Chapter 35

Wade

Shoulders tight, arms and feet crossed, leaning against the front of my truck, I'm standing looking at Gretchen's beloved home I bought for her.

I've been standing in the same spot for ten minutes, desperately trying to summon the courage to walk up the steps onto the wrap around porch and through the back door that leads to the kitchen.

The room where I found Gretchen.

"Take your time," Kali coaxes. Her throat is still sore from last night and so she was quiet on the way here, napping in the car for over an hour. I'm going to suggest we stay here and have an early night.

If I can make it through the door.

Head on my shoulder, she admires the painted white house with contrasting soft green window shutters. It's exactly the way Gretchen wanted it. "It's so quiet here. The house is beautiful, Wade."

It is. "The boardwalk is around the corner." I point to it. "Gretchen loved reading there in the summer. We'd often sit out here together for hours. She was happy here." I watch the flies skipping across the top of the water and dragonflies dancing through the air, most likely on their way south in search of better weather.

"I bet Gretchen was a fabulous cook."

"She was. A better baker though."

Kali snuggles into my side, and I uncross my arms and wrap one around her shoulder. It's so easy being with Kali. She fits perfectly into my side, my life, everything.

"What was your favorite thing she made for you?" she asks.

"Double chocolate gooey cookies."

"They sound terrific."

"More like calorific."

"Do you have the recipe?"

"It would be in her recipe book." That orange and pink thing looks like it stepped out of a bad seventies television show and was falling apart the last time I saw it.

"Should we go in and look for it?"

I smile down at Kali when she looks up. "I see what you're trying to do."

Innocently, she replies, "I think I need to get my hands on that recipe. Sounds like I might win your heart with it."

She may already have done that, but I don't say that, instead I say, "Food is the way to a man's heart."

"And I'm a feeder."

I'd like to feed her my cock, but I can't. Her bruising has only gotten worse as the hours have rolled by.

"We should make them," she declares excitedly, and I know she's trying to get me to enter the house. "But we can't make them without the recipe." She sings her last three words, drawing them out and making her own tune. "We can make new memories in there and talk about the old ones. I want to hear everything about her." Stepping forward, she holds her hand out in invitation. "Let's do this. Together."

Her hand in mine is what it takes for me to push the key in the lock to open the door.

Deep breath in, I step over the threshold and look around. In over a year, nothing has changed. It's like a time capsule and I don't feel as bad about being here as I thought I would.

My thinking was overriding the doing.

I can be such an idiot at times.

Sun shines through the windows, directly onto Gretchen's reading chair. It's like a beam of light illuminating her happy place. Books stacked on the side table in the same place she left them. The place is brighter than I remember.

And nowhere near as gloomy as the thoughts that have been living inside my head.

It's weird being back. Everything's the same, but completely different. And she's not here. I almost feel like an intruder in her home. Our home.

It still smells like her; clean and fresh like laundered linen and pine. The wooden flooring beneath my feet that she spent hours choosing, and I laughed at her for… feels like so long ago. And yet, it was important to her. The tone is exactly the right shade of oak she wanted.

The positioning of the television, and the framed photo of us on top of the real wood fireplace. It's all her.

"How are you feeling?" Kali checks in with me.

"I'm fine." I think.

"Keep breathing." Her hand is still in mine as we stand in the open doorway. I don't get a whiff of any bad vibes, which I thought would make me want to run away.

"This is beautiful, Wade." In awe, her mouth spreads wide in a smile. "Is everything handmade?"

"Yeah." From the kitchen to the staircase and the doors, I gave Gretchen everything she wanted. She hated that at first, but I didn't back down and forced her hand. Told her we would move back into my grandfather's house and in with my mother if she didn't tell me what she envisioned her dream home to be.

Exactly the way she described, it looks like the house we're standing in.

The months it took to remodel were worth it.

It made her happy.

"This place is super clean," Kali says quietly, as if not wanting to disturb the furniture.

"I have a maintenance company visit every week to dust and keep the place shipshape."

"You think of everything."

I suppose I do. "Gretchen would be mad at me for not keeping the place nice."

"Gretchen would be mad at you for breaking Zane's nose," she says, dryly.

"I am proud of you for breaking Zane's nose." Zane will be mortified that a woman kicked his ass.

When Kali was in the shower earlier, I called Marcus to find out how Zane was. I feel sorry for him. He technically lost his job. Not that it will affect him. His dad will float him for the next year or so, make sure he gets the help he needs, and he'll be back on the team before we know it.

He needs counseling more than I do.

Turns out I'm not that wild after all. Zane should claim that title.

I'm turning my life around quicker than I thought was possible. When I mentioned that earlier to Kali, she informed me that it only takes twenty-one days to break old habits. Which I seem to have done, meaning I may not need her for the entire season if that's the case, but I'm keeping her for as long as I can. I want to keep her for good. I never want to let her go.

Marcus informed me on the phone that Zane was in surgery to fix his broken nose, again, and may require a follow up procedure depending on how it went. Whatever happens, he's a handsome fucker. He'll make it work. Pity about his ugly soul though.

A tug of my hand has me stepping fully into the kitchen. "Just breathe," Kali says again softly. "Stand here and let your feelings settle. Is this where…" Her question trails off.

"Yeah." We're standing in the spot where I found her.

"It feels cozy in this patch. Like a big warm hug."

Holy shit, she's right.

"Do you feel it?"

"I do." A large lump forms in the back of my throat and I cough to fight the emotion building in my chest.

"She was happy. There are no bad vibes here, Wade. I get the same feeling about Gretchen that I get when I think about my grandmother; it was her time to go. There's nothing sinister in that. I feel at peace here."

"You always know the right thing to say, Kali Roth."

She drops her voice to a whisper. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually pretty awesome. C'mon, I want to see these photos of you."

Kali saunters around the dining area of the open kitchen. "Is this you?" Picking up a framed photo of me in my hockey gear from the pine sideboard. She runs her fingertip over the glass. "You have no front teeth."

"I was about seven or eight there." I join her and point to another. "And I'm six there. You could use that one for your social feature."

"You are so cute. Look at you. You're much taller than the rest of the team."

"I was always the tallest boy in my class."

"If we had babies together, they'd be giraffes," she scoffs, moving to the wooden cabinet on the other side of the room that's covered in Gretchen's crockery collection.

"Babies?" I'm momentarily stunned.

And there's this moment where she doesn't reply and stares at me, but then asks, "Are you freaking out?"

"A little." A lot, actually.

This conversation is getting heavy.

"Michael never wanted a family. I didn't find that out until after we were married. I always saw myself as a mom though. I love kids." She snaps her eyes away and busies herself, fiddling with crockery and ornaments Gretchen collected over the years and my shoulders tense up.

Fuck, this could be a deal breaker."I wouldn't know how to be a good dad. I never had one." I'm panicking, sweat beading across my forehead.

"Neither did I because he was busy digging up mummified bodies in the middle of Cairo, but I think I turned out alright and I'm not worried I couldn't be a good mom. You're using that as an excuse." Sounding annoyed, she then asks where the bathroom is.

Fuck, are we having our first disagreement?

In silence, I usher her to the small closet bathroom under the stairs she's much too tall for and has to duck down like I do, then make my way back into the kitchen.

At the mention of babies, my emotions have gone into overdrive. Although the thought of Kali's stomach swollen with my baby inside of her makes my dick twitch, which has never happened before. I like the thought of that.

Being a father… I would never know what to do and I don't think I will ever be ready for that. The only thing that comes natural to me is hockey.

I roam my eyes around the house Gretchen made into a home for us and a sanctuary for me over the summer months between game seasons. Hunched over the kitchen island, my eyes land on the spot on the floor where I found her lying.

An unexpected wave of emotion hits me like a blow to the face from a boxer, making me regret not telling her how grateful I was, how happy she made me. I always felt safe with her. I miss her hugs and her cookies; the nights spent in silence just happy to be sitting in her company, and to have someone love me for me. She was more than a mother; she was a mom and a dad rolled into one. Maybe I could be a good dad. But what if I wasn't?

"I miss everything. I miss you," I say out loud. "You'd keep me right with Kali, I know you would. You'd know what to say and do," I whisper to myself. She always gave the best advice.

"I could barely look after myself when you left me," I say out loud again, hoping she hears me, wherever she is. "How could I look after a child?"

A small part of me believes Amelia dumping me and Gretchen dying all around the same time was for a reason. To send me off on a path of self-destruction. To bring Kali to me. Because now I have this sensational woman in my life who rocks me to my core and kisses me like I'm a soldier heading off to war.

And she's here with me now and yet I feel like I'm pushing her away. One mention of the word babies and it has me freaking out.

She didn't say she wanted them with me, just generally speaking. Could I be her someone special?

I don't know if I could be that man for her, but I would like to try. Maybe.

It's so confusing.

Life is hard. I'm so fucking lonely at times.

"You're not alone anymore, Wade." Kali's voice breaks my self-inflicted meltdown, and I realize I must have said my words out loud.

"I fuck everything up. I should be." I can't bring myself to look at her.

Warm arms snake around me from behind. Her lips are on my neck and the way she kisses me always feels like she's putting me back together, one piece at a time. "I'm here for you."

"You're paid to be here." I regret saying those bitter words as soon as they leave my lips.

Her arms leave my body. I miss her instantly.

Storming across the kitchen, she's out the door faster than a bullet out the barrel of a gun.