“Shit!”
“Hey, man, everything okay?” Noah asked.
I sighed and ran a hand down my face. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted her to find out about the “L” word. I wanted it to be this big grand gesture, and then maybe she would then tell me she felt it too. She had to feel it too, right? She nearly melted in my arms when I kissed her, and I knew when we were having sex that the look in her eyes wasn’t just one of lust. Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see?
Fiona Gallagher was it for me. She was the only woman who would ever be for me and the reason why I drowned myself in casual hookups and relationships that never worked. None of those women could hold a candle to my best friend, the love of my life.
My chest tightened. That’s why she was day drinking at Dinah’s. She knew I was in love with her, and she didn’t want to think about it. That kind of crushed me.
Noah clapped me on the back. “We’re quite a pair, eh?” he asked.
I shook my head with a sarcastic laugh. “I think I need to collect my wife at your girlfriend’s.”
He hung his head. “I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend anymore.”
I followed him to where our cars were parked. “I don’t know about that one. I think you two can figure it out.”
“She really hurt me.”
“I know, bud.”
“How can I forgive her?”
“Noah, you love her, right?”
He nodded. “More than anything.”
“Then you two need to talk about it, tell her how it hurt you, and try to work through it. If you both really love each other, you can work it out.”
I tried to believe my own advice to the kid. What the fuck did I know when it came to love? I hated watching Noah be so sad the last couple weeks, though. I also had a feeling that his girl still had some lingering issues over her late husband’s death. I thought maybe that’s why watching him get taken out of the game made her break up with him. She was just scared.
He squinted at me. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Maybe not while she’s drunk, though, huh?”
He nodded.
I had no idea what I was in for when I got to Dinah’s. Fi getting drunk with Dinah made me nervous. If that's what she did when Finnegan told her I was in love with her, maybe our marriage was doomed to fail. Maybe we should have gotten a divorce the day after our wedding. Maybe it would have made this hurt less.
When we got over to Dinah’s place, the two of them were quite the drunken pair. Fi was lying on Dinah’s couch with the bottle of whiskey in her hands while Dinah was lying on her floor. Noah and I shared an annoyed look; maybe it was a bad idea to introduce the two of them. He helped Dinah into her bedroom, and I took that as my cue to get my wife out of there.
I held out a hand, and I was surprised when she actually took it and let me pull her to her feet. I took the bottle gingerly out of her hands and set it down on the coffee table, then put an arm around her shoulders.
She leaned into me. “Riley?” she asked.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home,” I told her.
She slipped her hand in mine, and we walked together back to my SUV. She fell asleep on the ride back to the condo, and it took a bit of encouragement to get her to come upstairs with me. I ended up carrying her inside and to our bedroom.
I placed her gently on the bed when her small hands grabbed the lapels of my shirt. “Aaron? I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked softly, nearly melting at her calling me by my first name. It was a small gesture, but it made my heart pound loud in my head. “Do you want to get out of your jeans?”
She flopped back on the bed and squirmed out of her jeans, kicking them onto the floor. “I’m sorry I’m a bad hockey wife,” she moaned.
My heart softened at that. I sat on the bed next to her and stroked her hair. “You’re not, I promise. Maybe we should talk about this later. You had a lot to drink today.”
“Mmmhmm,” she moaned softly and closed her eyes. I kissed her forehead and moved from the bed. I picked up her jeans off the floor and put them in the hamper before quietly closing the door behind me and going into the kitchen. I cracked a beer and gulped half of it down while standing at the sink. I didn’t know what was going on in her head, but I knew it was nothing good. I also knew that I couldn’t really focus on that right now.
Normally, I would have let myself be consumed by watching game tape to figure out how to prepare for our game tomorrow, but now our season was toast. We had to play a couple more weeks of regular season hockey for nothing. It kind of sucked, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
I finished my beer and decided it was time for me to go to bed too. I grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and left it on the nightstand beside Fi. She was probably going to need that in the morning. She was on her back when I climbed into bed beside her and, being paranoid, I checked that she was still breathing and then promptly shifted her so she was on her side. She shifted and pulled my arm around her, holding her close. I knew she was asleep, but I nuzzled her hair and kissed her neck softly before clutching her to my chest and falling asleep.
When I woke for pre-game stuff, Fi
