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None whatsoever.
But I still suck in a breath, try to formulate a response that can justify why I’ve done what I’ve done without revealing why the fuck I’ve done what I’ve done.
Turns out that I don’t need to come up with an excuse.
Because Sara is turning away again, only this time she doesn’t rotate back to mentally jab at me. She walks away, leaving me standing there like an idiot.
Or an asshole who’s likely made the biggest mistake of his life…
An asshole who can’t do shit about it, even if I want to.
A puck cracks against the glass, and my gaze is drawn over my shoulder, drawn toward the rink and the players on it. Drawn toward the woman who’s manning the net like she’s been born to it.
Probably because she was born to it.
Playing this sport like it’s in her blood, her heart, her soul.
Because it is.
Our eyes connect, chocolate brown with my own blue, and I feel my pulse pick up, rattling through my veins.
Holding.
Staring.
Wishing things could be different.
But knowing they can’t be.
“This is how it has to be,” I whisper.
But as I stand there, staring into milk chocolate eyes I know better than my own, I wonder…
Is it truly the way it has to be?
Sixteen
Brit
“Mom?”
The door squeaks open and I barely hold back my groan.
I flick my gaze to the clock on my bedside table, see that I’ve been in bed, trying to sleep, for barely any time at all.
Away game. Flight. Back to the practice facility on the bus to pick up my car. Then to the house, checking on Rox, relieving Diane who was watching her, and finally stumbling up to my room, collapsing into bed, and…
Laying here with my eyes closed for all of twenty-four minutes.
“Mom?” Rox asks again, light creeping into my room.
I sit up, flick on the bedside lamp. “I’m awake, baby. What’s the matter?”
She’d looked a little flushed when I checked on her earlier, and Diane mentioned she had a tummy ache.
I really hope that wasn’t the start of food poisoning or the stomach flu.
A special brand of hell, cleaning up your kids’ vomit when you have no fucking sleep.
