.
I tugged her towards the three guest rooms then.
After looking through them, I turned to head back downstairs. She paused behind me.
“What about your room?” She hugged herself as she said it. “Your place is a bit chilly, just FYI.”
I looked down at her tiny self on the edge of shivering and I felt laughter bubbling up inside of me.
She looked at me confusedly.
I took a couple steps down the stairs and turned to look into her eyes which were level with mine then. I shrugged, “I used to keep the windows open on purpose so that you’d want me as a blanket. Did you know that?”
Her jaw dropped then, and she swatted me on the chest. “You are not serious.”
It was such brief contact, but I wanted her to keep touching me.
I took steps up to tower over her tiny frame, “Dead,” I told her, raising my eyebrows. “But my room… I didn’t clean up…”
She placed her small hand in the middle of my chest and smiled up at me. I wondered if she could tell just how fast it was pumping.
“Wow,” she laughed. “You sound just like Canyon right now. But you really think I don’t know that? Funny, Greyson Scott. You could barely see your bed because it was covered in dirty clothes half the time in college. I remember sleeping in your bed and finding random socks. I want to see it,” she said confidently. Her eyes twinkled with laugher.
Of course I perked up at her even mentioning the word bed to me like I was sixteen again.
“Well, you asked for it,” I opened the door then and she squeezed past me. Her hair still smelled like lavender and that knowledge made me weak.
She stood in the center of the room. I tried to see it from her eyes.
