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ledger

I was ready to go back to work. I had this renewed sense of purpose in my life and knew that it would show on the ice. We had a few more months left of the season, and as we started to land back in Chicago, I realized Auburn had given me so much more than just her. She had given me a purpose to keep living.

“You’re getting better at flying,” I said as I gave her hand a little squeeze. She was playing her comfort UNO game in the corner and looked up to give me a death-glare. “Hey.” I laughed. “You cried twice this trip, which was better than the four times on the way here.”

I went to put my laptop in my carry-on, and the moment I stood, I dropped, feeling a throbbing pain in my knee.

“Are you okay?” Auburn looked up. I shook her off.

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to stand. It was likely because I’d been sitting for so long and spent the week without any therapy that it was giving me some pain.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as I sat down, wondering if she’d see me sneak a painkiller to manage the ache.

“It’s nothing,” I said again, reaching for her hand, but she quickly pulled it away.

“No. You don’t get to do that. I told you everything about me, so let me ask you once more. What’s wrong?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about it. Mostly because my knee hadn’t been an issue this year. “Last year, I was in an accident on the ice. My knee needed surgery and months of rehab before I could?—”

“Ledger. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me the severity of this.”

I shrugged. “I honestly haven’t had any pain in my knee since the surgery. I had to do a bunch of physical therapy to be able to get back on the ice, but that’s when I knew it was my last year. I was never going to put myself through that healing again. I still go though, which is probably why it’s acting up.”

“We should never have gone there. I should’ve known, I?—”

I grabbed her hand. “No. If anything, this is my fault for not asking my therapists for the exercises to do at home.”

Auburn leaned in close. “It was probably all that sex that did it in for you, right?”

I laughed. “Probably, Sunshine.”

“Go home. Go back to physical therapy and take some meds.”

Thank God, because it was fucking throbbing. “You got it, boss.”

Auburn smiled again, and her smile, like the sun on the darkest day, flooded my world with its radiant warmth, thawing the frost that had settled in the depths of my being. Its gentle glow whispered of hope and renewal, guiding me through the shadows that lingered in the corners of my heart and filling me with a newfound sense of lightness and possibility.

* * *

“Auburn, time to wake up.” I tried to gently wake her from sleep after we’d gotten my car from the lot.

“Where are we?” she asked sleepily. Her curls were in a bun atop her head, and she gently lifted her head and rubbed her eyes.

“Your house.”

She sighed. “This may be forward.”

I didn’t want to say anything, but I loved the way her voice was still deep and raspy from being asleep. “What’s that?”

“Do you want to come help me bring this stuff up and see my apartment?”

“I was actually going to ask if I could stay here tonight. That may be forward of me, though,” I repeated her words.

She laughed and then shot up from her seat as if the sleep suddenly left her. “No. Oh my God. No. Not forward. Wait. Please?”

I huffed out a small chuckle as I pulled into a spot in the front of her building. “I want to see how you live.”

She sighed and dropped into her seat. “Thank God, because I don’t think I could’ve brought my bags up alone.”