they weren’t my favorite thing in the world, but they were less offensive for her than coffee, and I kept them on hand specifically for days like this.
After I’d opened the bottle, I sat on the couch and texted Jase.
Have time to chat?
No answer.
About twenty minutes later, I was just starting to let the disappointment sink in when a response finally came through: Text or Face?
He was actually asking if I’d choose to fumble with autocorrect and type out my answers over seeing his gorgeous face? Hello, no-brainer.
FaceTime. Definitely.
In seconds, we were connected, and one look at his face had me more relaxed than I’d been all day. He must’ve just showered—his dark hair was damp and tousled—and he was lounging against what I assumed were the pillows of his hotel bed.
“Hey.” He smiled that smile that made my whole body warm all over. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah. You too. And, um, sorry again about last night.” I sighed. “Sometimes she just takes her meds and then tries to relax in a quiet, dark room until it’s over, but sometimes…” I shook my head. “Last night was rough, let’s put it that way.”
Jase grimaced. “Ouch. Sorry to hear it. And it’s all right. Health stuff comes first, especially when it’s your kid. How is she now?”
“She was kind of hungover from it all morning and slept most of the day. She’s feeling a lot better now, but she’s still asleep. By tomorrow, she should be back to normal.”
He whistled. “Wow. One migraine, and she loses two entire days?”
“Oh, it can be three or four days if it’s really bad.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Most of the time, the worst is over in a couple of hours, and then she just feels like she was hit by a truck for the rest of the day.”
His eyebrows rose. “And there’s nothing anyone can do about it?”
Oh, now that was a line of conversation that could have me on the floor begging for sweet death, so I just gestured dismissively. “We’re working on it. Slowly but surely.” That was easier than describing the sensation of slamming my forehead against my insurance company and their insistence that I continue to taking Dallas to the barely-mediocre primary care doc they’d assigned her. Ugh.
“Well,” he said, “I hope they can do something for her. That’s got to be miserable for the poor kid.”
“It is.” And I was exhausted tonight, so if we kept talking about Dallas’s health problems, I was going to wind up crying or just being incredibly depressed. “What about you? How was the game last night? I, uh, missed it.”
“Eh, they beat us.” Jase laughed. “You didn’t miss much.”
“Oh, so I missed an off night?”
“Oh my God, yes.” He groaned and rolled his eyes. “We have those nights where we all kinda forget how to play hockey, and last night…” He waved his hand as if to say do the math.
I chuckled. “Okay, so you guys know about those nights, then.”
Jase laughed and flipped me off. “Yes, we know about those nights. Asshole.”
“I mean, I wasn’t sure! We don’t know what you guys are thinking, so—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck off.”
We both laughed. The Snow Bears were a damn solid team, but on top of having a reputation for falling apart in the third period (especially if they were up), they were also notorious for occasional nights where everything went wrong.
“I gotta know,” I said, “what does your coach say on those nights?”
“Oh, Jesus.” He groaned. “Poor Coach. He’ll do his usual motivational shit while the cameras are on, but as soon as it’s just us and him…” Jase laughed, oblivious to what that did to my pulse. “Oh, God. He just… He stands up in front of the team, and he just looks at us like, ‘Why? Why do you do this to me?’”
I snorted. “Poor guy. No wonder he’s bald.”
“Yeah, he totally blames us for that. And he’s probably not wrong. But to be fair, we also win a lot, so…”
“I guess the good outweighs the bad. Sometimes.”
“Hey!”
“I’m kidding! I’m kidding!”
“You better be.” He huffed with mock indignance, and dear Lord, this playful side of him was just adorable. Turning a little serious, he cleared his throat. “So, um… I’m still on the road for a few more games. But when I get back…” He swallowed.
“Do you still want to, um, meet up?” Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.
“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he said, barely whispering. “Because yeah, I