Page 78 of Goal Line

“Were you ever worried about her safety before?”

“No, I guess not. And it wasn’t just that I was worried about her, it was also the baby, and whether Eva’s mother was going to figure out she was pregnant. It all just...”

She gives me a sympathetic face. “. . . cascaded?”

“Yeah. It was so overwhelming, I couldn’t think about or focus on anything but her.”

“That’s what anxiety is,” Chloe says. “It’s an emotional and physical response to a stressful or threatening situation.”

“Are you saying that keeping these feelings locked down means this could keep happening?”

“I’m saying that the more time and energy your brain spends forcing down very natural emotions, the more likely it is that you won’t be able to deal with other stressful situations when they come up.”

“That’s what being a goalie is, though...It’s stress. It’s taking care of your team. It’s protecting the net—using your body to guard a space much bigger than you can physically cover while guys shoot pucks at you at ninety miles per hour.”

“Perhaps, then, you need to free your brain up to handle that type of stress?”

“By telling my wife how I really feel about her?”

Chloe shrugs. “That sounds like a logical place to start.”

Logical, perhaps. But also terrifying, because there’s no way to admit my feelings to Eva without also admitting that I can’t remember a time I didn’t feel this way about her.

Chapter Thirty-One

EVA

“Oh my god, I knew it,” Morgan squeals, a wide smile splitting her face and elevating her cheeks so that her eyes crinkle as she pumps a fist in the air. Heads turn at the tables nearest us, where other diners are distracted by her loud outburst.

She tucks her chin, looking down, as if she’s embarrassed, but when she looks back up, I can tell she’s not. She’s just happy for me.

“So does this mean you’re together-together? Like for real?”

I sigh. “No, I don’t think so. Like, we had that one almost-hookup, but he hasn’t tried anything since.” I tell her about watchingPride & Prejudicetogether the other night, and how he carried me into my own bedroom instead of his, and how I’ve slept alone the two nights since.

“Maybe, since you were asleep that night, he didn’t wantto assume you wanted to be in his bed? Luke seems like a full-consent kind of guy.”

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug, remembering how he told me he needed me to use my words when he was touching me. “But the fact that he hasn’t tried anything since then? I don’t know. It feels like maybe he regrets it?”

“Aside from not trying to get you in bed again, has he done anything else to make you feel like he regrets what happened?”

I think for a moment before saying, “No. Everything else seems very normal.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to let him know you’d be up for a repeat performance?” Morgan asks between sips of her cocktail. “Because clearly, you haven’t told him how you feel." She grinds out the last words, like she’s reminding me that I was supposed to talk to him about that a week ago.

“It’s...complicated. It’s clear he’s down for this friends-with-benefits situation we’ve found ourselves in, but?—”

“You’remar-ried,” Morgan says, as if I need help understanding the situation. I burst out laughing.

“Yeah, but?—”

“No buts. You need to talk to him. The only thing that’s going to happen if you don’t is that, eventually, someone’s going to get hurt.”

“And you’re worried it’ll be me?”

“I’m worried either way. You saw the way he fell apart in Game 7 when he thought something might be wrong with you. Once the news of your marriage comes out, everyone’s going to believe that it’s because he was worried about his future wife and his baby. But we know the truth, Eva. We know that he wasthatworried about you before you wereeven together. No one reacts like that if they don’t have serious feelings for the other person.”

I chew my lip as I mull over that thought. It’s not like I haven’t wondered the same thing, it’s just that I’ve never let myself hope...until now.