Page 131 of Lucky Shot

“Coming,” I call out to him. “I didn’t even know you were home. I had music on and . . . oh.” My words falter as I step into my room and see him standing in my doorway. His shirt is off, and he’s misted with sweat from what I can assume is one of his countless daily workouts. He looks delicious and the visual has my body remembering how good he makes me feel.

It’s a weird thing to be living with the man you’re sleeping with. It’s like there’s this invisible boundary where we cohabitate during the day, act like we aren’t constantly thinking about what the other looks like and feels like, and then some invisible switch gets flipped and we know cohabitation is over and sex is okay.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Wrong?” he sputters. “You look . . . amazing.”

The reverence with which he says it has me standing slightly taller. “Thank you. It’s been a while since I did my hair and makeup and . . .” I curtsy. “What’s up?”

“Good news or bad news first?”

“This sounds like a trick question.”

“Bad news first, then.” He angles his head to the side. “A pipe burst in your complex. All the water has been shut off.”

“What?” My things. I don’t have many, but the few I do have mean the world to me.

He holds his hands up. “Your apartment manager, Frieda, called me because she didn’t want to bug you while you were recuperating. She’s been dealing with me about the door so she called. Nothing was damaged in your place, but the water is going to be off for a couple of days.”

I level him a look and snort. “Convenient.”

He holds his hands up. “Complete coincidence but yes, it’s very convenient for me.” He flashes a mischievous grin. “They have to jackhammer up the sidewalk to get to the water main or something like that. So no water for a few days.”

“Uh-huh.” I twist my lips and play the part while secretly feeling relieved. “You had no hand in this water breaking?”

He holds his hands up, but his grin contradicts his words. “Honest. You can call her. She’ll tell you the same thing.”

“Because you paid her off or because it’s the truth?”

“Do you not trust me?” he says playfully.

“You said good news?” I brush off his question because in this instant, I don’t. And it should bug me that he wants me to stay here, but it just doesn’t. It makes me feel taken care of in a way no one has ever taken care of me before. It’s probably wrong to think and feel that way, but I don’t care.

“Yes. Good news.” He motions for me to come with him. He bounces on his toes like a little kid excited to show me something. “Voilà.”

I look to where he’s pointing and falter. Sitting in the middle of his contemporary decorated great room is a brand-new, high-tech foosball table. And in a box on top of its rails is a laptop still in its cellophane wrapper. I glance over to Hardy and then back to the items. “Umm, why is this here?”

“You said you wanted to feel more like yourself and that this place made you feel isolated so . . . I brought your comforts.”

“My comforts?”

“Yes. At the academy, when you’re stressed or need to think something through, you stand at the foosball table to process. Or you play absently with it when you’re figuring something out. It’s your safety blanket.”

“It is not . . .” But the words fall quiet, because as much as I’ve never thought of this before, he’s right. Isn’t that the first place I’d go as a teenager when I was upset about something at home? Didn’t Patrick and I have conversation after conversation over a game—anything from how to deal with a bully at school to why my shots on goal weren’t working to working through the emotions after I lost my scholarship? And it’s sure as shit the place I go to work through the stress of a long day and avoid the bill collectors calling.

When I look back up to meet his eyes, I don’t even realize that there are tears swimming in mine until he’s blurry. He noticed when I didn’t. He noticed when no one else ever has. “Thank you.” My words are choked syllables.

“No need to thank me. It’s just stuff.”

“No. Thank you for noticing. It . . . it means a lot to me.”

“It’s nothing.” He waves a hand and walks around the table to give me a moment, or maybe because he’s having one himself. “Anyway, I figured this will make you feel more at home and then the laptop is so you can log in and answer emails and stuff instead of trying to do it on your phone.”

“Thank you. Again. But I have a computer at the office—”

“And now you have one at home.”

Home. His home. I stare at him and the sincerity in his eyes. My chest aches with the uncertainty of what I see in them. The intention behind the word home.