I need to be touching her.
Always.
She doesn’t pull away.
Instead, she scoots a little closer, like she was expecting it, and rests her hand on my thigh, squeezing once.
A simple little touch.
But it hits me harder than a punch.
“You’re staring again,” she murmurs with a smile.
“Can’t help it.”
Out on the field, the crack of a bat echoes.
Evan takes off running for second.
The bleachers erupt.
“GO, EVAN!”Maddox roars.
Kelly jumps up cheering beside me.
“That’s my boy!”
My chest swells watching him slide into base safe.
Yeah, that’s my boy.
They’re going to win this game.
I can feel it.
Afterward, there’ll be hot dogs and popcorn and ice cream at the concession stand.
Trophies too.
Kids running around like they just won the World Series.
And after all that?
I get to take my family home.
Our place up on the mountain where the pond sits quietly behind the house.Where those two swans glide across the water every evening like they’ve got the whole world figured out.
Never alone.
Always together.
Side by side.
I watch them sometimes from the porch.Two creatures that picked each other and never looked back.
Yeah, I get that.
Because later tonight I’ll crawl into bed beside the woman who owns my damn heart.
