The woman didn’t respond. She just slammed the door in his face.
Devin closed his eyes and exhaled. “Goddammit.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He jumped, but when he looked at me, he smiled, though he still looked tired. “Hey. I’m sorry you had to see… uh…”
“It’s all right.” I glanced at the closed door. “What’s going on?”
Devin gestured at his own apartment. After he’d let us in, he blew out a breath. Shuffling across the room to the couch, he said, “I swear one of the biggest reasons I want to get a handle on my debt and save some money is so I can buy a house.” He dropped onto the couch. “It’s the only way I can be sure she has at least one place to go where there aren’t any scents or noises or lights or…” He sighed. “It should not be this difficult to give my kid a place to live, you know?”
I sat beside him. “No, it shouldn’t be. I didn’t realize people were so inconsiderate.”
“They get worse, believe it or not.”
“Really?”
He nodded, but didn’t elaborate. With another heavy sigh, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It’s just so frustrating, you know? I can’t get our neighbors to be considerate. I can’t take her to things. Whenever we go out to eat, I have to research ahead of time to make sure there’s nothing on the menu that’ll set her off if someone at the next table orders it. Every year, we have to fight with parents who are pissed off that the school asks them not to let their kids bring or wear anything scented to school.” Dropping his hand, he turned an exhausted look on me. “Hell, when we went to her neurologist’s office? Some lady walked in wearing perfume so strong it made me gag, and by the time we got called back to see the doctor, Dallas was getting a migraine. I just… All I want is for my kid to be able to live a normal life. The world is every other kid’s oyster, but it’s Dallas’s minefield, and it’s so, so fucking frustrating.”
The analogy made my spine straighten, reminding me of my old coach’s description of me being the oyster who obsessed over every grain of sand. This version was a different angle, but I definitely got it.
“Damn.” I wrapped my arm around him. “I’m sorry.”
He leaned against me, shoulders sagging under my arm. “People get on my case for being over-protective or trying to shelter my daughter. It’s not like I’m being a helicopter parent and trying to control everything she sees and hears. I’m just trying to keep her from being in pain, you know?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat up and looked at me. “I know you were expecting—”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed his knee. “I’m not going to tell you to drop trou and get on with it after…” I waved a hand toward the door.
He smiled faintly. “Thanks. Do you, um, want a beer or something?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He got us a couple of beers, and we settled onto the couch together. No, we weren’t tangled up in bed, but I didn’t mind. Truth be told, as fun as the sex was, and as aggravated as he was tonight, I liked the fact that we didn’t spend all our time together in bed. These days, whenever I came to his place or he came to mine, we usually hung out on the couch and just talked for a while. Catching up about our days, about games I’d played or we’d watched. Just…talking. Not usually because his neighbor had been a fiery asshole, but still.
Oh, we’d end up in bed before too long, but this was nice too, especially as Devin relaxed and our conversation meandered away from his neighbor’s bullshit to everything from the crap he dealt with at work to some of the practical jokes my teammates played on buses and planes.
“The only rule,” I was saying, “is that nobody pranks Kuznetsov on a plane.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s terrified of flying.”
“Oh. Wow. I want to say I’m surprised some of the guys don’t fuck with him, but they don’t seem to take things like that too far.”
“Nah, we’re all assholes to each other, but there are lines, and everyone is good about not crossing them.” I laughed. “That, or everyone’s heard all the goalies