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“I hope you can help. I just want to talk to Aurora’s doctor, see if there’s anything I should keep an eye out for…” I lean in and lower my voice. “She had emergency open-heart surgery a few years ago. I’m sure that’s in her chart, but it makes me worry.”
Her attention drops to the ring on my finger.
It’s been on a chain around my neck for six years. I put it on for the charity gala, and I haven’t been able to take it off since. Not that I’m reading into that at all.
“Please,” I say.
She types something on the computer. “We have Aurora’s history. If the doctor saw anything alarming?—”
“Aurora doesn’t freak out,” I interrupt. “She wouldn’t have come in if she didn’t feel something that made her worry.”
“There was a murmur,” she admits. “When Aurora first came in, the ER doctor noted a heart murmur. But all the tests came back normal. They’ve scheduled a follow-up?—”
“Okay.” I frown. “Thank you.”
I head back to her room and stop. I need better people. Better doctors. The best that money can buy. Except, I have no idea where to start, and I’m terrified of getting it wrong.
She’s in a new state, after all. My insurance would’ve come with her, if she transferred it… if she’s still using it. I signed the paperwork on autopilot when I joined the NHL, and then again when I was traded to the Titans. I didn’t think about it, because Aurora was one of those things I would’ve rather never thought of again.
Doesn’t mean I was willing toabandonher, as the lawyer tried to argue.
Speaking of which, I should make sure that’s squashed. She’s back to living with me, financially dependent… maybe. I don’t know how much she makes on her book, actually. But she’s living with me, and we’re sexuallysomething, so she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Not when I want to stay married.
I do want to stay married, right?
But like… not just to torture her. Because I think I might actually be falling for her.Again.
35
AURORA
Tuesday.
Game day.
We got almost a foot of snow overnight, which was unexpected. I ripped the tags off the boots Dad sent back with me a few weeks ago, grateful for the warm, fake-fur-lined interiors. I wiggle my toes and zip up my jacket, carefully fixing my makeup and my winter hat.
I get into Jacob’s truck with Melody, armed with two coffees. She smiles at me and takes one, sipping it carefully.
“Delicious. Hazelnut?”
“A little birdie said you might like that flavor.” I smile. “And I happened to have it in my fridge.” I pull out a pack of gummy bears. “And I brought sugar.”
When I was a teen and traveling with my dad to hockey camps and games, he always had coffee in the cupholder and gummy bears tucked in the center console. I’m not really sure why I even grabbed them. But I saw them in the store yesterday and just… had to have them.
It’s not a long drive—well, it’s not supposed to be. But with game-day traffic on top of the snow, we inch our way toward the arena parking garage.
Knox and Jacob left a few hours ago. They have their rituals, and I can’t begrudge them for those. Besides, I think I’d throw up if I had to watch Knox house a plate of chicken fettuccine alfredo in under five minutes. At eleven o’clock in the morning.
Game-day-ritual meal, my ass. He just likes pasta.
Even still, the conversation with Melody comes easily. Even though she’s just over ten years older than me, we click better than I have with almost anyone else my age. Except Knox, I guess. But do we click, or do we justargue?
Even Beth and I have a disconnect sometimes.
I learn that Melody is a painter. She just sold her fifth painting to an art collector in Seattle. With some help from Jacob, she bought a space for a local gallery here in town. They had a show for her a year or two ago, and since then she’s been in love with the space.
