Page 47

Tobie

The next day, I wake up groggy, my breasts tender, and with cramps so bad I never want to move. Then I lift the covers and realize I’ve bled through my panties and into my sheets, and I curse being a woman.

I’m still silently cursing as I change my sheets after I’ve taken my thyroid meds and popped an aspirin.

I glare at my phone when it vibrates.

Whoever it is can wait until I’ve finished fighting with my sheets.

Periods have always been the worst. Stupidly heavy, horribly painful, and requiring a day away from people, or I will kill them.

My phone falls silent.

I return to fighting with my fitted sheet.

Then it starts vibrating again.

Grumbling, I stomp over to my desk and snatch up my phone. “ What !”

Silence.

“Is this a bad time?” Reid asks timidly.

I didn’t think hockey players knew how to be timid.

Then I remember. I’m not at practice, and I said I’d be there when Caleb texted me last night. After I practically ran away from him, he probably wondered if I was gone forever.

I hold the phone against my ear as I debate what to say.

Blunt honesty? I’m bleeding from my vagina, and I want to kill everyone. Leave me alone.

Honest but vague? It’s shark week. Could you please give me some space today?

Lie? I have a headache.

“Tobie, what’s wrong?” Reid asks, his voice soft with concern.

My eyes fill with tears, and I sniff.

I don’t want to be left alone. I want someone to hug me and give me chocolate. And also to make my bed because I hate doing the corners on my stupid fitted sheets.

“I’m coming over,” Reid announces.

Because I sniffed?

“I’m okay.” I sigh. “You don’t want to be around me today.”

I consider sitting down, but I know myself. If I don’t finish making my bed now, I won’t once I’ve sat down. I’ll just crawl into my half-made bed and lie there all day.

Maybe even tomorrow.

Or forever.

Depends how bad this period is.

“If you’re sick, I can come over and bring some chicken soup. You’ll throw up after you eat it ’cause I know shit about cooking soup. Or I can pick up a can.”

He draws a reluctant smile from me, despite my shitty mood. “No, that’s okay. It’s not that kind of sick.”

He’s silent for a beat. “Ah. Got it.”

“I better go.” And I hang up before the urge to cry rears its head, or I sit down because the aspirin hasn’t kicked in yet, and my belly is cramping so badly I just want to hug myself.

I put my phone down and return to making my bed, cursing whoever invented fitted sheets and myself for buying them.

Finished with my task, I take a hot shower and change into a clean pair of PJs. No sooner have I crawled under my covers with a hot water bottle than someone is knocking on my door.

No.

If I say nothing, they will go away.

I press my hot water bottle to my cramping belly, close my eyes, and try to sleep.

Knock. Knock.

I peel my eyes open and stare at the ceiling.

“Tobie?”

Reid.

I twist to face the door, surprised. “Please tell me you didn’t bring me soup.”

I don’t want soup. I want a bar of chocolate the size of my head.

“Nope. I come bearing supplies,” Reid calls back.

“ We ,” Javier corrects him. “We come bearing supplies.”

Oh. He brought Javier with him.

“What kind of supplies?” I ask, hoping desperately—and probably pointlessly—for that chocolate the size of my head.

“It’s hard to explain through a door,” Caleb says.

I blink.

He’s there as well.

Curiosity drives me from my cozy bed like nothing else would have. Setting my hot water bottle down, I put my glasses on and belt on a robe as I walk to the door.

I open it and come face-to-face with three guys in gym wear carrying brown paper bags. Reid has a laptop tucked under his arm.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Girls are once again loitering in my hallway. I can’t say I blame them. They’re in sweats, fresh from practice and radiating health and hotness.

Reid brandishes his laptop. “We brought the movies. It’s probably weird to be watching movies this early, but I downloaded a bunch we can stream.”

He steps around me as I’m still processing what a movie has to do with anything.

“They’re all guaranteed to make you cry your eyes out,” Javier says. “Nessa helped pick out a couple. And snacks.”

I look at Caleb, who lifts his bag with a wry smile. “More snacks. Not sure why we need this much, but Reid insisted. You should start with the ice cream. Reid practically sprinted through the store to get it first, so it’s probably already melting.”

“There was no practically about it,” Javier adds, shaking his head. “We walked into the store. He asked me what flavor you might like, and he was gone.”

Reid is setting up his laptop on my desk. “I didn’t want to forget the most important thing.”

“You act like you have the memory of a goldfish. You nearly knocked an old lady over,” Caleb says, putting his bag down and stripping out of his hoodie. The sight of that tanned skin briefly distracts me, and when he catches me staring, his eyes turn heated, and I look away.

“I saw her,” Reid says defensively.

I get my first glimpse at the movies he and Javier’s sister picked out. Heartbreak. Emotional family reunions. Big weddings. The works. Nothing that any hockey player would have any interest in watching.

Javier and Caleb lay out the snacks, ready for what looks like a day of snacks, ice cream, and a selection of movies that none of them will like, but they thought I would.

I nearly sob when Javier sets down a pint of salted caramel ice cream. Then I see the slab of chocolate, the thing I desperately wanted and didn’t think to ask for. It hits me in the feels, overwhelming me.

My eyes get all misty. That’s a lie. They’ve been misty since the ice cream.

“Sorry we couldn’t come sooner,” Reid says. “Coach was in a pissy mood, and…”

I sniff.

They all stop what they’re doing and twist to face me.

“I’m not going to cry.” Tears fill my eyes, and I drag my sleeve over them to hide the evidence that I’m a big fat liar.

“Come here.” Caleb abandons setting out the snacks to draw me into a hug. I bury my face against his chest and fight back more tears.

The chocolate is what I wanted. A hug is what I needed.

My fingers tighten around the soft cotton of his shirt and I lean into his hug.

When I have a handle on my tears, I lift my head to discover Javier and Reid giving me ‘the look.’

When I had my first period and worked myself up to telling Dad, he looked at me just the same.

Legitimately terrified.

“Should I go to the store?” Dad had asked all those years ago, shifting from foot to foot.

I will love him forever for returning from the store with a brown paper bag full of ten different sanitary pads and tampons, his face bright red.

It was important to me, so he made it important to him and asked a random woman in the store which pad or tampon would be best for his daughter’s first period.

That couldn’t have been easy because Dad is… well. There’s a reason he loves his job working from home. Mom was the extrovert in our family. I got my quiet, studiousness from Dad.

“Do you want us to go?” Reid asks once Caleb has released me from a hug I hoped would last forever. “We barged right in here, and you didn’t even?—”

“No,” I quietly interrupt. “I didn’t think you would want… well, me.”

Not like this—all scruffy with my hair scraped back in a pony, fluffy pajamas, and no makeup.

“You needed us,” Caleb says quietly, thumbing a tear from my cheek.

“How would you know?” I ask, melting from the softness of his touch.

“Reid said you sounded sad.”

“How did you know to do this?” I motion the movies and the chocolate.

“I have a sister,” Javier says. “And we live on this planet. We know girls have periods.”

Then he offers me the pint of ice cream and a spoon they must have brought with them. Caleb passes me my hot water bottle when the ice cream briefly distracts me from my cramping belly, and we all settle down to watch The Notebook .

Between ice cream, chocolate, and popcorn, I cry.

I cry a lot. But then that was the reason I picked out this movie in the first place.

Then…

“Are you crying ?” Caleb demands.

I drag my robe sleeve over my eyes and peek up from my position, ready to kick him out of my room because so what if I’m crying? Wasn’t that the whole point of the movies?

But he’s not looking at me.

“Of course, I’m not crying,” Reid says, sounding outraged. But there is an undeniable huskiness to his voice. “It’s just a chick flick. Why would I cry?”

Caleb leans over.

Reid bats him away with a pillow. “Watch the damn movie.”

“You were. Weren’t you?” Caleb demands.

“It was an emotional moment. I’m not made of stone.”

Heart melting, I crawl over to Reid, climbing right into his lap and kissing his neck. “That’s okay. I cried too.”

Reid makes this rumbling purr of pleasure as he wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my hair. “Hmm. You feel good.”

Caleb mutters something suspiciously like he wishes he was crying.

It’s strange to be the center of three men’s worlds because that’s how they make me feel. Like I matter to all of them, even more than hockey, which is unreal.

“You’re smiling,” Javier says, peering into my face.

“I’m happy,” I admit.

On a day I actively wanted to kill someone, I never expected it to end with me this happy.