“So,” Finley asks, “I don’t think I can go to get my keys yet. Do you have any plans for the day?”
“I have a few ideas.” I run both hands up the insides of her thighs.
“Oh, really?”
“We could go back to bed,” I suggest and kiss the side of her lips.
“Don’t you need to get in a workout today?” she asks, and I’m not sure whether she’s teasing or really asking me as my coach.
“Who needs weights when I can just throw you around all morning?”
She takes a long drink of her smoothie, almost finishing the thing.
“Or…” I start.
“Or? Or what?”
I look at her and consider. “I actually bought you a little gift a while ago, and because you have been avoiding me—”
“I have not been avoiding you,” she cuts in.
“Okay,” I say, not even trying to hide my disbelief. She has been avoiding me. “Then, before you mysteriously got super busy and couldn’t be found by me, and only me, anywhere in the arena or your apartment… I bought you a gift.”
She raises her eyebrows skeptically. “A gift?”
“Yep.” I open the linen closet with exactly one spare towel in it, and pull out the dark blue box I got for her one night after we’d been practicing for the trivia portion of the Yeti Challenge. I look at the image on the top for one final time, questioning whether I made the right decision, but it’s too late now.
“What is it?” she asks.
Rather than explaining, I hand it to her. She looks down, a wide smile pulling across her face when she realizes what it is. “You got me one of those fancy wood puzzles.”
My chest tightens at the sight of Finley happy because of something I gave her. It’s better than a penalty kill. Better than scoring a goal. I would do anything to earn that look from her again. And if I’m not careful, it might just become my newest obsession.
“Yeah,” I reply softly. “After you told me how much you liked them growing up, I went online and found a place in Boulder that sells the fancy ones you like.”
She gazes up at me with an almost confused look on her face. “You found a fancy puzzle store, just for me?”
I smile. “Yeah, Fin. Of course I did. I would do anything to make you happy. Don't you know that?”
I grab my smoothie and sit next to her on the couch as she dumps out the puzzle.
“So, where do we begin?”
“Edges, Beckett. Edges.”
“Luckily,” I say with a wink. “I’m good at edging.”
Finley laughs, her attention fully on flipping the puzzle pieces so they’re all right-side up. “If I remember correctly, you edged yourself so hard last night that you couldn’t even finish edging me.”
“I never saidwhoI was good at edging. I obviously meant me. And puzzles, of course.”
“You’re not good at puzzles, are you?”
“No idea. I think I was six the last time I did one,” I answer, snapping two pieces with pictures of two kids together.
“Beckett! That’s an inside piece!”
“I know, but—”
