Iwakeupwithherhand on my chest.
Not the way a hand lands in sleep — flat, fingers spread, palm warm — like she put it there on purpose at some point in the night and meant it to stay. I lie there for a minute and watch the ceiling go light, feel her breathing against my ribs, and think about that. The deliberateness of it. Even asleep, she chose this.
Her ceiling. Her pillow. Her hand.
I’m in her bed.
That’s not nothing.
She stirs eventually, not awake, just shifting. Her hand moves on my chest, fingers spreading wider for a second like she’s checking I’m still there, and then she makes a sound and settlesagain. Her hair is across my shoulder. Her breath is warm against my collarbone.
I don’t move.
I have been in this bed for approximately four hours and I am not remotely interested in leaving it.
Last night was — last night was a lot. The game. The win. The ghost rising in overtime and me knowing exactly where it lived. Griffin’s voice saying that syllable. The penalty box. The four minutes after, when the whole building seemed to hold its breath and I had to hold the wall anyway.
Nova in the press box with her camera down, already looking at me across the whole arena. Her hands in my jersey.
Her voice on the walk home, asking about Brick like she was trying to understand every part of me that had learned how to stay.
My kitchen at three AM. Then her place in the dark. Dina crossing the threshold like she’d been waiting eight months for someone to open the door.
I line all of it up in my head the way I run tape. Methodical. Thorough.
Then I stop.
Because she’s warm against my side, the ceiling’s gone gold, and there’s no tape to run.
There’s just this.
Just her.
Just the morning.
She wakes up the way she does everything — all at once, fully there.
Her head comes up. Eyes find me. Something in her face settles.
“Hi,” she says. Voice still rough.
“Hey.”
She looks at the ceiling. Then back at me. She’s working something out — I can see it, the small motion of her thinking — and then she stops working it out and just puts her head back on my chest.
“We won,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“The Cup.”
“Yeah.”
She’s quiet for a second.
“Your ghost.”
“Gone,” I say.
