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I bent in to kiss him, dragging my finger along his hairline until reaching his ear. Then I dropped my hand, but he caught it, linking his fingers with mine. “Whatever you want is fine.”

That sounded genuinely okay. Like he was dealing and we’d get through this. I liked that. I liked the idea that we’d get through this together.

He reached for the remote to her television as I left the room. I found a voicemail from Claudia and, surprisingly, Jaycee Bishop. I waited to get off the elevator on the first floor to start returning calls.

Claudia first. As my family, she deserved the lowdown. As the woman watching my son, she needed to know how long we’d be gone.

Then, after I hung up with her, I pressed the return call button to see what Jaycee wanted. She picked up on the fourth ring.

“I hope it’s not weird I called you,” she said.

“That depends on what you want, I suppose.”

She laughed softly. “Grant told me about Baker’s mom. How is she? How is he? Can I do anything?” If a kind gene existed, it manifested boldly in the woman.

“She’s stable,” I replied, “but I’ll let R—I mean Baker answer the rest of the questions. I don’t want to overstep.”

“I get it.” She laughed again. I started to get a little irritated, mixed with a bit of self-consciousness, because I thought I’d given a perfectly acceptable answer. Actually, the more I thought about it… “You do that a lot.” Jaycee cut off the attitude I prepared to unleash on her.

“Do… what?”

“Start to call him Reece.”

I sighed, hating that she caught that. “He was Reece for so long. That comfortable yet professional boundary between us. When I started working the locker rooms, I called him Mr. Reece.”

Jaycee went from simply laughing to what equated to a hysteric roll-on-the-floor vocal spasm by the sound of it. Glad to entertain her.

“Yeah, it didn’t go past that first meeting to drop the mister.”

“I can believe it. Mister seems far too… too…”

“Proper?” I offered. “I mean, knowing the team the way I do now. All good men, but pretty far from proper.”

“Exactly!” She laughed harder. “How’d Grant take you calling him Mr. Bishop the first time?”

“He was pretty classy. He said, ‘Please call me Grant.’ But when I said I wasn’t allowed to be that familiar with the team, he told me to just call him Bishop, like his teammates do.”

“Yeah, that sounds like my Grant.”

“But we’ll be here a few days, and then his mom will be coming back to Charleston with us.”

“Grant has that list of in-home nurses waiting. He gave me that chore so we could get your furniture inside his living room. It’s done.”

“Already?”

“We’re one big Copperhead family. We take care of our family.”

“Thank you.” I meant that in all the ways. “If you send the list to my email, I’ll get on it tonight.” When she agreed, I rattled off my email address to her, and we hung up right as I got to the rental car. Good because I needed to concentrate on finding us food.

There were the usuals: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and other fast foods.

Given everything we’d been through, I just didn’t feel like cheap burgers and greasy french fries.

We needed delicious food fast. A little Chinese restaurant caught my attention with the number of people walking in and out.

I figured it had to be good, and my mouth started watering.

It had a good number of people in line. The menu hung above the cashier at the order counter.

It was written in Chinese. I had to admit to my utter lack of knowledge concerning anything to do with their languages, both written and spoken, or dialects.

But all the dishes had pictures and English subtitles.

When I got to the front of the line, I decided on two different types of soup dumplings, something with crispy fried pork, noodles, a black mushroom dish, and steamed rice.

They offered a spicy mustard or this super-spicy chili sauce.

I took both, not knowing what Reece would prefer.

Rather than tea, I decided to stop for coffees before heading back to the hospital.

Back in the room, Reece’s eyes dipped to the bag in my hand and then up to the tray with the coffee, and he smiled at me. “Leave it to you to find the best Chinese food in the city all on your own.”

“I take it I did good.” I whispered.

“How could it be wrong?” He inhaled deeply. “You got the pork?” He shook his head, pulling me into his arms. The coffee tray wobbled, but I kept it from spilling while getting my reward kiss. Then he asked, “You didn’t get the chili oil, did you?”

I raised a finger to shush him then pointed to where Char still slept.

“It’s in the bag.”

“Woman, you are perfect.”

Reece pulled over the adjustable table for us to spread out the meal between us. “Soup dumplings?” he whispered around a mouthful of dumpling. It might’ve just been a takeout dinner, but it felt good to give him something he needed.

As we ate, I remembered Jaycee’s email. “Jaycee called. Our furniture is moved to your place and she sent me the list of in-home nursing care providers in the area so you can decide which is the best option.”

“ We can decide. I want your input on this all the way.”

“This is your mom’s care. I have no business?— ”

“Babe, you’ll be around them more than I will. You have to feel comfortable with the nurses and confident that they’re doing everything they’re supposed to.”

Once again, the man made sense.

They let us stay about a half an hour past the end of visiting hours. Reece could be quite the charmer when he wanted to be. Couple that with his disarmingly good looks and not one of those nurses stood a chance.

We stayed at his mom’s house and I thought he’d want to have sex because that was how big, strong men let off steam or showed emotion. Instead, he held me and more importantly, he let me hold him. He made the right choice.

The next morning, I opted to stay at the house and start making calls while he went up to sit with his mom.

He brought us subs for lunch. I showed him my progress while we ate.

By the time we finished our food, we had a verbal agreement in place, ready to meet the nurses when we got back home.

I found it amazing how accommodating people could be when they heard Charleston’s favorite goalie needed their services. Membership had its privileges.

I went back up to the hospital with Reece in the afternoon and that night over a pizza dinner, we packed up Char’s clothing and I had him put together boxes of the photos or tchotchkes she’d want to bring with her to make the transition to living in her son’s home a little easier.

As we wrapped an antique oil lamp passed down from his great-great-grandmother, he suddenly stopped working to look at me. “I never would’ve thought to do this.”

“After my mom died, I had nowhere to live, so I had to get rid of most of our lives, only keeping what I could fit in the trunk of my car. It helped me more than I can say having those things with me.”

When he stared at me without speaking, I thought I’d just majorly put my foot in my mouth to bring up my mom dying. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pressing his forehead to mine, and I knew this wasn’t that.

“You’re still so young but have been through so much. Fuck me, Bree, you’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”

My face heated. I promised myself after Dane had broken my heart, that I wouldn’t be vulnerable around another person again. And yet there I went exposing that part of me and my life. Reece had this power to draw these stories out of me without even asking for them.

“Welcome to life,” I replied. “It doesn’t care how old you are.

I did what I had to do. Make sure you pack a few of those photo albums.” I pointed to the ones on the shelf in the direction of the den.

“I think she’ll like those for days she’s not as active.

” I almost said days when she can’t be active , but why make the man think about those days when he didn’t have to?

We’d take this one day at a time. We both knew where this was heading so I wanted to keep the good mood going for as long as possible.

Shipping her boxes home made the most sense, given we’d packed five of them. If we missed something important, it wouldn’t take much to hop on a plane to come back for it. Reece already kept the house wired through a security company. Her things would be safe.

I thought about asking why we didn’t just hire a moving company to pack her up, but I got why he wouldn’t want to, so I ended up letting it be. This wasn’t his home, but it was still his home. His childhood was on every shelf and in every closet.

It wasn’t the time.

He’d do it when he was ready.

They kept her for another two days to make sure she’d be okay to travel back to Charleston with us.

On the day we picked her up, she fought us, albeit weakly, about the wheelchair.

Hospital policy mandated she use the wheelchair down to the front doors, but her doctors recommended it and even if they hadn’t, she was still too fragile to walk on her own.

She’d get some strength back as long as she kept up with the infusions, but we had a good deal of walking ahead of us today.

We weighed the pros and cons of driving versus flying, even tossing around the idea of renting an RV to make it more comfortable for her, but Arlington to Charleston was more than an eight-hour drive without any traffic delays, and it made the doctors uncomfortable.

I talked to them at length when deciding how best to transport her.

In the end her medical team okayed us flying back to Charleston as long as we all masked and tried to keep her away from too many people.

Reece ran to get the rental while I waited with Char outside the front doors of the hospital. He loaded the wheelchair in the trunk while I helped buckle her in the back seat. We still had to get through the airport, and she’d never make it through on her own.