Page 66 of Love You Too

Me: No pressure, but send up a smoke signal and lemme know how you are.

Three messages,an hour apart in the evening when training is finished, with no response to any of them.

I’m not trying to be a pest. Or possessive.Or clingy.

But Ren has gone from attentive to absent.

I know he’s stressed. He’s in the thick of the season, and there are games all through the holidays, so he’ll miss Christmas with my family and his mom. Still, he hasn’t returned my calls or texts, and the radio silence for the past few days feels eerily familiar. Maybe PJ’s concerns got in my head, because I’m telling myself this feels like college right before he dumped me.

We’re different people now, and we’re bonded by the child we’ll be raising together, but still. He loved me in college, and I know how that ended. So just because he says he loves me now…

No. I need to get out of my head. We have plans tonight after he gets back to town, so we’ll get into it then. Now I understand what he was trying to tell me the day we saw his mom—he’s scared. Maybe that’s all this is.

So I go about my day and check in on the contractors, who assure me that they can finish the inn by the deadline. For the first time in a week, I feel relieved. This is where I excel in the working world—managing projects, managing people, attending to details. In that way, I’m not so different from Ren. But when Ren plays hockey, he cuts out all distractions.

Maybe that’s all that’s happening here. Or maybe hockey is his only real love.

Stop it.

I try to get his mother’s words out of my head, but it’s hard.Thank you, dear, for roping him in.

Ren has never made me feel like I’ve trapped him, but maybe he’s just too much of a standup guy. Or maybe I don’t want to see it because I’m in love with him.

I pick up my phone to text him once more about where to meet for dinner, and it rings in my hand. It’s Ren.

“Hey, I was just thinking about you. You good?” I ask, forcing levity and joy into my voice that I don’t really feel. But he’s working hard trying to rally his teammates and turn their losing streak around, so he needs positive energy. I can give him that.

“Yeah.” The one word is followed by silence.

“Okay, good.”

“Yeah. Decent. You?”

“I’m fine.” Fine, except that I feel like I’m talking to an estranged aunt.

“So…”

“Yeah, so listen. I know I’ve been out of reach, but it’s been hectic on the road, and I don’t think I can make dinner. I need to eat with the team, keep our focus. It’s the intangibles that’re gonna get us moving, and I think we need bonding time.”

“Sure, I get that.”

I get it, but it hurts. I’m too attached. Vulnerable when I promised myself I’d never open my heart like this again, especially to him. Yet here we are. I love him more than I ever did before.

“Thanks.”

“Okay, so…”

“You feeling good with the pregnancy?”

I feel the levity and joy leave me at his perfunctory question. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Trix.”

“I get it. It’s okay.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I just need to get us over the hump.”

“Sounds good. Love you,” I remind him.

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