Page 108 of How We End

“No, I mean be okay with…”

“Being second to hockey?Yes.I could use a few years off.A lot of years, actually.Are you okay with that?Me sitting around watching daytime TV?Getting my nails done, maybe joining some weird yoga studio with goats and wine?I’m tired of having to shave every day.”

“I’m going to draw the line there.I can’t have my girlfriend growing a better beard than me.”

“Oh yeah?Would that hurt your manhood?”I wrapped my legs around his waist, knowing full well what his manhood was doing.

“My manhood is just fine.Would you really be happy?”

“Yes.I would be more than happy.But there is one thing.”I ran my finger over the chain.“I don’t want to be the other woman anymore.”

He groaned and rolled off of me.“I know.I’m trying.Maybe not hard enough.I keep waiting for her to do something.She’s supposed to be getting her shit together so she can buy me out of the house.I don’t think she is,” he said, looking at the ceiling.“But that isn’t your problem.I’ll have AJ work with my lawyer.By the end of this season, I will be divorced.And then…” He rolled over to face me.“I’ll make an honest woman out of you.”

I laughed.“That will never happen.”

“You don’t want to get married?”

“You do?”I turned to face him.I never thought about marriage.Who would marry me?

“To you, yes.You didn’t really think this was it, did you?You’re not my secret.”

“I know.I didn’t think you’d want to get married again.”This was a weird conversation to be having.We’d been together for four months, and we were talking marriage.

“I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.I should’ve waited for you.”

“If you had I would’ve never met you.”He would have been happy and someone else’s.He’d have a good life.He wouldn’t have needed me.

“I would’ve met you.On Halloween.”

“You want me to believe you’d have no one?Julian Silver would be single?I doubt that.”

“I didn’t date a lot.I know that’s hard to believe, being I’m so charismatic.I only met Emily because she was a friend of another player’s girlfriend and she pursued me.I only married her because everyone else was getting married or engaged.That and I was going to be thirty.I thought she’d be like my mom and get used to my schedule.My mom never complained.Not when my dad missed her birthday or Beckett’s birth.I thought that’s what marriage was.One gave and one took.”

“And now?”I didn’t know how marriage should work.My mother was flighty, and my father was constantly chasing her.

“Now I want you to be happy and know that you are the most important thing in my life.And if that means I retire tomorrow, then I will.”

I cupped his cheek.“And that’s not what will make me happy.”

“Then what will?”

“You being happy.And if that means you play hockey, that means I go where you go.”He opened his mouth to say more.I pressed a finger to his lips.“Anywhere.Now, can we get back to that promise?”

“Which was?”

“You fucking me.”I rolled over onto him.

CHAPTERFIFTY-ONE

JULIAN

February 19

“Julian, we cannot let this go public.”

“And I will not let her blackmail me.It wasn’t mine, and I’m not going to marriage counseling.”It was a warm day but not warm enough to be standing in a slushy parking lot listening to my agent, AJ, tell me I should go to marriage counseling with a woman I was trying to divorce.

“She’s saying that you left her in the ER and she lost your child.Do?—”