Page 29 of Lace 'em Up

King comes home from practice angry and sporting a black eye.

Which means I give him a wide berth after telling him I made him some food and it’s on a covered plate in the oven.

He doesn’t snap at me, isn’t mean, doesn’t take out what had clearly been a shit day on me.

He just murmurs, “Thanks” and disappears upstairs.

A few moments later I hear water running.

Kingston Bang in the shower.

Kingston Bang naked and soapy and?—

My stomach tightens, a bolt of desire winding through my belly.

Retreating from the thoughts, the temptations, I stick to my work in the office, not coming out until I’m fighting to keep my eyes open and exhaustion clings to every one of my cells. I’m still recovering, but this need for an afternoon nap is ridiculous.

I’ve barely gotten through my backlog of emails.

Sighing, I make a pit stop in the kitchen, get myself a glass of water. But then my curiosity gets the better of me and I can’t stop myself from peeking in the oven. Strictly for safety purposes. I need to make sure that it’s off. Can’t have the house burning down around us.

But really, I want to see if he’s eaten.

If he hasn’t…

Well, I don’t know what I’ll do.

Take it upstairs and return some of his pushy by force-feeding it to him?

He’s a big man and has a demanding job and was at the rink early that morning. He needs fuel.

Unfortunately, I find myself strangely disappointed.

The oven is empty.

And the plate is sitting in the sink.

I move to the trash, glance inside.

No food dumped there.

And that…well, it’s stupid, but it eases something inside my chest. Phillip?—

I don’t want to think about Phillip, but I can’t help it. Because I know I would have found the food uneaten in the trash. Because it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t done anything to make his day bad.

That food would have been in the trash.

I quietly close the lid, nibble at my bottom lip.

I should go take a nap.

I should go to sleep and when I wake up, start getting back to normal. Find an apartment because—after everything—I can’t go back to Phillip’s and my place (really, Phillip’s, since I moved in with him). I need to move on, to find a way to start over.

Find a way to begin again.

Again.

I sigh.

---