Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
When the game ends, Karlsson sails past me. “Maybe next time your wife wants a quickie marriage, she’ll choose someone who plays to win.”
He’s not getting the last word in. No fucking way. The game’s over. The refs are skating off the oval. So I catch up to him before he reaches the gate, flashing a fuck-off smile. “Say one more word about my wife, and you’ll be picking up your teeth off the ice. Got it?”
His eyes widen, flickering with fear. Good. I like that. He gulps—even better. But just in case there’s any misunderstanding, I add with my best good-guy charm, “Sounds like we’re clear on that.”
He mumbles something unintelligible.
Fine by me. I skate off to our tunnel, chest heaving—not from exhaustion, but from frustration. This game got messy fast, and I should have kept my cool.
I didn’t, and that’s not like me. When I hit the ice, I treat it like a game. Like it’s fun. And I have a good time. I’ll have to get back to that.
Once I’m showered and changed into my suit, I do my best to put hockey out of my mind for the night. There’s only one person I want to talk to, but I’ll have to wait till I get a minute alone.
On the short flight to Boston, where we’ll play tomorrow evening, I close my eyes, but I don’t nap. I listen to a comedian, and when I’m finally in the quiet of my hotel room that night, I pull out my phone and call Maeve. The phone rings twice before she picks up, her voice soft but teasing. “Tough game?”
She watched it, and that…well, it thrills me. She’s seen plenty of my games over the years, but Monday night was the first time she watched as my wife. What would it be like if she were in the stands regularly at home? I let my imagination run wild, seeing her in my jersey for every home game, cheering me on. That’s a real nice thought, and it definitely perks me up.
“You could say that.” I sink into the bed, rubbing the back of my neck. “Karlsson was chirping the whole game. But screw him.”
She pauses for a moment. “What was he saying?”
I hesitate. She doesn’t need to know the details. Part of protecting her—part of this fake marriage—is keeping her out of the mess that comes with my world. She’s got enough on her plate already. “Nothing worth repeating. Just hockey stuff.”
There’s a beat of silence before I steer the conversation away. “How’s the mural coming along?”
“Good but exhausting. It’s easily the biggest project I’ve ever done. Normally, we’d start with the concept, but that was done as part of the submission. So we jumped right in and finished the sketches and the color palettes. Looked at them in the space itself.”
“And was Holmes there?”
“He was. Don’t tell Eleanor, but he’s a little in love with me. Though, I think she figured it out when he tried to hump my leg.”
“That might be a dead giveaway,” I say.
“True, true. And I’ve been working through the sketches on my tablet back at my place. And my butt has never hurt more from the spring in my couch,” she says.
“So it’s a pain in the ass?”
“Bah-bump,” she says. “And I’ll probably work through the weekend. I have a lot to get done.”
“Just be sure you get enough sleep,” I tell her. I could rattle off a hundred benefits of a good night of rest. I know them all. By heart. But I stick to the big ones, so it’s not obvious that I’ve researched this topic. “It’s important for good health and brain function and creativity, which you need.”
“Yes, Doctor Google. You always know what I need. It’s like that time I thought I sprained my ankle when I was working on a mural for that new café.”
I remember that perfectly—she twisted her ankle coming down from a ladder a couple years ago. “You just needed some ice and to rest it,” I say, relieved again that she didn’t need crutches. The sprain was minor.
“And you made sure I did just that. So, don’t worry. I’ll get plenty of rest this weekend too,” she adds.
“Good.”
The tension in my chest loosens a little. She has that effect—lightening my load without even realizing it.
We talk for a few more minutes, and by the time I hang up, I feel more grounded. But the frustration from the game still lingers. I can’t let it go.
So I pull up my phone again and start searching for articles about exhaustion, specifically, how it affects creativity. I want to make sure she’ll be okay. That she’s not going to work herself too hard. I scroll through pages from the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and more to make sure she’s not hitting critical levels for exhaustion. Good news—she’s not, by my diagnosis, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for that as she works on this project.