I’d have to wait to do it again. I wondered if we would ever get around to using those handcuffs.
I also wondered what happened next. How would this relationship work? What did the future look like? Had all of this happened too fast to be real, to last? Maybe we were always going to end up here. Maybe we were meant to be together.
I hoped the cats would forgive me for not feeding them. I hoped they weren’t peeing on the bed at that very moment.
Carson stirred, rolling over to face me. “Go to sleep,” he murmured into my bicep.
“I’m trying,” I said. I lifted an arm so he could get closer, resting his head on my shoulder. He draped his arm and leg over me, dragging the comforter with him. It was like being in a warm, soft cave that smelled of both of us.
He kissed my shoulder, his hand under the blanket caressing me from chest to hips.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” I warned him.
“Oh, I’ll finish. Eventually,” his hand moved lower. He seemed more awake by the second. “So, what is rolling around in that brain of yours?” he asked.
“Truth or Dare?” I asked.
“It’s too late,” he groaned.
I pulled his hand up and kissed his palm. He had the sexiest hands. “Humor me. Truth or dare?”
“Truth, because I'm too wiped out to move and I already walked down the hallway in a bathrobe tonight.”
“Do you believe in soulmates?” It was the kind of question you could ask in the middle of the night with no one else around.
His wandering hand stilled. “Do you?” he deflected.
“That's not how this works. You have to answer first.”
“Soulmate as in someone who seems to bet made just for you. Who gets you and you don't ever want to be without? The big storybook love?”
“Exactly that,” I said.
“I want to,” he admitted.
“I do, too.” We both knew we were talking about us. “I think that some of us who do get it let it slip right through our fingers.”
“Or throw it away because they're too stupid to know what they had,” he said with a sigh.
“Or maybe too young.”
I reached for his hand again, tangling our fingers together. “Want to hear something stupid?”
“Of course. Though I doubt it's stupid.”
“I used to tell myself that I could have made the NHL, that I could have been a big shot, if you'd been there with me.”
“Eric, I don't know what to say.”
“It isn’t true,” I assured him. “It’s just that I liked the idea of you being there watching me, cheering me on, and then reviewing the game with me when I got home, the way we used to. Remember? You always believed in me more than I believed in myself.”
“Eric, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed me to be. I'm sorry I wasn't a stronger, braver person.”
“That’s not what I meant. I know it wasn't your fault. I just wasn't good enough. It's just that I was so alone, you know? Every year a new town, a new team, new teammates. There wasn't much continuity in my life. There's only one thing that stayed the same.”
“Ryan,” Carson said bitterly.
“Okay, I’m saying this badly. Not a surprise.” I sat up, taking him with me. “What I meant was that I am aware that it was pathetic. I know it was a shitty relationship, if you can even call a string of on and off years a relationship. But he was all I had. But I have more now.” My heart was in my throat. “And I deserve more.”
“And you think I’m more?” he asked without inflection.
I laughed. “You are so much more.”
He sighed. “Too much?”
I shook my head. “Never.”
“Can we sleep now? We have to meet the guys in a few hours.”
“No more sex?” I asked, rolling over and pulling him against me.
“Sleep,” he said, putting a hand on my chest.
I rolled him onto his back and braced myself over him. “One kiss?”
“One,” he said.
A phone ringing pulled me out of a deep, deep sleep. I ignored it like any normal human would do. I cracked one eye open, looking for a clock. It was nine a.m. Ridiculous time to call someone, but past time for me to be at the rink. Shit. Feeling guilty, I slid out of the bed, careful not to wake Carson up. By a generous estimate, we’d had two hours of sleep. That one kiss had turned into, well, quite a bit more.