“You literally just proved you can’t.”
“This is embarrassing.”
“Add it to the list.” I set her down on the sofa gently, her head against the cushion, and crouch in front of her. “Painkillers. Did you take them?”
“Not yet.”
“Stay,” I tell her like she’s Frankston, which earns me a glare. I find a glass, fill it, grab the painkillers from her bag, and bring them to her. She takes them, swallows a couple, and leans back with her eyes closed.
I sit on the other end of the sofa. The fight is over, and the confessions are out. And we’re just two people sitting in the wreckage of everything we’ve been holding in for months.
She opens her eyes and looks at me. “You’re sitting very far away for a man who just carried me like a bride.”
“Am I?” I shuffle closer to her.
“You literally scooped me up.” She giggles.
“You were about to face-plant into your kitchen counter. It was a safety decision.”
“A safety decision,” she repeats, not buying it for a second. “You could have just grabbed my arm.”
“I panicked.” I grin.
“You panicked?”
“Can we move on?” I grumble, and she almost laughs, which makes her wince and press her fingers to the bandage above her eyebrow. “Stop moving your face.”
“Stop saying funny things.” She shifts on the sofa and turns to face me. The painkillers haven’t fully kicked in yet, and her eyes are clear. “We need to talk, properly.”
“Okay.”
“But first.” She grabs her phone with her good hand, types a quick text, and puts it face down. “I told Jo not to come home tonight. She’ll be happy to stay where she is.” There’s something in the way she says it, pointed, like there’s a whole other story behind that sentence that I’m not privy to.
“Where is she?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She gives me a look that says she’s not telling, so I drop it.
“Okay, so let’s talk.” I turn to face her properly, one leg tucked under me. “What do you want to say?”
“I want to know what this is. We’ve fought, and we’ve ignored each other, and I’m exhausted, Fish. I’m so tired of not knowing what we are.”
“What do you want us to be?” I asks.
“Don’t do that, don’t turn it back on me, I asked you first.”
Fair enough, I run my hand through my hair. “I want to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you since the corridor when you cried on me in my hockey gear. I’ve told you that. Nothing has changed.”
“But everything around us has changed. We work together. My brothers are your teammates. The internet has an opinion about us. My career is tied to the team.”
“I know all of that and none of that is going to change, so I don’t think we can use that as an excuse anymore,” I tell her.
“So, what do we do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “But I know that the last few weeks without you have been the worst of my life. And I know that the second Evan said your name on the phone today, I was out the door before my brain caught up. I also know that sitting here right now, even with you bleeding from the head and high on painkillers, is better than any night I’ve had since the gala.”
She stares at me. “You can’t say things like that to me.”
“You keep saying that, and I keep saying them anyway.” I grin.