Page 36 of Making the Save

Leaving me with my thoughts.

Heart, you hear me? Stay out of my love life.

I remembered the melody and grabbed my guitar. I was rusty and out of practice but my fingers remembered what they loved best. I picked out a tune. I tried it in A major. And then A minor. It sounded bad both ways.

I tweaked the progression and found something I liked. Something surprising. It reminded me of where I grew up. Red dust roads. Tornado sirens. Beat up pick-up trucks and dogs panting in the shade of old elm trees. It reminded me of the girl I used to be. It wasn’t poppy at all. It was something new entirely.

7

Wyatt

The run helped. The last of the Vegas booze was out of my system, the rage I felt listening to that woman bait Sydney over and over again, and that extremely poorly timed boner I got from kissing Sydney in front of all those people – all gone.

I was myself again.

Everything fully in control.

Feeling loose, I walked the last fifty yards back to the house to cool down. I had made the right decision. Staying married to Sydney felt like protecting Sydney. That was kind of my thing. I was excellent at it. In fact, I made a shit ton of money doing it.

I would protect her like I protected my teammates, my goalie, my brother, my father.

She might say she didn’t need it, but damn, in my life, I didn’t know anyone as vulnerable as her. As alone as her.

A lost fairy who got dropped in the middle of a pack of wolves.

I looked up at the house. Sydney was there, sitting out on the deck. She waved and I waved back.

We probably needed to talk about that kiss. It had been stupid. That terrible woman said prove it and I went full caveman. Syd had every right to push me away. At first, I’d felt the tension of her body against mine. I’d thought – yep, there I go making things worse again. But then…she melted. She melted right into me. Her body curved so perfectly against mine, it was like she was made of sweet golden honey. All those assholes in the room vanished and it was just me and Syd.

Me and my wife.

Sex could complicate things, yes. It sure as hell could make things easier too. Slice right through the bullshit. And Syd had a whole lot of bullshit around her.

The July 4thholiday was coming up, then preseason would start mid-September.

That’s, if you go back,said the voice in my head that had started saying these kinds of things to me. Every morning when I woke up to the throbbing pain in my shoulder from the arthritis that had settled in after my surgery, and I hobbled to the bathroom because my ankle was stiff and sore, the voice had something to say about it.

The run I just went on? The voice was in my ear for the first ten minutes.

This sucks. If you just retired, you wouldn’t have to get back into hockey shape every season. If you just retired, you’d never have to run again.

The voice was an asshole.

But I have a point.

I climbed the steps from the beach up to the deck and Sydney was there with a bottle of Gatorade, the blue kind, cold and waiting for me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Beatrice had groceries delivered,” she said. “There wasn’t any research for her to do on specific foods you like, but she stocked up on the Gatorade.”

I fell into the lounge chair next to her and twisted the top off. The sun was high, the ocean was fucking beautiful. A person could quickly get addicted to this view.

“I like food,” I said, and took another drink. “All kinds. I’m not picky.”

I sighed after another big gulp and turned to look at her. Taking her in. She’d changed her clothes and was back in a pair of short shorts that left her legs bare, and an oversized t-shirt that slipped down her shoulder. I wanted to press a kiss to that collarbone and that dimpled knee.

She was writing something in a notebook and I noticed her guitar beside her.