Same Time Next Year

Which is not like me at all. Men in the bar compliment me regularly, and I feel exactly zilch. Maybe I’m just relieved to see him after two long, confusing months. He’s my friend, after all! “Thanks.”

When his eyes find mine again, they’re darker than before. He’s visibly drinking me in, ounce by ounce, and he’s doing a very poor job of hiding it. “You’re not going out on a . . . date. In that little purple dress. Are you, Britta?”

“No.”

His hand is still wrapped around the doorjamb like he’s contemplating ripping it off. “Good.”

“We agreed not to,” I remind him, flashing my wedding band.

He does the same. “Oh, don’t worry, I remember.”

“Has it been . . . hard for you?” Why am I not breathing? “Not to date?”

A muscle dives sideways in his cheek. “Not remotely. You?”

“No,” I admit.

“Good.” Before I can respond to the ragged relief in his voice, he’s taking a step forward, a lump traveling up and down in his throat. “Now, need to know where you’re going in that dress, please.”

“A concert. Wesley Stapleton? He’s playing at the Amphitheater tonight.” I don’t know why I put on such an excited smile. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself it’ll be fun going alone. “My friends were going to come with me, but their broods came down with the plague.”

I expect him to forbid me to go alone (or try), so I’m surprised when a groove forms between his brows, eyes softening. “You’re going to a concert by yourself?”

That heinous pressure is back behind my lids. “Yeah!” I laugh. “It’s fine.”

“Can I come with you?”

The tightness in my chest ebbs, and suddenly, I’m able to blink back the moisture threatening to spill out. “Really?”

He looks a little incredulous that I had to ask. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll drive.”

“Okay.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, gratitude making me feel almost light headed. “Um . . . well. We don’t have to leave for a while. Come in and get your mail.”

“Right.”

I watch Sumner duck beneath the door on my way to the kitchen area where I left his mail sitting on the counter. Swimsuit issue sitting on top.

After a quick peek over my shoulder to make sure he isn’t looking, I do something wrong. Something bad. Not only do I commit what I’m pretty sure is a federal offense called mail tampering, but when I use my elbow to

knock the magazine into my trash can, I give myself definitive proof that I have a giant case of the warm fuzzies for Sumner.

Great. A crush on my husband is the absolute last thing I need.

“How did you hurt your wrist?” I ask, sounding hoarse.

“I sprained it on my teammate’s face.”

“Oh my God. Is he okay?”

“Yeah.” He looks genuinely perplexed. “Why?”

Hockey players. I swear to God. “You must have hit him pretty hard if you sprained your wrist punching him.”

“I apologized afterward.” Sumner rolls a shoulder. “I haven’t been in a great mood lately.”

“Oh? Why?”

SUMNER

Why? she asks me.

Britta wants to know why I’ve been in a dark mood while she’s standing there in a criminally short dress and cowboy boots. How is everything in the world not canceled right now? Are people still traveling, going to work, and eating in restaurants when my wife looks this hot?

It has always been hard to be around her without making my feelings obvious.

But being away from her has been even worse.

It’s a vicious paradox that has literally gotten me injured. Inside and out.

I missed the sight of her so fucking badly today that I came here as soon as I dropped off my bag at the house and rushed through a shower.

Now all I see are surfaces. Places where I could set her ass down, kneel in front of her, and get my tongue between those thighs.

I’m obsessed with eating her out. And I’ve never even gotten the opportunity.

Yet I’ve thought about it day and night for the last two months.

Spreading her legs open and spitting on it, rubbing my face against all that

softness, and gobbling her up like dessert. I swear to God, I wouldn’t even ask to fuck her. I wouldn’t dare be that greedy. I could die happy if she just let me kiss and lap at her cunt while she squirms around and pulls my hair.

“Sumner?” she asks, glancing back at me. “Your bad mood.”

“Oh, right.” Can you not see that I’m starving to death for you? Can’t you tell I missed you so horribly that my family couldn’t even make me smile? That might be a little too heavy for our first face-to-face conversation in two months, so I opt for a different truth. “I guess I’m worried that we’ve gone through all of this for my green card, and I won’t get called up to the pros. I know I’m only twenty-seven, but there’s always this feeling like . . . I don’t know. Time is running out.”

Britta stops in front of me with a handful of mail I’m assuming is mine. “It’s going to happen, Sum.”

“Yeah?” Let me hold you. “How do you know?”

“I know I don’t . . . don’t go to the games, but I’ve watched them on public access. And I’ve been working in Sluggers long enough to know that the kind of faith your teammates have in you is extremely rare. Okay? It’s not typical. Neither are you.”

“Thanks, wife.”

It just slips out. Probably because I’ve been calling her that in my head since leaving. It helped me feel closer to her, instead of twenty-five hundred miles away.

She blinks slowly over the word wife, and something I’ve never seen before in her eyes gives them sort of a melted quality. The toe of one cowboy boot turns inward, one knee pressing into the other, her tits rising and falling on a big breath. Holy shit. Does she like being called my wife?

At this very moment, it’s probably better if I don’t know. Because thanks to my sprained wrist, I haven’t jacked off in three days, and if Britta enjoys being called my wife, I’m going to do something embarrassing, like hump the arm of her couch.

“You ever decide to come to a game, you sit in the family section, Britta. Where I can keep an eye on you. Okay? I know facing your father will be scary, but you’ll never be alone as long as I’m in the building.”

Whatever I saw in her eyes flees as soon as I utter the word family.

“Those seats are for parents. Grandparents. Do they ever . . . make it to your games?”

“Not this season. Not in a while. My grandmother . . . passed away two years ago.” A nail hammers its way into my throat. “She was the one who bought me my first stick. Taught me how to play and signed me up for my first league. Somehow it doesn’t seem right when they come to the games without her, you know?” I smile at the vision that pops into my head —a woman with a short cap of white hair, arms crossed high on her chest.

“She used to wear this red plaid hat to every game. You know, those hunter-style caps with the ear flaps? I could see it out of the corner of my eye during every game growing up.” I shake my head. “I miss seeing that hat in the stands.”

Britta surprises me by taking a hesitant step in my direction.

Another one.

And then she slowly lays her cheek in the center of my chest.