Page 27

Astrid

Today’s meeting with Grayson is about my case study.

It’s professional, scientific. Only to do with gathering information on him. It’s in no way going to be another meeting like the one we had in the hotel. I’m not even going to let myself look at his lips.

But I can’t lie to myself—I’m not interested in the case study right now.

Once again, I’m waiting for Grayson to show up, but this time I’m not sitting on a hotel bed. I’m in the gravel car lot of another park, staring out the windshield, the gentle steam from my coffee cup twisting through the cab and filling the space with a warm, comforting scent.

There’s a large, grassy clearing in front of me, with bathrooms, a water pump and drinking fountain, a pavilion, and a swing set. All around it, trees push up against the grass, and little brown signs mark the entrance to various trails.

The park is empty this early in the morning, with nobody but a stray man on the other side of the large clearing, staring sleepily down at his dog, who appears to refuse a game of fetch.

As I stare into the grass, noting the slight frost over the blades, I think about Grayson.

Even after touching myself in that hotel room, I couldn’t get the idea of him out of my head. I couldn’t stop feeling his hands on my body, thinking about his breathy, kissed-out voice. Every night since our make-out session, I’ve dreamed about Grayson O’Connor.

Sometimes, we’re just hiking together, but most of the time, it’s a replay of that night after the wedding. A replay of it, with a few tweaks. The Grayson of now superimposed over that night’s Grayson.

A steady patience. A teasing, careful energy.

Situations that have me waking up in the middle of the night, moaning softly into my pillow. I only pray that the guest room is far enough from Callum and Sloane, that they won’t be able to hear my humiliating, illicit dream sounds.

When Grayson comes, rumbling into the parking lot, it jolts me out of my thoughts and sends a stupid flush over my cheeks. Since starting this whole thing with him, it’s like my face has a new pink default.

I think about last night, the hours I spent sitting on the couch in Callum and Sloane’s living room, knees tucked under my chin, watching him play against the Anaheim Ducks. Unlike the pre-season games, he wasn’t pulled.

It’s not like I had a full understanding of his performance. But he stayed on the ice the whole time, blocked most of the shots the other team took, and even made a really cool save that looked like it was going in. Every time the camera swung around, focusing in on his face, I’d quickly grabbed my water bottle, trying to keep myself from fixating on him.

A lost cause. I was already spending my Friday night at home, watching hockey on the TV—something I had never in my life done before. Not even for Sloane.

Now, I grab my coffee, open the door, and pull the blanket from the back seat, watching as Grayson’s eyebrow shoots up at the sight of me. Something like adoration rises to my throat at the sight of him—slightly rumpled, sleepy, wearing another pair of tapered gray sweatpants, a baby blue Frost hoodie, and a dark charcoal denim coat.

“Aren’t you cold?”

His voice absolutely should not send a burst of heat through me the way it does. Neither should his messy hair, the way he leans toward me, the hang of his sweats over his legs.

Those legs.

Obviously, I know that hockey players have big legs. Sloane has shared, on more than one occasion, the difficulties of finding pants for NHL players, how none of the dimensions are right, and tailoring is almost always necessary.

But I’ve truly never noticed—not on Luca, when he came to one of Sloane’s games in college, and not on Callum, whom I see every day now. Those men drift in and out of my life in the way I imagine lesbians see them—just people, not anything special to look at.

Grayson’s legs, though, are different. His must hold a different quality from Luca and Callum’s, because I can’t stop letting my eyes wander down to them. I can’t stop thinking about him in his goalie gear. Can’t stop thinking about that strong, firm thigh, the way he so confidently had it pressed to the very center of me.

“Astrid?”

I jolt, sucking in a breath of the cool air and finding Grayson’s eyes again. The world comes rushing back to me—the sounds of the birds singing outside, the gentle breeze, the man on the other side of the park who’s given up, sitting in the grass beside his dog.

Grayson’s eyes are on me, amused, that smooth deep brown, and I drown in them.

“What?” I manage, knowing I sound breathy and not knowing how to regulate that. What the hell is happening to me? This is like the wedding all over again.

He grins, leans against my car. “I know you’re a California girl, but you have to know better than a jacket like that on a morning like this. You have to be freezing. It’s October , Astrid. In the Midwest.”

I glance down at myself, then back up at him, ignoring the shiver that runs the length of my body. That’s definitely from the way he’s looking at me. Not the cold air pushing right through my leggings. “It’s supposed to warm up.”

Only one of his eyebrows raises, and I wonder how in the world he does that.

“Is that blanket for you?” he asks, eying it. “You might be okay with a blanket.”

“No,” I hug it to my chest, feeling another chill with a gust of wind, but not wanting to admit to him that he’s right. “It’s for the ground.”

“Cool. Early morning, freeze-your-balls-off picnic.”

“Come on,” I laugh, turning and gesturing for him to follow me. “You’re mouthy this morning.”

“You gonna write that in my case study?”

I glance over my shoulder at him, loving this version of him, wondering what in the world brought it out of him. Wondering how it is, that the banter flows so effortlessly between us.

“Participant exhibits verbally aggressive behavior toward researcher,” I say, legs burning with the effort to stay out in front of him.

“Aggressive?” Grayson asks, the word popping out of him like a laugh. When I turn to look at him, I catch his eyes swooping up, like they were fixed on my ass before.

If my cheeks get any hotter, I won’t have to worry about the cold.

We finally reach a good spot, and the guy with the dog is walking out of the clearing, back toward a pickup truck. I lay out the blanket, gesture for Grayson to take a seat. Sitting crisscross-applesauce, I clear my throat and face him.

“Okay, last week was the hiking. This week, we’re doing meditation in nature to see how it regulates your symptoms.”

Grayson arches an eyebrow. “Meditation?”

“Yes. Studies have shown that meditation and mindfulness are helpful in reducing feelings of anxiety across many subjects. I’d like to collect some information on how it works for a professional athlete.”

“Alright.” Grayson shifts, and I’m surprised when he pulls his legs in, sitting crisscross just like me. He must register the look on my face, because he gives me one of those lopsided grins. “What?”

“I just—I didn’t think hockey players were very flexible.”

“Most aren’t,” he relents. “But I had a coach in high school who said being flexibility would reduce my chance of injury. Especially as goalie, going down to my knees all the time—there’s enough of a chance for an injury from play. I don’t need my body betraying me.”

I don’t know why, but I jot that down in my notes— Body betraying me . It seems relevant.

“What did you write?”

“Hey.” I pull my tablet up so he can’t see it, unable to keep myself from laughing. “ You are not on the research team. Now pay attention. I’m going to collect some answers from you.”

For the next ten minutes, I run through the questionnaire I have for him—mood, feelings in the body, question after question that ask him to rate things on a scale from one to ten.

Without explicitly allowing the thought into my head, I wonder how he might rate me, and the flush—which had almost completely dispersed—is right back on my face.

When we finish the questions and I’ve logged all the information into my spreadsheet, I realize I’ve shifted closer to him and scoot back on the blanket. I know I can’t, but it’s almost like I feel the physical rush of the cool air flooding in between us.

A shiver darts up my back, and I look to the sky—the sun could come out any moment now.

“You’re cold,” Grayson says, giving me a look.

“You have to start your meditation,” I counter, knowing this is the part in the movie where he shrugs off his jacket, and I’m swathed in this scent, and every person walking past our blanket thinks we’re a couple.

“It might help if I knew how to meditate.”

“You’ve never done any mindfulness exercises? Not even with the team?”

Grayson laughs so suddenly and loudly that it actually makes me jump. He has to unfurl his legs, resting back on his wrists, his head tipped back.

He’s beautiful. I channel my frustration with him to keep from pushing forward, climbing into his lap and kissing him. I want his arms around me, want to feel the cool scrape of his denim jacket, the soft press of that skin just under his jaw.

“Okay,” I say, biting my tongue, trying not to laugh, trying to ignore my feelings. It all feels like too much, so I shove it down, roll it into a little ball and tuck it away. The feeling is like sitting on my hands to keep from fidgeting.

“Sorry,” Grayson says, wiping a hand over his face and shaking his head. “I don’t know how the hockey teams in California do things, but, uh—no, even with Coach Vic at the lead. We are not doing mindfulness together.”

“You might not believe this, but I don’t know how the hockey teams in California do things either,” I say rolling my eyes. “Besides, you could all use a little mindfulness—Coach Vic should get over himself and help Sloane with her mental health initiative.”

Grayson settles back into his seated position, and I walk him through the steps. Focusing on his breathing, letting thoughts come and go. Accepting the world how it is, and just existing within it, striving for a blank mind through relaxation.

At first, he’s slightly restless, shifting and running his palms down his sweats, but after five minutes, he’s gone completely quiet.

A full hour later, I tap him on the leg, and he opens his eyes slowly, almost like he was sleeping. But it’s clear he’s been awake, actually meditating. It’s pretty miraculous. When I first started, I could only go for five or ten minutes at a time before getting frustrated.

“Done?” he asks, his voice soft.

“Yeah. All done.”