The Good Luck Charm(81)

She laughs a little. “Because I was up until three in the morning with Carmen and I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone.”

“Is Carmen okay? Are you? I wish you had called me, especially with the whole fainting thing.” I don’t like that she was hurt and I wasn’t here to take care of her.

“It’s a bruise. I’m fine. My doctor was a super thorough pain in my ass about it.”

“You could’ve had a concussion.”

“Dr. Lovely checked for that.”

I nod. She works in a hospital; of course she had excellent medical care. “How do you feel about your dad being here? Will you see him again?”

She props her cheek on her fist and sighs. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to try to rebuild that relationship. He walked away from our entire family once. What’s to say he won’t do it again? And I just don’t know if I can find forgiveness for him. I haven’t had much time to get used to the idea, or even consider that it’s a possibility.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to forgive him eventually?”

“I don’t know.” She fiddles with the hockey charm on her bracelet. “I know why this has been so hard for me, though, now.”

“You mean us?” My throat constricts as I take in her guarded posture, knees tucked under her.

“In my head I connected those two events. My dad leaving our family and you breaking up with me felt a lot like the same kind of loss. But it was so much more painful with you because the way I loved you was so … consuming. It echoed a pain I hadn’t recovered from. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” It does, in so many ways I hadn’t considered. My knowledge of Lilah’s father had been limited to her six-year-old perception of events. One day he was there, the next he was gone. And before that, he was rarely ever home since he worked so much, so his leaving hadn’t changed much in her day-to-day life. But I can see now how that absence over time would have an impact, and how my leaving echoed that abandonment.

But it was also so much worse because I’d been her everyday, and she’d been mine. And I’d taken that from us both.

I don’t want to ask the next question, but I have to, because this state of uncertainty is unbearable. “If you can’t forgive him, does that mean you can’t forgive me, either?”

“There’s no simple answer to that question, Ethan.”

I fold my hands in my lap and prepare for the worst. I don’t know how I’ll manage if this is her ending things between us for good. She carries half my soul, and without her, I don’t know how to exist. All those years without her had been like living a half-life.

“In my head I’d forgiven you. It’s my heart that’s had a hard time forgetting. I let fear dictate my actions with you this time around.”

“How?”

“I put you ahead of myself because I was afraid. So every time you said you needed me, I caved. I didn’t want to disappoint you, or give you a reason to leave again. And honestly, I like being needed … I felt necessary, essential even.”

The conversation I had with my father a few weeks ago makes so much more sense. “You are necessary, Lilah. I won’t ever do to you again what I did before. I promise I won’t hurt either of us like that again.”

Her smile is soft. “I need to find a way to balance my love for you with the rest of my life.”

“I’ll give you whatever you need. If it’s still time, you can have it. Or space. Just know that I won’t be selfish with you, even if I want to be. I won’t ever take your love for granted, and I won’t put my success on you.”

She laces her fingers with mine on a deep exhale. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

“For you to forgive me?”

“For me to be brave enough to love you the way I want to.”

“I didn’t get my head out of my ass for eight years. This past month might not have been easy, but it was necessary. You were right. I can see the pressure I was putting on you, maybe not intentionally, but it was there. I don’t want you to ever feel like my love for you has limitations, especially not based on how my hockey season is going.”

Her smile is soft understanding. “I wanted to be more than that, for both of us. I had this plan for my future, and then you came back into my life and I lost sight of everything except for you. I became dependent on your dependency.”

“You’re not just part of some pregame ritual based on superstitions. You know that, right?”

She laughs a little. “I do, although I’m not opposed to all of your pregame rituals. Your boxers are pretty comfy to sleep in, and the taking-them-off part is always fun.” She runs her fingers through my playoff beard. “I’m also a big fan of this, but your naked rituals are probably my favorite.”

“That’s stress relief, not a ritual.”

“Call it whatever you want, but I’m more than happy to be the recipient of orgasms in the name of stress relief.”

“I’m always up for providing stress-relief orgasms. Actually, I probably have a lot of those to make up for. We could do some of that now, you know, like pre-pre-game stress relief.”

She nods somberly. “You really can’t overdo it on the stress relief, can you?”