The Right Thing

“Sidney, you’re not even going to be in town next week. Why would I hop on a plane right now?”

“Because I asked you nicely.”

“You are hopeless.”

“Hopelessly in love with you.”

“Stop it. That’s just gross.”

“Telling you that I love you is gross now?”

“When you say it like a wistful teenage girl, yes. It’s terrible. And I’m not coming to Pittsburgh right now. The timing doesn’t make any sense. It would be ridiculous. A wasted trip.”

“Next month then?”

“Aren’t you back to staying with the Lemieux’s next month?”

“In the guest house, not actually with them. It’s totally different. Besides, I’m sure that they’d like to see you. And Lauren still doesn’t believe you exist.”

“And that bothers you? She’s a teenage girl and I’d bet money she’s just trying to get under your skin like Taylor loves to do.”

“It bothers me a little,” he admitted.

“There are pictures of us on your phone.”

“She says that I photoshopped you into them.”

“You’ll just find any reason to get me on a plane, won’t you?”

“Can’t help that I miss you. And don’t tell me that’s gross. I mean it. It’s been a long few weeks.”

I couldn’t disagree. In the time since we’d last seen each other, when we’d both left Minnesota flying in opposite directions, I hadn’t gotten much rest. I spent most of my time wondering what he was up to and if he missed me as much as I missed him. I didn’t sleep well without him, plagued by strange dreams and the loneliness that set in when things got too quiet.

I wanted to see him, I wouldn’t deny it. I missed him terribly and Boston was beginning to feel less and less like home.

“Fine, November it is.”

“All of November?”

“I suppose.”

“Thirty whole days?”

“If you behave.”

He chuckled. “Have you talked to your grandparents yet?”

I’d been putting off talking to them since I’d gotten back to Boston. I wasn’t sure why I was avoiding it so adamantly, but I knew that I needed to deal with it before long. No matter how uncomfortable it made me, I had to do it. I didn’t really have a choice. I did like to think that I had a choice in the matter in order to feel like I was in some sort of control even though I knew I wasn’t. I’d come to the conclusion that if I didn’t at least give them a chance, I would regret it.

It didn’t make it any easier.

“Way to kill my buzz,” I muttered.

“You haven’t, have you?”

“Sid—“

He cut me off. “You made your decision weeks ago. You said you’d meet with them, so why won’t you follow through with it?”

“Are you honestly lecturing me right now?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. I’m also rescinding my offer.”

“You’re disinviting me?”

“You have to deal with this, Wyn. It’s not going to get easier for you. I’ve told you about my dad’s father and the person he was. I know what it is to be disappointed by the family that you’re given. Hiding from them isn’t going to help you. I promise you that. This is just going to eat at you until you face it.”

“I’m not hiding from it.”

“Have they called you again?”

“Maybe.”

They had. They’d called several times since the first call they’d sent in my direction. There was no familiarity in the calls, just a short message reminding me of their number, asking me to call when I got the chance.

“Bronwyn, please just call them back. Give them a chance to make an impression one way or the other. If they prove themselves, that’s great. If they don’t, oh well, their loss. But at least you’ll know. You can’t just hate them in honor of your mother, she wouldn’t want that.”

“How would you know what she’d want?” I snapped.

His tone stayed even, as if I hadn’t just shouted at him. His ability to keep his cool impressed me. Had he shouted at me, I would have likely lashed out in return. But that wasn’t the way Sidney worked. He didn’t yell back when I yelled at him, even when we argued his approach was quiet and level-headed. He rarely lost his cool even when I was on the attack. Always in complete control.

“You told me on the day we met that your mother always taught you to do the right thing.”

I sighed. “Sidney, I’m terrified.”

“I know. But you’re brave.”

“No, I’m not; not at all. If I was brave, I would have already called. I wouldn’t have been putting this off for months.”

“You faced off with my father on the day you met him and you won, you left an impression and changed his mind. You’re brave and you can do this.”

“Am I still disinvited?”

“Just call them back. Meet them for a while. Deal with this. I’ll be here when you need me.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Call me later and let me know how it went.”

“I will.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I stared at my phone for a moment after we hung up. Then, before I could chicken out like I had so many times before, I called them back. I finally bit the bullet and did what I needed to do.

My grandmother seemed relieved to hear from me, but insisted that I call her by her first name. All I seemed to know about them were their names, Rose and Gerald. But I knew absolutely nothing else and as I drove through the city towards the retirement community where they resided, I couldn’t even fathom what I had to say to either of them or what they could have to say to me.

I’d made sure to let Sidney and my father know that I was meeting up with my mother’s parents in the afternoon. As soon as I’d called, I decided that I didn’t want to wait to meet up with them. I wanted to do it all at once, like ripping off a Band-Aid, one quick pull. I knew that both Sidney and my father been concerned about the whole thing, especially after my earlier conversation with Sid. It felt only right to let them know that the meeting had been set up, that I was facing my ridiculous fears. It made me feel like I had some sort of backup going into it; even though they were hundreds of miles away they had my back.

My palms were sweating by the time I knocked at the door of their apartment. I heard a deep cough resonating from behind the door, like someone’s lungs were rattling in the confines of their chest. I was reminded that my father had mentioned my grandfather had been ill for some time. I could only assume that it was Gerald hacking up a lobe. I didn’t have much time before the door swung open, but I managed to wipe my hands on my jeans before my time on the front stoop was up.

The woman behind the door was recognizable. I’d never seen her in my life, not even a photograph of her when she was younger. But I knew her. She had my mother’s blue eyes, the ones that I’d inherited. But beyond that, she wasn’t familiar and she certainly didn’t make me feel like I was being invited in as she pulled the door open and faced me.

“Bronwyn?” she asked.

Her voice was severe, like a teacher I’d had once that scolded us freely and often. Her tone was frigid and stiff much like her posture. I could tell that all her life she’d been a proper lady, ankles crossed and hands folded. Her makeup was meticulously applied, her lips painted a bright shade of pink that stood out against her pale, powdery skin. Her white hair was pulled up into a tight bun and her nails were long and thin, like they would bend or tear rather than break under pressure.

I nodded, surprised when she reached out to shake my hand. I wasn’t sure what I had expected her to do. If she’d gone in for a hug I certainly would have frozen in my place. She ushered me inside and pointed towards the man seated in a chair in the corner of the room. The apartment smelled of strong perfume, expensive and cloying. I missed the fresh air that the October breeze had to offer.

“I’m rose,” she said. “That’s my husband Gerald.”

The oxygen tank to the side of his chair gave him away.

I knew they were both nearly eighty-years-old, Gerald a bit older than Rose, but he looked like he’d aged faster than his wife. His skin was thinner, worry lines having left permanent creases in his forehead. He cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. He didn’t even acknowledge me in any direct manner.

“Can I get you a coffee?”

“No thank you, Rose.”

She ushered me to the sofa. It looked like it had been in their house since the 70’s and was still covered with a thin sheet of plastic that had never been removed. The plastic crinkled beneath me as I sat down. I immediately felt like an intruder.

I saw a stack of boxes near the door, all of them labeled with the letter M. My mother’s first initial scrawled in black ink on the plastic totes. I took it to mean that the tubs, four of them in all, were filled with things that had once belonged to my mother. My heart stuttered for a moment at the thought.

“I know it must be a shock to hear from us after all this time,” Rose said. “Why you must be what, 19 by now?”

“24.” I replied.

“Really?”

“Mom was 30 when I was born,” I murmured. I didn’t mention that the next day would have been their daughter’s 54th birthday. But the detail certainly hadn’t escaped me.

I felt defensive in that moment. I could tell that Rose was putting on some sort of show, a show that her husband didn’t seem to want any part of. Even though I hadn’t purchased a ticket to the performance she was putting on, I wanted a fucking refund.

“How time flies,” she murmured.

“Stop it, would you?” Gerald muttered, his voice rattling through the shake in his lungs. He pulled in a hit of his oxygen. He seemed winded just sitting in place. It appeared that he couldn’t do much without pushing himself to the brink of exertion.

He had yet to acknowledge my presence.

“Yes, I suppose the chit-chat is idle,” she replied. “Fact is, we’re leaving for Arizona before Thanksgiving. The doctors say it will be good for Gerald’s lungs and frankly I’ve been looking for a change of pace for quite some time. I’ve been packing things and came across a few that we have no use for.”

“Her things,” Gerald added. His voice had a softness that Rose’s lacked. “I thought Melody would like you to have them.”

It was nice to hear someone use her name.

“Thank you.”

He nodded as Rose sent him a hard look.

There was no further chatter. She’d said what she wanted to; Gerald had said all he seemed capable of without his lungs giving way. I was there to take her things and go. There was no other purpose to my visit. They didn’t want to get to know their granddaughter. They didn’t even want to recognize my existence in their bloodline. Rose seemed especially closed off to it.

I was there to receive the items from the final purge of the daughter that they’d loved once upon a time.

I bit back the bile of my anger as Rose began to speak again. I couldn’t hear her over the dull buzzing in my ears, a side effect of my rage.

“It was great to finally meet you,” I said as her lips stopped moving. I rose to my feet. “I hope Arizona treats you better. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed at me as Gerald looked down at his feet. She clearly called the shots in their relationship.

I wanted to say something about my mother. I wanted to be vile and hateful towards them. I want to tell them what they were missing, how much they’d lost when they pushed my mother out of their lives. It was clear to me that Gerald already knew and that there was some level of regret in him over it. Rose didn’t seem to care.

I pulled the stack of totes towards the door all at once. The stack was nearly my height, but I wasn’t about to take my time. I was leaving all at once, not in phases. It wouldn’t be a back and forth process of tote after tote. My first exit would be my last.

“You’re very much like her,” Rose muttered.

I stood up straight and locked eyes with her. She wasn’t giving me a compliment. For a moment I could see my mother when she was young. I could only assume that she too had left all at once. They’d told her that she wasn’t going and she’d just left them behind. She’d been brave to leave, to start her life over without them.

“Thank you,” I spat. I pulled the boxes further towards the door. “She was nothing like you.”
I cast another glance at Gerald and pulled the totes unceremoniously out the door, letting it swing closed behind me. I held in a scream as I shuttled the totes down the sidewalk and into the back of my car. Once I was settled in the driver’s seat, I let go. I didn’t cry, but the sound that ripped from my chest was some strange combination of anger and sadness; mourning a relationship and a family that never even existed.

The tears came later.

I fell asleep in a pile of her things that I’d spread out across the living room floor. Pictures of her childhood spent at Red Sox games with her father, a man who had been handsome when he was younger and his lungs hadn’t yet betrayed him. There were papers written in her own hand, the swirl of her lettering both familiar and comforting. It was the same handwriting that filled my birthday cards until I was sixteen and my father had been forced to take over.

I’d made it through only the first box of things before crying myself to sleep somewhere between night and morning. I’d finally wound up resting against the fibers of a quilt she’d made of her old clothes and belongings. There was a piece of her old cheerleading uniform, a swatch from her christening gown, and even a scrap of what had been her baby blanket. She’d been crafty even when she was young and it reminded me of a quilt that she’d once made me.

I woke to the sound of knuckles rapping at the door. I stayed on the floor, disoriented for a moment before trying to disengage myself from the pile that I had become a part of during the night. Before I could get to the door, the key jiggled in the lock and the door swung open.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

Sidney looked like he hadn’t slept all night as he looked in at me. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt, his hat pulled down over his eyes, guarding parts of his face from my sight. He stood at the threshold for a moment without moving, just gazing in at me like he couldn’t quite figure out if I was really there.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Well, I thought you might be dead.”

“What?”

He stepped in and closed the door behind him. “I couldn’t reach you last night. Then your dad called and told me that he hadn’t heard from you since you texted earlier in the day. Your phone just rang and rang with no answer. You practically sleep with that thing in your hand, it’s not normal for you to be off the grid and we got worried.

“Your dad finally called Sebastian and he dropped off his spare key with my doorman this morning because I was so concerned, or as he assumes, Patrick was concerned. We were all pretty sure something terrible happened to you.”

“I must have left my phone in the car last night. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. Any of you.”

“It’s okay,” he replied, rubbing his temples, his hat shifting and revealing just how tired his eyes were.

“Why were you so worried, what did you think happened?” I asked as I made my way to him and reached out to pull him towards me.

He shrugged.

“What, did you think I freaked out and did something crazy?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered as he looked down at the floor.

“Sidney,” I groaned.

“I’m sorry, babe. I pushed you to do something that I knew damn well made you uncomfortable and I was afraid it went badly and even though I knew you wouldn’t do anything insane, I got scared when I couldn’t reach you. When your dad called it just made it worse knowing that he was worried too.

“Besides, even if you’re mad at me and not taking my calls, you’ll always take his or Sebastian’s. You’re never completely unavailable.”

“I really am sorry.” I wrapped my arms around his torso and waited as his arms slowly wrapped around me, pulling me close. “Did you sleep at all, because you look like hell?”

“And the sad hooker look is great for you.”

“What?”

“Your face is covered with cried off eye makeup.”

I caught a glimpse of myself in the empty screen of the television. I looked like an overdone pageant girl who’d gone through a car wash.

“Go get washed up and I’ll call your dad to tell him you’re alive.”

“Text Bastian too, would you?”

“I will.”

He kissed me quickly, brushing my hair out of my face.

He was supposed to leave the next day to go to a camp in Texas. Yet instead of getting ready for a flight to Plano with a few teammates who were going along, he was at my door having not slept a wink the night before.

He’d been that worried about me.

“Hi, Chuck.”

I closed the bathroom door behind me as Sidney spoke with my father.

I took in my appearance in the mirror above the sink. My hair was a mess but that was easily resolved with a few passes of a brush. But I regretted having gone for the smoky-eye look the day before. The black and silver shadow all over my skin made me look like I’d taken a gig as a chimney sweep. It wasn’t a good look; Sidney had been right about that.

When I’d finally gotten the soot cleared off, the process taking longer than usual, I left the bathroom and found Sidney waiting in the kitchen. His phone was sitting on the counter next to him, his calls and texts clearly taken care of. The people that mattered knew that he’d found me in one piece. He’d turned his hat around so I could see his face.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for Texas?”

“Don’t know if I’m going,” he replied as he added some sweetener to the tea that he was making for me.

“We agreed on this, Sidney. The two of us being together is not going to change or screw up your schedule. You showing up here when you’re supposed to be somewhere else happens to be in direct violation of that agreement.”

“Not my fault my girlfriend went off the rails.”

I sat down at the small table. Sid joined me as he pushed my laptop out of the way and the cup of tea across the table towards me.

“I packed enough for my trip. I just left a day early and I’ll fly out from here instead of Pittsburgh. I can still get to Plano.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“You don’t get to feel guilty about this. I made a decision as a grown man, as I am allowed to do. I decided to come make sure you were okay.”

“I am.”

“You’re lying.”

I took a sip of my tea, biding my time.

“They are terrible people.”

“Tell me what happened.”

He reached across the table, taking my hands in his. Until his hands were wrapped around mine, I hadn’t noticed the way that my hands were shaking. The fine tremor was the result of stress and lack of rest, something that had happened a time or two when I was in college. But then I hadn’t had Sidney there to hold me together and my only reprieve had come from sleeping pills and a moderate number of binges on Chocolate and cat videos.

Sidney’s touch was much more comforting. Just seeing him was enough to calm my nerves immediately.

My tea would soon be forgotten.

“Rose is a bitch. She put on this show, all sweetness and light. But I knew the second I walked in that I wasn’t welcome. She was just so cold.”

“You just called your grandmother a bitch.”

“She gave birth to my mother, but that doesn’t mean anything. That woman is nothing to me.”

“That’s harsh.”

“When I was leaving, after she made it clear that my only purpose was being there to have all of Mom’s belongings pawned off on me before they move to Arizona, she told me that I was like my mother. She meant it as an insult.”

“You didn’t take it as one, did you?”

“No. I thanked her.”

“That’s my girl,” he said with a smile.

“If that woman was my mother, I would have run away long before Mom did. There’s no way in hell that I would have made it 24 years under that woman’s thumb.”

“What about your grandfather?”

“I think Rose keeps Gerald’s balls in her purse and has for a very long time. It’s not like he can argue or fight back, the man is attached to an oxygen tank, I doubt he’d make it a couple of breaths without it. I think that maybe, at one time, he was a good person. He seems softer than her, quieter. Kind maybe. He called Mom by name once and it sounded like it hurt him to do it. It made me wonder if he misses her. I don’t think Rose does.”

“But they gave you her things?”

I pointed towards the stack of totes and the pile that had served as my bed the night before. It was all overwhelming.

“All hers. Little pieces of her life when she was young. Hints of what her life was like before Dad.”

“Anything sordid?”

I chuckled. “No. Just pictures mostly. She was happy when she was young and I think she and her father were close. It doesn’t change my view of her. I’ve decided that the woman who raised me, the woman I knew, was my mother in her truest form.”

“Then why are you so sad?”

“It’s her birthday today and my gift to her is bringing home all of her things and calling her evil mother a bitch.”

Sidney shook his head. “Not true.”

“How so?”

“Your gift to your mother was you being gutsy and doing something that scared you because it’s what she would have done. You faced your grandparents, gave them a chance, and let them prove that they don’t deserve to be in your life just like they didn’t deserve to be in your mother’s life.

“Now you can start fresh. You aren’t wondering anymore. There are no questions. There are people in your life who love you and who will always support you. You’ve got your dad and me. You’ve got some great friends who love you. You don’t need them.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I mean every word.”

“I don’t know what to do with all of her things.”

He glanced over at the stack of totes. “I don’t fly out until morning, why don’t I help you organize it. It might be easier to take in if there’s some sense to be made of it.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“It will be my gift to your mom.”

I wanted to cry. I couldn’t quite fathom the man sitting across from me. I felt like I knew him so well, like he couldn’t surprise me. But there were times that he did and said things that left me speechless and astounded.

I couldn’t imagine that there was another man in the world who would volunteer to spend a day with his girlfriend going through the belongings of her mother, a woman that he’d never known. I didn’t think that there was another person who would give up a day that he could use to catch up on sleep in order to make sure I wouldn’t fall apart.

“You’re insane,” I muttered.

I meant it. I also meant that he was special, unlike anyone else. He knew that it was what I was going for. Insane just seemed to cover all of the bases.

He stayed, taking his place in the middle of the living room with me. He dumped the first tote from the stack on top of the items that I’d already dispersed on the floor. I gave him a look.

“This is how it works; it gets worse before it gets better.”

I pretended to trust him, as if he knew what he was doing. I had no idea if he did. But even if by the time he left the apartment was more of a mess than when we started I wouldn’t have cared. I was just relieved to have him there with me; helping me wade through the pieces of my mom’s past.

He started working items into piles and I followed suit.

“Tell me about her.”

“Who?” I asked.

He held up a photograph, my mother in her cap and gown at her high school graduation. “Her.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. What made her tick? Did she have a temper like you? Did she smile a lot or was she more serious? Do you take more after her than you do your father?”

“She was a bit different. She was one of those people who stood out in a crowd even though she wasn’t trying. She was just a person that people noticed. She had this smile,” I dug through a pile of photos in front of me, finding one in which she was laughing. I held it out to him. “It just took over her entire face. She laughed all the time, at everything. But there was nothing that she laughed at more often than she did herself. She was always self-deprecating, quick to make herself the butt of any joke on the off chance it would make someone laugh or break the ice in an awkward situation.”

“She liked people to be happy?”

“Always. But more than that, I think she needed them to be. She was so empathetic and she and Dad saw some really tough things at work. She always preferred that the people around her be comfortable and I think it was in part because it helped her be comfortable.”

“Which is why you are always trying to keep the peace in every situation.”

“I just don’t like drama.”

“You don’t like conflict, the possibility that people would be uncomfortable. You always want people to get along.”

“Is that wrong?”

“No,” he replied with a grin. “I think it’s perfect. Part of what makes you who you are.”

“It was part of who she was too. She was a good judge of character, but I think Dad already told you that about her. She just understood people in a way that other people don’t.”

I dug back into the pile, coming across a series of photos of my mother as a child, she wore a different costume in each. I attempted to put them in order, starting with the clown costume she wore as her father held her in his arms up through the photograph of her in full pageant regalia with a group of girls I assumed were here friends. I knew that each photograph depicted her on Halloween, a smile creeping across my lips.

“What?”

I looked up at him. He had paused in sorting items to watch me.

“Halloween was her favorite holiday. She liked to get all dressed up and take on a character. She went all out on costumes and makeup. She was really dedicated to it. She pulled me in and always made my costumes. I remember her taking me to the craft store and then dragging me all over the cities to find all of the items we needed to put things together into a costume that made sense.”

“Halloween was her favorite?”

I nodded. “She loved it. I never asked why. I think, deep down, because it wasn’t a holiday that was all about what family you were going to visit and what food you were supposed to take along. Maybe it was because her parents weren’t in her life and because she didn’t have any other family. Maybe it was just because she was different from everyone else and it was just another thing that set her apart.”

“You loved that about her, didn’t you?”

“I did. But there wasn’t a lot that I didn’t love. Dad and I are close now, but we weren’t when I was younger. That only happened because she wasn’t there to be the buffer anymore; we had to learn to deal with one another individually. It was a new setup. Before that, Mom and I did everything together, he was always the odd man out.

“What I loved the most was the way she understood me. Knew what I needed to say without having to ask any questions. Whenever I can’t find the words to describe what I’m feeling I miss her more because I know she would have gotten it.”

“You never talk about her.”

“Who would I talk to? I know the way it hurts Dad to even think about her and I don’t want to put him through that just to take a walk down memory lane.”

“Are you sure it hurts him?”

“Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t mean it like that. I mean; are you sure that talking about her makes it worse? Maybe if you guys did talk about her openly it wouldn’t hurt as much, it wouldn’t feel taboo. You told me that you hated the way people treated you, like you were going to break. Don’t you think that he could be feeling the same way? He talked about her when we were in Minnesota. Granted, he didn’t have a lot to say, but he doesn’t strike me as a guy who talks a lot as it is. But it never seemed like he was going to break, even that night when he told me he couldn’t sleep in their bed anymore. He was sad, anyone would be, but it wasn’t like he was going to fall apart.”

“Wow, you’re just full of life lessons today,” I quipped.

“Full service boyfriend.”

The way he bit down on his lower lip like it was no big deal, made the world around us fade away. In that moment, it was just the two of us, floating, surrounded by empty space. He was drawing me towards him like a magnet.

“Full service, huh?”

I pushed some of the pile away and moved towards him, shifting my weight to my knees and kneeling in front of him. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine, a feeling I’d been missing in the weeks since our last goodbye. I allowed my lips to part, inviting him in without a word.

I missed the way his hands felt on my skin and the weight of his body against mine. I missed the way his hair got curlier the more attention my fingers paid. I missed the way his eyes darkened and his muscles tightened when my fingers grazed his skin in just the right way. I missed the way my heart raced when his hands traced the curves of my sides and the way that his mouth felt when he kissed lines upon my neck and shoulders.

Our conversation had been forgotten, the task that we’d been working on may as well have been ancient history as far as our attention was concerned as he pulled me to my feet.

He’d never been in the apartment prior to that morning; most of our moments spent together in the places that he called home. But it took him no time to navigate our bodies, intertwined and in constant motion, back through the hallway and towards my bedroom.

He nudged the door open and before either of us could say a word, we were wrapped up in a mess of sheets and skin. I was struck as I had been so many times before by the heat that radiated off of his skin. The temperature was searing, bringing blood to the surface of my skin wherever he touched. There wasn’t a piece of flesh that he didn’t graze, not an inch he didn’t explore.

He set me on fire.

I did what I could to cool off as we laid in the bed, still wrapped up in each other. My fingertips drew patterns on the skin of his torso as my head rested on his chest. His arm was wrapped around me, holding me to him.

“I know the circumstances sucked, but I’m really glad you came to make sure I was okay,” I murmured against him. “Even if we only get a day.”

“I can always cancel my trip. There are twenty other guys; they don’t necessarily need me there.”

“They probably do. You’ve got a special way of motivating people. Besides,” I said as I craned my neck to look him in the eye, “you need to play whenever you get the chance. You never know when the game will start back up and you want to be ready.”

“The season isn’t looking good,” he admitted. “So little progress. It’s like the owners don’t even want to consider the offers we put on the table.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It will all work out, I’m sure of it.”

“Always so optimistic.”

“Over the last couple of years I’ve had enough pessimism and doubt to last a lifetime.”

“A couple of hours ago you thought I might be dead,” I reminded him. “Sounds pretty ‘glass is half empty’ to me.”

He smiled and I tucked my head back against his chest.

“That was different,” he replied quietly. “The thought of something bad happening to you made me a little crazy. I jumped to the worst possible scenario.”

“You’re going to have to work on that.”

“I know. There are a lot of things I’m going to have to work on.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. You’re too together to have that much damage.”

“I have to learn how to function without you around.”

“You’re perfectly capable.”

“Not lately. My mind is always on you. It’s alright with a few hours of practice a week and workouts that I control myself. But when we get back to business, I need to be focused. I’ve got to figure out how to do that, because I won’t ask you to pick up and leave for Pittsburgh. I won’t expect you there all the time.”

“You’ve had plenty of distractions to work through before, you’ll figure it out.”

“It’s never been a challenge before,” he admitted. “Not like this. There’s never been someone that mattered enough to make it hard for me to concentrate.”

“I won’t make you go the whole season without me.”

“You won’t?”

“Of course not. We’re way past summer fling here, Crosby. Whether you like it or not, I’m pretty sure you’re stuck with me. Besides, I couldn’t make it that long without you. Every time I leave you behind it gets a little bit harder than the time before.”

“Then stop leaving me behind. Move to Pittsburgh.”

“You just said you wouldn’t ask me to pick up and leave.”

“That was before you told me we were in this long-term.”

I chuckled as I drew circles on his stomach, my finger grazing across the fine line of hair that led down his abdomen and dipped below the place where the sheets were draped across his hips. I resisted the urge to slide my hand below the linens and start our process all over. I was enjoying the quiet too much to work us back into a frenzy immediately.

He wasn’t leaving until morning, we’d have plenty of time as the day and night progressed.

“You are absolutely out of your mind.”

“Is that a no?”

“For now. You’re in between places and we’ve only been together for a few months. We’ve got time for big decisions later. Right now we should just enjoy each other and the time we get and worry about the rest when we come to that point.”

“I thought I was teaching the life lessons today,” he murmured.

I looked up at him, stretching to make his lips touch mine. He obliged as my fingers slipped beneath the edge of the sheet, seeking him out, trying to make him shiver in the way that he sometimes did. His muscles tensed and his teeth grazed my lip as my hand found purchase exactly as I’d intended.

I pulled my lips away from his. “Looks like I’m teaching the lessons now.”

He chuckled, the sound a low growl that emanated from somewhere near his solar plexus. The sound was gruff, guttural in nature. “Teach away.”