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“Yeah,” I say. “I come by it naturally, apparently.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Hush, you.”
A lightness slides through me—and somehow despite the conversational topic, I’m amused. “I could maybe forgive him for the shit growing up—”
“I can’t,” she mutters, causing my eyes to shoot back to hers, seeing they’re filled with fury.
That amusement fades. My heart squeezes hard. “It’s not just forgiveness, though, and I’m not delusional. He’s shown us all who he is over and over again, and I can’t absolve him of the shit he pulled. But, after all this time, any good opinion I’ve had of him is shattered forever.”
“Honey,” she whispers.
I swallow hard.
She sighs. “I wish I was there with you.”
I force a smile. “It’s all good, butterfly.”
She falls quiet for a long moment. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
“Got any other skeletons you want to disclose?” I ask with false lightness. “Or interrogation questions you need to ask?”
“Now’s the time to press you?” Her voice is gentle. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yup.”
Her head tilts to the side, expression soft and hitting me hard in the heart. “Considering that, I think this is the time for me to admit that I ate the last Twix.”
I still.
Then I throw back my head and laugh.
This woman…
She’s fucking perfect.
“Are you going to help?”she asks testily a few days later, standing on a stool and lifting the curtain rod toward the brackets I just finished installing.
The Sierra are off today.
Tomorrow, I have to get back to the rink.
Today, though, I can spend time with Nova, with my woman who hasn’t held my idiocy against me, who’s slowly unfurling and showing me the beauty of her.
Today, I can eye the tight jeans covering her from ankle to waist, the tee that’s risen to give me a glimpse of silken skin I licked my way across earlier this morning, after I returned from the away game, and shake my head. “Naw, butterfly, I can admire you much better from here.”
Her head whips around, eyes coming to mine, voice husky and clearly reading my intent when she asks, “Are wenotputting up curtains?”
“We can put up curtains,” I say softly, prowling toward her. “But I also would be fine with breaking in the console table.”
I now know what a console table is.
A pointlessly skinny piece of furniture that’s supposed to hold China that I don’t own.
Nova showed it to me on that website, and her eyes lit up, and…I understood exactly why Jer had given in about the floral curtains.
Now that table has a place in my house.
Now—
