Superfan (Brooklyn #3)(87)

We lasted until Christmas in separate apartments. When Jason and Heidi got engaged, I started paying attention to the real estate listings, just in case something in our building came open. Or something across the street. I didn’t want to rush Delilah, but I didn’t want to stay forever as a third wheel in the apartment down the hall.

Then Delilah caught me reading a message from the building administrator on my phone, and she immediately asked me to move in for real.

“Are you sure?” I’d asked. “I’d never rush you.”

“I know that,” she’d promised. “And I really needed to at least pretend to sort out my own life for a little while. But you’re part of my life, and you’re the reason I’m in New York. And I don’t feel so fearful anymore.”

So I’d moved in the next day, only to find that Delilah had left half the closet empty this whole time.

“For you, obviously. I always intended to live here with you. I just needed to do it stepwise.”

Now I slip out of our bed, careful not to wake her. I pull on some boxers and shuffle into the kitchen, where Delilah’s coffee machine waits. She chose everything with quiet deliberation, sometimes asking my advice or Becky’s, or Heidi’s.

I hit the button on the machine that starts the whole process—grinding the beans, and brewing the coffee. From the cabinet, I pull two Brooklyn Bruisers mugs. Her selection, again. But they’re a choice made because of me.

When I moved in, Delilah apologized for keeping me waiting and for setting up the whole place before she installed me in it, too. “You’re not unimportant to the equation; in fact, you’re the most important,” she’d said the first night we lay together in what was not yet our bed. “But—”

“I get it,” I’d promised her. And I do. Standing in the well-appointed kitchen is like living with Delilah’s most high-functioning, happiest self.

This place is home, and it’s been amazing to watch Delilah find her groove. She has friends here. There’s Becky, and Songwriter Sarah. And various music people at her new record label, which is part of her old record label in a way that I don’t completely understand. But after Lucky Hearts went platinum, Delilah and Charla decided to stick with one of the executives they knew for album number three.

Delilah is in a good place. And I’m the lucky guy who comes home to her whenever neither of us is traveling. She’s going on tour this summer, and whenever my team is done with the postseason (and please let that not be too soon) I’ll be joining her for the European part of that tour. Paris. Rome. Berlin. I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, she’s writing new music in her home studio—the room formerly known as Dave’s extra bedroom. Where my retired teammate used to keep his exercise equipment, Delilah has guitars, comfortable chairs, and a soundproof recording booth that looks a little like something from a Dr. Who episode.

The alcove den is all mine, though. It’s the only space she didn’t furnish. “I think it’s been waiting for you,” she said.

That’s our TV room now. And—as Heidi suggested all those months ago—I put in a pull-out couch for when my mom comes to visit.

We have a great life. It could only be made greater if I didn’t have to get on a plane in two hours.

When the coffee is done brewing, I pour a splash of milk into each mug and carry them both into the bedroom. Delilah has to get up soon, too. It’s a weekday, and Becky will turn up for whatever business appointments they’ve got planned.

“Hi, sleepy,” I say, sitting down on the bed. “I made coffee.”

Delilah sits up fast, clutching the sheet to her bosom. “Omigod, is it late?”

“No,” I chuckle at the pillow marks on her face and her wild hair. “Becky isn’t here yet.” I offer her the mug.

She takes it from me. And as I watch, she takes a sip. And then another. Delilah is seeing a therapist. They’re working on aversion therapy. These days, Delilah drinks cups of coffee that either Becky or I bring her. It’s just the two of us for now, and it still isn’t easy. But she does it every day.

Her eyes lift, and she catches me watching her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But now I have to hand this back to you, and not because I’m flunking coffee drinking.”

“Okay?” I take the mug.

“I have a present for you.”

“Oh! I thought I got my present last night.” I give her a sleazy wink, and she laughs.

“But I believe in lots of presents. Hang on.” She leans over, plucking her silk bathrobe off the floor where we tossed it last night. “Drink that coffee and don’t go anywhere.”

She disappears in the bathroom. Water runs, and so I prop myself up against our headboard and relax. My mind wanders to hockey, as it often does. We’re going to play Toronto and Ottawa, before returning home to get ready to face whomever our first round of playoffs competition is. Coach will probably play me for both of those games. I’m still the number two goalie, but I played a third of our games this season. And sportswriters keep praising “Brooklyn’s deep bench of goalie talent,” which always makes my heart go pitter-patter.

The other thing that makes my heart go pitter-patter emerges from our bathroom a minute later, her smooth legs tempting me beneath that silky robe.