Page 95 of Crack the Ice

I will never be lacking in the food department with her here. My woman has made more than enough food to last us a month. Freezer meals, she called it. Taking a peek inside, I see the lasagna sitting on top and decide carbs sound like a great idea tonight.

I know she needs her routines, so while dinner is in the oven, I take out a pen and my notepad and write down the schedule the kids had before summer break started.

5 AM: Mav leaves for early morning practice.

6 AM: Kids wake up

7 AM: Leave for school

3 PM: Pick up Cade

3:30 PM: Pick up Lily

Why middle school gets out after high school, I will never know. But hey, I don’t make the rules.

4:30 PM: Cade practice, M, W, F

5 PM: Lily practice T, Th

“What are you doing?” I look up, almost swallowing my tongue when she walks around the corner in nothing but socks and my high school hockey sweatshirt.

“You kept this?” Setting the pen down, I cross the room, running my fingers over the material that’s still as soft as I remember it being, now littered with tiny holes and snagged threads.

“Mhm, it’s my favorite. One of the only physical pieces of you I had left. I slept in it almost every night when I was in Spain.”

I wrap my arms around her shoulders, pulling her into my chest. I want to talk about her time there, what she did, how she felt. If she was okay, which I already know the answer to, but if it helped, being all that way from me.

Then my mind wanders to the fact that at first, I’d text her almost daily, and as months went by, I filled my time with the people and things here, and eventually I stopped texting her at all.

“I’m glad you came back,” I whisper into her hair.

“Me too, Mav. I missed you.”

“Never leave me again?”

Her chest shakes against mine. “Don’t push me away then, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I pull her to the counter with me. “I was making a schedule. Figured if I wrote out the kids’ schedule, you could write yours down, and then we could figure out what works best for us all. Most of my practices are either early morning or during the day when they’re at school, and you’d be at work. So, unless I’m out of town, I’m usually able to keep up with them.”

Her eyes trail over the paper, the smell of lasagna permeating the air around us. My mouth waters and not just because of that, but because of her. She leans her head against my arm as I cage her in, in front of the counter like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She smells like me, woodsy, warm, but there are still hints of her signature pistachio scent underneath.

“That was awfully thoughtful of you, Mav.” She picks up the pen, and underneath what I wrote, she adds her schedule.

5 AM: Leave for the bakery

5:30 AM-5 PM: Work.

6 PM: Make dinner

7:30-8:59 PM: Unwind

9 PM: Bed

I hook my chin over her shoulder, shoving my hands into the pockets of my old sweatshirt, letting my hands press into her stomach as I press into her. “We can make this work, baby.”

“I know,” she says, writing one more thing.

Love, The Reeds.