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34

Luke

I ’m just getting a stack of pillows lined up for the special date night I’m setting up for Lennon when I get a call from the very last person on earth I ever thought I’d hear from.

“Hello?” I choke and clear my throat.

“Luke, hey. I wasn’t sure if this was still your number.” The voice of my ex-wife rings through the line, and I slump against the arm of the couch.

“Uh, yeah. Still got it,” I say stupidly, but my brain seems to have gone completely blank at the sound of Elle’s voice. We haven’t spoken since the day our divorce papers were signed.

“Obviously.” She laughs lightly. “Well, I’m happy it is because I wanted to call you. I thought about just texting or emailing, but that felt so…I don’t know. Impersonal? I mean, we were together for over a decade, and the thought of writing you an email felt laughable.”

What the hell did she have to email me about? “Yeah, that would’ve been quite a surprise to open that up.”

There’s a rustling in the background, almost as if she’s sitting outside and the breeze is blowing through the speaker. The weather is beautiful for this late in March, but it’s still getting dark early despite the traces of spring.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m calling,” she says.

“Honestly, yeah, I am.”

“Never one to beat around the bush.” I can picture her shaking her head at me like she used to and tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “I saw an article online from that one blog who always covered Flash news, and it was about you and your new team. I didn’t know you had started coaching.”

Still not sure where she’s going with this, I cross my ankles and stare ahead at the wall. “Yeah, just started this season at Haulton.”

She hums. “That’s what it said. And that your girls made it to the Frozen Four Tournament this season.”

“They did,” I say proudly. It’s just three weeks out and being held just a few hours away in Chicago. “They worked hard, and they’re fucking good, Elle. Really good. Like could win the whole thing, good.” If Lennon can keep cool under the pressure and Aubrey can keep her head on straight and not get baited into stupid penalties…they can do it.

I can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “I’m so happy for you. Truly. When I read the article and saw that you were back involved in the sport, I can’t tell you the relief it gave me.”

“Why?” If anything, I would’ve thought she’d just keep scrolling the second she saw my name.

“Because I know how happy it made you. And I know how much it killed you when you couldn’t play anymore. It ruined you.”

It ruined us. I hear the unspoken words hang between us.

“So to see not only that you’re involved again, but then to see the pictures of you behind the bench, cheering and one even caught you smiling…” She trails off, and her next words are strained. “I’m just glad you’ve found happiness again, Luke.”

They’re words I didn’t know I needed to hear, from the person I didn’t know I needed to hear them from, for the realization to really sink in. I am happy again. There was a time where I never thought I would be. But coaching, seeing the team succeed and improve and be chosen for the tournament, it reignited my love of the sport again.

I feel like myself again these days.

And I owe it to this job and to the player that inspires me every single day with her tenacity.

The player that I’m currently waiting for to spend the night with. The one I want to spend every night with.

Emotion clogs my throat as I manage to say, “Thank you.” Two words that will never be enough to make up for everything I put Elle through in our time together, but I mean with my entire heart. Then, because there’s always been this little voice in the back of my head that needs to know, I ask, “And are you happy?”

Her response is immediate. “I am. I don’t know if you heard, but I got married again. And uh, a couple months ago we found out we’re expecting.”

The news shouldn’t take me by surprise, but yet it does. But not in a negative way. No. I can’t help but smile actually. “You’re getting the family you always wanted,” I muse. The one I never could spare enough time or attention to give her.

“I am,” she says softly.

“You’re going to be a great mother, Elle. I’m really happy for you.”

The front door swings open, and Lennon steps inside. She’s dressed in a hoodie and yoga pants with her hair braided down her back, and she’s never looked more beautiful to me as she beams at me the moment she walks in.

I push off the arm of the couch and gesture to the phone in my hand. One minute , I mouth to her.

She nods and takes the bag she totes with her to the kitchen counter.

“Thank you,” Elle says. “I appreciate it coming from you.”

“It looks like we’re both getting what we needed, huh?”

“I guess so. It was good to talk to you. And I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.”

“You too. Thanks for calling.” I walk over to the kitchen where Lennon pretends to be on her phone, but I know she’s trying to figure out my conversation. “And I wish you nothing but the best.”

“Same to you, Luke. Good luck to your team.”

“Thanks, Elle.”

Lennon’s head whips up at the sound of her name, and I hang up the phone. She turns hers off and lays it face down the counter, her sole focus on me now.

“Was that Elle as in…”

“My ex-wife?” I finish for her. “Yeah, it was.”

Lennon’s posture turns rigid. “Oh. I didn’t realize you guys were speaking.”

“We’re not. I mean, not exactly. That’s the first time we’ve spoken in years.”

“Why were you on the phone with her?” She tucks her hands in the pocket of her sweatshirt as she adds, “That sounded bad. I didn’t mean it like you can’t talk to her. I mean, like, why were you talking after all this time?”

It’s sort of cute seeing Lennon flustered like this. “She just called to check in,” I say. “Nothing for you to worry about. I promise.” I run my hands down her arms in reassurance.

Lennon smiles warily. “Sorry, I know, I trust you. I’ve just never dated someone who’s been married before.”

“Well I doubt there’s too many divorcees at your age.”

“You never know.” She steps back and unpacks the brown paper bag she brought. A box of pasta, two jars of sauce, a round loaf of bread, and a box of ready-to-bake cookies. “We’re carb loading tonight. Are you hungry now or do you want to wait to eat?”

“I’m good to eat now if you are.”

She nods once and begins getting a pot filled with water. I ease myself onto the barstool and watch her flutter around my kitchen. So natural, so at home. It brings a warmth to my chest that I spent so long without.

As Lennon puts the pot on the stove to boil, she nonchalantly tosses over her shoulder, “So what did she want?”

I cover my mouth with my hand, not wanting Lennon to see the amusement on my face. She loved calling me out for getting jealous of Mason, and now it’s my turn to see her turning a little green. “She wanted to congratulate the team on making it to the tournament. One of the blogs who covers a lot of Flash alumni wrote a story about my new venture.”

“That’s so cool! You’ll have to send me the link. The girls will wanna see.”

I grab my phone and text it to her.

“Was that all she wanted?”

“Are you a little jealous there, Killer?”

She crosses her arms and leans against the counter next to the stove. “No.”

“Liar.”

“Whatever. Yes, fine, I’m a little jealous but only because I know you spent so many years with her and how much you loved her and she loved you. How do I know she isn’t still holding a torch for you in hopes that now that you’re in a better place in your life, you’ll want to make it work with her?”

“Would it help you if I told you that she’s pregnant, and very happily married to her new husband?”

Lennon’s shoulders fall, and she looks down toward her sock-covered feet. “Well, now I feel like a bitch for assuming the worst.”

I chuckle and lean on my elbows. “It’s a fair train of thought. If our roles were reversed, I probably would’ve wondered the same.”

The water starts to boil and she dumps in the box of pasta. I’d offer to help, but every time I try to help her with something in the kitchen, it ends with me ruining something and Lennon shooing me out of the way.

After a few moments of silence, she asks, “Do you want kids?” Her question seems to come out of nowhere, but obviously Elle’s pregnancy has stirred it up. Her back is turned to me while she stirs the noodles around, but I can feel her curiosity wafting toward me.

I exhale and stare down at my hands. “Uh, honestly, I don’t know.” I pick at a callous to distract myself. “I guess I thought I always would, just because that’s what is naturally expected of people. Especially once I got married, I definitely started to feel the pressure of it. And then once I hit thirty, even more so.”

Lennon turns around and listens intently.

“But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t see it with Elle. And after the incident and everything I went through the last few years, kids became a non-factor for me. I haven’t really thought about it much since then.”

“That’s fair enough.” Lennon nods.

“But I guess if I’m thinking about it right now, yeah, I think maybe I’d like one.” Now that I have a steady schedule and aren’t on the road for half the year, it seems more plausible. “Do you want kids?” I ask.

She fiddles with the tail of her braid. “Yeah, I think I’d like to. I always pictured myself as a wife and mother growing up.”

“You want to get married?”

“Well not right now,” she laughs. “But eventually yes, I see myself getting married and building a family.”

The big milestones that I already hit or had the opportunity to check off and decided against.

“Are you open to getting married again?” Hesitation mars her tone, almost as if she’s afraid of the answer I could potentially give.

I crack my knuckles. “I’d be open to it. It’s not something that I see myself chasing, though. If it happens again, it happens. If not, then I’m fine with that.”

She chews over my answer, and I know what she really wants to ask. She wants to know if I can see it potentially happening with her.

And the answer scares the shit out of me because yes, I could see that. I could see marriage with her. I could see her moving into this apartment with me or us buying a home together. I could see her going with me to meet my old friends back in New York and hanging out with Seb and Sierra.

But what I’m terrified of is wasting her time and youth like I did to Elle. Lennon is still so young. I’ve lived twelve more years of life than her. What if?—

“I see you getting in your head,” she interrupts my racing thoughts. “Talk to me about it.”

Sometimes I miss the days when I was able to keep such a close lock on the thoughts that run across my face. “I’m just worried that I’m taking away part of your youth or something.”

“My youth?” Lennon snorts. “I’m twenty-one, not twelve. I’m graduating college in just two months and am doing it debt-free because I’ve worked my ass off the entire way. I’ve done the partying thing, I’ve done the hook-ups, I’ve done the stereotypical college experience. You’re not taking anything away from me.”

I ignore the hook-ups comment because the thought of anyone else’s hands on Lennon is enough to make me borderline feral.

“I know, but?—”

“Are we a couple?”

Her question startles me. “What do you mean?”

“Are we going to try to make this work? Despite everything that is going to come our way once we make it public and whatever fallout there might be after the fact, do you want to be with me? Do you want to try to make this work?”

“Well, yeah, of course I do.”

“Then we’ll figure it out.” She rounds the island and steps between my legs. Her arms drape around my shoulders, and I loop mine around her waist, pulling her closer. We’re almost at eye-level like this, and I love it. “That’s what couples do. We make decisions together, and we talk it out. What I don’t want you to do is get in your head about something and end up making a decision on my behalf because it’s what you think is what’s best for me. I know what’s best for me. And from what you’ve told me about the end of your relationship with Elle, you made a lot of decisions based on what you thought was best for her and that was final. I don’t want you to do that with me.”

She’s absolutely right. I did do that with Elle, and it wasn’t fair to her. Sure, it all worked out how it was supposed to, and I’m glad she’s happy and getting everything she wanted. But I didn’t give her the chance to fight for our relationship and what she wanted. I don’t want to repeat that mistake with Lennon.

“Are you sure you’re the younger one in this relationship, because I think you have me beat maturity wise,” I tease, and Lennon smiles brightly.

“Girls are always smarter than boys.”

I kiss her, and after lulling her into a false sense of security, I pull her bottom lip between my teeth and nip at it.

“Hey!”

I smack her ass and say, “That’s what you get for that comment.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes playfully and heads back toward the stove. My eyes stay glued to her ass the entire way. It looks more delicious in those tight yoga pants than the dinner she’s cooking.

“Also, I know that this was some serious talk for us, but it’s not like we need to rush anything,” she says. “I mean, hell, it’s not like we can even tell anyone about us for a long time still.”

I scrub my hand down my face, exhausted already by the long road we have ahead of us. “You’re not wrong about that.”

Lennon pulls a strainer out from the cabinet, stretching on her tiptoes to reach it, and dumps out the noodles and water in the sink. She then plops the noodles back in and stirs in the jars of sauce. I finally get off my ass to grab us bowls and plates, along with a cutting board and serrated knife for the bread.

“Are you still thinking we should wait until the fall?” she asks.

I slice the bread into thick pieces and lay them out on the plates. “At least fall, if not later.”

Lennon deflates, and I run a reassuring hand over her back. “I know, it sucks. I don’t want to have to keep lying and hiding it. But I—I’m really loving being a coach, baby. And if I have to give it up for you, I will. But if there’s a way that we can mitigate the fallout when we do make this public and I can somehow keep my job, I’d like to.”

She sighs and leans into my side. “I know. I don’t want you to have to give it up. If we need to keep sneaking around until then, that’s what we’ll do.”

I still don’t even know if that will help. Once Alice finds out that Lennon and I are together, I don’t know if she’ll believe that nothing started until after she graduated. She’ll start thinking back over all the time she and I spent together alone in practice, working out, and she’ll start replaying every interaction and conversation she witnessed between us. I know Alice loves me and my family, but she won’t turn a blind eye to the rules.

But I don’t burden Lennon with that worry. Not this close to the Frozen Four, and not as she finishes up school and begins job hunting.

I kiss the top of her head. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve your patience.”

Her shoulders shake against me in silent laughter. “Well one of us has to have it.”

I bump my hip into hers and grab our plates. “We’re eating on the couch tonight.”

Lennon grabs sodas for each of us from the fridge and follows me into the living room. I set our food down on the coffee table and wait for her reaction. She doesn’t notice the TV right away, and only after she plops down onto her side of the couch and grabs the navy throw blanket she likes does she glance up. Her shock turns into glee as she practically vibrates with excitement.

“Are you serious?” she asks. “You’re actually going to watch it with me?” On the screen, queued up and ready to hit play, is A New Hope .

She’s been bugging me ever since she found out my nickname was Skywalker and I had never seen a Star Wars movie to watch them with her.

“I’m only promising you this one,” I warn her. “If it sucks, I’m not sitting through the rest of them.” The idea of sitting through eleven movies sounds exhausting.

She claps her hands excitedly. “You’re going to love it! Turn it on, turn it on.”

I hit play, and Lennon and I dig into our dinner as we watch. She’s so distracted she barely finishes her bowl of pasta, and I steal her leftovers.

The movie isn’t bad. I have to admit, I’m even sort of enjoying it. The special effects are a product of their time, but I can appreciate them for what they are. But as the movie goes on, I find myself watching it less and less, and instead watching Lennon’s reactions to it more and more.

Every little giggle she tries to stifle when Han Solo smarts off to someone, every little nod of support she gives Leia when she does something Lennon likes, every hitch of her breath as Obi-Wan and Darth Vadar duel. Her reactions and genuine joy are far more interesting to me than anything that’s happening on screen.

It’s the way that seeing her have fun with it makes me happy in return. And how this simple act of watching her favorite movie with her makes it all worth it. I’d sit here for weeks on end with this one movie on a loop if it made her smile like that everyday.

And I’ll continue to break every single rule I shouldn’t just to keep Lennon’s light in my life a little longer.