He waves me off. “Youjustgot married. You have plenty of time. And I’m not trying to pressure you into having some. You definitely need to know you want them for sure before taking that step. If either of you is at all on the fence, donothave kids.”
“Good advice,” Bouchard chimes in.
Abernathy ignores him, leaning closer to me. “But trust me. The time away can make things even better once you get back. Couples that spend every waking moment together get sick of each other. You know you won’t have to worry about that.”
“Not unless you get injured or retire,” Dozer chimes in. “Just ask Easton.”
Abernathy shrugs. “Easton keeps himself plenty busy with his new peewee hockey league. And with the way he’s going with camps and sponsors and everything, I have a feeling he’ll be churning out pros in just a few years.”
Dozer grins. “You think you’ll still be around once they start making it to the draft?”
“Nah. I know my days are numbered. Pretty soon, I’ll hang up my skates and be able to make my wife completely sick of me.” He grins like that’s the greatest idea he’s ever heard in his life.
And while I can’t say I totally get where he’s coming from, the idea of spending unlimited amounts of time with Hailey sounds pretty good to me, too.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Hailey
The anticipationof Jason getting home makes me antsy. I know he’ll be here any minute, and I can’t sit still. I’ve tried practicing, reading, watching TV … I can’t focus on any of it. So to distract myself, I end up making cookies. Of course, he doesn’t have chocolate chips, so I can’t make chocolate chip cookies. But he does have oatmeal and cinnamon … no raisins, but oatmeal cinnamon cookies should still be good, right? And there’s sugar in the pantry because I like a little in my coffee, and we have plenty of that. Flour, butter, eggs—always eggs here. That’s a staple.
When the key scrapes in the lock and Jason walks in, I’m frantically trying to clean up the mess I made on the counter when the flour went poof.
He looks a little perplexed when he walks in. “Hailey? What are you doing?”
I’m sure I have a guilty look on my face. I’ve never had a good poker face. “Uh … making cookies?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Are you asking me if that’s what you’re doing?”
Laughing nervously, I shake my head. “No. I’m making cookies. I was just hoping I’d have time to clean up the mess before you got home.”
His confusion melts away, replaced by a wide smile. He drops his bags on the floor where he stands then crosses over to me, wrapping me in a hug and kissing me. I’m caught off guard, just like I was the first few times he kissed me, but I manage to kiss him back before he pulls away. Then he kisses me again, and this time I’m ready for it, meeting him with the same amount of enthusiasm he’s giving me.
We had the one night together, and then he was gone, and we didn’t really talk about it while he was away. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when he got home.
But this?
I can work with this. I can do this.
We’re married, after all. That’s what we decided, isn’t it? We might as well act like we’re married since we are?
And I … I like him. As more than just my brother’s friend, my white knight, the guy I’ve known my whole life but hadn’t seen in years before I showed up on his doorstep. It’s crazy how much my life has changed in less than two months.
“What kind of cookies are you making?” he asks, nuzzling my neck, making me gasp when he grazes my skin with his teeth.
“O-oatmeal.”
He lifts his head, his face wrinkled in confusion. “Why oatmeal?” He asks the question like I said I was making, I don’t know, spinach and Brussels sprout cookies or something.
“That’s what you had the ingredients for. Well, no raisins.”
“Oh, good,” he breathes in relief. “I hate raisins.”
“Ah. Noted.”
He kisses me again, but we’re interrupted by the timer on my phone going off. He releases me reluctantly, and I laugh as I twirl away so I can check on the cookies. “This is the first batch,” I tell him, “and since I haven’t made cookies here before, or this recipe, I don’t know exactly how long they’ll need. I have to check them.”
They still need another minute or two, so I close the oven and reset the timer, going willingly into Jason’s arms when he reaches for me again.
