Page 87 of Sportsball is for Lovers

twenty-eight

. . .

Sadie

The Quebec sunshinebeats down on the sunroom windows, making the temperature rise in the otherwise cool house my friends and I have rented for the week.

LuAnn, Rosemary, Andie, and I try to do this at least once a year. We all have projects to work on—I’m knee deep in final edits for my current Work In Progress—and the goal of the week is to Get Work Done. This trip has been booked for six months.

So I am not thinking about Jared, back in Boston, splayed out in my bed and looking adorably rumpled when I left for the airport at ass o’clock in the morning yesterday. Technically he still lives with Yoni, though he only sleeps there once a week and is in my bed the rest of the time. Now that the hockey season is over, his days at the office are shorter, but his free time is full of job applications.

I don’t want him to move in. It’s too soon. But he can’t move out into an apartment of his own until he has a real job. Jacky’s on maternity leave for a few more months, but eventually, she’ll come back. We all know this is temporary.

So why am I tossing and turning every night that I’m alone in my bed?

I’ve never liked to have someone sleep in the same bed with me—I’m a light sleeper and every shift and sound wakes me up. Somehow, having Jared’s warm body beside mine is a comfort, even when we’re not touching. The steady snuffle of his breathing works better to lull me asleep than any white noise machine I’ve ever tried. And the morning sex basically whenever I want? Yeah, that’s not bad, either.

Actually moving in together? Combining our lives? Commingling finances? That feels waaaay too soon for a casual dating situation-ship with a guy I couldn’t stand three months ago.

If the end goal isn’t marriage, what is it? What are we working toward?

“Holy hell on a Cheez-It,” LuAnn says. “Your thoughts are so loud, you’re giving me anxiety.”

We’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, working on our own projects. Rosemary is taking a much-needed shower break. Andie’s walking around the neighborhood, dictating smut into her phone. And I…

I am seriously wigging out.

“I think I’m broken,” I tell Lu.

She rolls her eyes. “You are not broken.”

“Okay, fine. Defective, then.”

Lu heaves a sigh. “Don’t make me get up out of my chair to spank you.”

“Careful, I might like it,” I tease, and inevitably, my thoughts immediately go to Jared.

He hasn’t spanked me again. That night in Scottsdale, I needed it to get out of my head. I was so wound up—and he knew exactly how to fix that. It’s like he’s a mind-reader or something.

Or maybe he just knows me.

“You’re thinking about the boy again,” Lu says, rolling her eyes again.

“Yeah,” I admit. My voice is quiet. This is supposed to be a girls’ trip. No, a working trip. A working girls’ trip.

“You haven’t had this before.”

I shake my head. “My last relationship was back in college.”

“Sometimes I forget how much younger you are than me.” Lu says it with a smile tinged with sadness.

“I mean, I’ve been with other guys,” I hurry to add. “There was never any commitment or feelings or anything. It was always just sex.”

“And now there’s feelings?” She raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t know.”

She laughs. “You know how this works.”