When her head cants to the side, I can’t help but feel like I’m about to lose a ball.
Maybe even both of them.
“For my parents.” I shrug. “I know they’d love to see him. And I’d like to have a picture on my phone, for, you know, me.”
She taps her screen a couple of times as I recite my number to her and about ten pictures appear in my inbox. A quick scroll of them has me smiling and a lump swelling at the back of my throat. “Thank you.” Resisting the urge to pull my phone to my chest and give it a hug, I smile at her. “He’s amazing.”
She nods, and I can’t tell whether she’s choked up with emotion, or she’s ready to stab me for overstepping.
Where exactly are the boundaries with a woman whose vagina you don’t remember?
“Can I call you?” My face burns as I rub my damp palm along my pants. “I’d like to see you again.”
I don’t add “both” into the sentence, but the implication is heavy. At some point, I’m going to want to meet my son,ourson, and get to know him, make up for lost time. But we need to take it slowly. We need to rebuild whatever trust she had in me before, and add to it.
If I had raised my kid by myself, I wouldn’t just let any rando take him out for ice cream. Even if they shared the same DNA.
She stands, grabs her bag, and pushes the chair in against the table with a nod. “Yeah.” She slides her purse onto her shoulder. “That might be okay. Text me. Because what kind of animal calls people these days?”
Facts. But considering how much I love the sound of her voice, calling her feels like something I want to do every fucking day. Reining in my enthusiasm, I contain my shit-eating-grin to a regular sized grin.
“Okay. I will.”
CHAPTER 17
Victoria
Hazard of the jobmy fucking vagina.
Raffi downplayed his injury. When I got back from the pie place, I pulled open my laptop and did some digging.
He wasn’t joking when he said he hits his head a lot. That much was true. There are a number of news articles spanning back to his high school hockey days where he’d taken heavy hits against the boards during games.
None of the articles mentioned memory loss, or any other symptoms of concussion. So I dug deeper, and that fucker seems to be the fucking King of Understatement.
Why the fuck is he still playing hockey?
I get enjoying a game. I get wanting to play professionally—which is what all his interviews online indicate he wants to do—but this… This is sheer lunacy.
Why aren’t his parents stepping in to protect his fucking brain? Or his teammates?
Nothing defined as a “traumatic brain injury” is anything to mess around with.
According to the internet, physical signs and symptoms of a concussion may include:
Headache
Ringing in the ears
Nausea
Vomiting
Fatigue or drowsiness
Blurry vision
Other signs—because apparently the first list isn’t enough—and symptoms of a concussion include:
