A Match Made in Texas- By Arlene James Page 0,54
died, Stephen had known that he was truly alone, forever separated from his family by loss and guilt. He had learned to live with it. Until now.
Now, he wanted to think that Kaylie cared for him, as opposed to “took care of him.” The difference was significant. The first implied an emotional connection; the second, a simple, professional one. He wanted that emotional connection badly, craved it with a desperation that frightened him.
For a moment, Stephen wondered if his concussion had addled his brain worse than the doctors had assumed. Since losing Nick, he had eschewed all but the most basic emotional connections for years, telling himself that was safer all the way around. Besides, he was too busy establishing his career. His game could not afford such distractions.
He had shut out everyone and everything not essential to his concentration on hockey and his performance on the ice. When he indulged in social occasions, it was most often at the behest of team management, in the interest of team morale or just to shut up Aaron. All work and no play, as the saying went. Even his “romantic” relationships had been brief, shallow and selfish on both ends.
He hadn’t realized just how selfish he could be, though, until he’d taken Kaylie’s hand in his last night and wished Kaylie’s father would disappear so that Kaylie herself might not.
He opened his eyes, and to his everlasting surprise, Kaylie was there, sitting in a patch of bright sunshine that poured through the window next to the bed. Wearing lime-green scrubs, her hair in a ponytail, she sat quietly in his chair sorting pills into tiny cups arranged in a small plastic tray on her lap. He caught a pleased, energizing breath, and she looked up. Smiling, she quickly dispensed several more pills before speaking.
“Good morning. I was just organizing your meds for the next few days. How do you feel?”
His stomach growled as if in response, and she laughed, tucking the tray into the drawer of his bedside table. “We can take care of that.”
Atop the table stood a tall, disposable cup of coffee in a foam rubber insulation sleeve. Rising from his chair, she removed the cup from its protective holder, clasping it between her palms.
“Not hot but warm enough, I think. Breakfast will be up in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you can work on this.”
He used his elbow to dig his way higher in the bed while she took out a paper-covered straw, peeled it and slid it into the opening in the top of the coffee container.
“You’re not just beautiful, you’re a genius,” he said as she passed him the cup. She ducked her head as he tentatively slurped up the fragrant brew. Not hot by any measure but drinkable.
“It’s just that you’re so easy to please,” she murmured.
He yanked up his gaze. “Hah! Easy to please? Me? As if!” He shook his head, laughing, and went back to sucking up that dark ambrosia. “Then again,” he said, pausing, “with you, maybe I am easy to please. Or maybe it’s just that you please me. I don’t really know.” What he did know was that he felt absurdly, ridiculously happy.
“And maybe,” she said, blushing furiously as she drew her phone from the pocket of her smock, “being gravely wounded has changed your perspective.”
He’d give her that. Such experiences were life altering, as he knew only too well. But his wounds weren’t what made him glad to be alive for the first time since—he faced the thought squarely—for the first time since he had killed Nick. To his surprise, the pinch of grief and regret did not change the facts.
He was happy. For this moment, he was truly happy.
Suddenly, in a rush of jumbled sensation, he remembered all the other happy moments in his life. The sheer number of them shocked him, things like trying to rope a tumbleweed while his father shouted advice and the west Texas wind blew it first here then there, or crouching low at his mother’s side to watch the winding path of a snail in his oma’s garden. He felt his father clapping him on the shoulder after a big win, his grandmother’s yeasty hugs, his mother ruffling his hair, the dry west Texas breeze and the misting North Sea rain. He could almost close his hand on the satisfying smack of a puck into his mitt, knowing that the net stood empty behind him, and puff his chest with pride as he signed