Page 73 of Her Player

He shut off the water and stepped out first, coming back with towels before I had to ask.

I sat on the edge of the shower floor and let him dry me off and I looked at my legs, smooth now, and my arms, and I thought about fourteen years of showers that were functional things. Something to get through. Twelve minutes because there were places to be and things to run.

This had taken an hour at least.

I hadn’t counted.

“Rhett,” I said.

He looked up from where he was crouched in front of me, towel in hand.

“Thank you,” I said. “And before you tell me no thanks are necessary—” I held up a hand. “Let me say it anyway.”

He looked at me for a second. Then the corner of his mouth moved. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

He pressed his lips to my knee. Stood up. Offered me his hand.

I took it.

He helped me back to the bed. Pulled the covers back. Waited while I got in before he walked around to his side and slid in beside me.

The room was quiet. The storm had cleared out completely now and the light coming through the curtains had shifted from gray to pale morning light. The Golden Girls episode had ended at some point and the television had gone to the next one automatically, the theme song playing softly from across the room.

I lay on my side facing him.

He lay on his side facing me.

Neither of us said anything for a minute.

“I owe you an apology,” I said finally.

“Victoria—”

“Not for these couple of days.” I shook my head. “For the years before it. For every time I looked the other way. For making you wait for something I already knew I wanted.” I held his gaze. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

He was quiet for a moment. His thumb moved across my knuckles.

“You needed the time,” he said simply.

“That doesn’t make it fair.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it makes it ours. And I’d do it again.” He paused. “Every single day of it.”

I looked at him. At the freckles across his nose that I hadn’t noticed for months and couldn’t stop noticing now. At the steadiness of him, lying here in the quiet of a room I’d designed for a life that never happened, filling up the space beside me like he’d always been meant to be in it.

“Big game’s tomorrow,” I said.

His mouth curved. “Yeah.”

“You should sleep.”

“Probably.”

Neither of us moved.

“Rhett,” I said quietly.