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Then gasp, clamping a hand to my throat.
Stefan is sitting on one of our barstools, elbows resting on the island. Silent. Staring at me. After having sat in the dark for who knows how long.
“Hey,” I manage to push past my pounding pulse, my suddenly tight throat.
Where had the warmth in his eyes gone?
Had it just disappeared one day?
Or had it slowly, incrementally just faded away, slipping from his blue irises like grains of sand in an hourglass, so slowly that I hadn’t noticed?
Not until that hourglass was empty.
Not until his eyes had transformed from Caribbean warm waters into…ice.
He doesn’t reply—not to my gasp, not to my greeting. And he doesn’t take me close, lips curving as he nuzzles my throat, drawing me against the warm, strong expanse of his chest, whispering a soft apology in my ear for startling me before complimenting me on the game.
Before taking me up to bed, exhausting me in other, more pleasurable ways.
And I don’t know what to do, what to say to this man who’s become a stranger by millimeters, so I…
Turn for the fridge, for the snack, for the chocolate milk I prefer to drink post game, the veggies I precut that are waiting for me. I’ll dip them into some hummus, drink that chocolate milk, plenty of water, and call it a good enough recovery meal.
Our team’s nutritionist, Rebecca, will be pleased.
After grabbing the container with sliced carrots and celery, a pepper, some kale, I spin back around.
Set it on the counter.
Pop open the top.
Go back for the hummus and slop in a couple of tablespoons.
Wash the spoon, slot it into the dishwasher. Rinse the lid.
All the while, my heart is pounding and I’m waiting, wishing, praying.
Because…this is wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Meanwhile, my husband just sits on that barstool, not in any hurry to break the silence, and neither am I, I suppose.
Because I’m a coward.
Because I’ve pushed and been rebuffed so many times that I’m scared to reach out again, scared to be burned again.
But…
It’s the hard stuff that’s worth doing.
Advice I’d given my former teammate, Rome, not long ago.
Advice that might be sound but is really fucking hard to do in actuality.
But…
I have to do it.
This is the love of my life. The man I’ve been with for more than a decade. The other half of my soul.
