Page 105 of Body Shot

“Claudia had a work thing come up,” I say, “so we had to cancel our plans for Thanksgiving.”

“Wife her up,” someone a few rows back calls out. “Then she won’t have to work.”

These younger guys on the team really don’t get what it’s like to be in a healthy relationship.

“I don’t think Claudia wants to be a stay-at-home wife or mom,” I respond. “She has a career, numb nuts!”

“Well, then be prepared for a lot of disappointment like this,” Jordan says. “If I was to ever get married—and you know how I feel about that—I think I’d want her to stay home. It’s just easier than trying to manage two professional schedules.”

“I think it depends on the woman,” Coach Petrov interjects. “If she has a career she loves, you can’t just ask her to quit. She’ll eventually resent you for it. Look at Jude and Chloe—you think she’s going to stop being a doctor?”

“Definitely not!” Jude calls out, laughing.

Coach nods. “These are the types of things you have to talk about if you’re serious about her.”

Damn, Coach typically doesn’t give relationship advice so he must think I need it.

“We’ve been moving so fast, we haven’t had time to talk about everything,” I admit. “That’s why we need to spend more time together.”

“You can talk about important things over the phone, can’t you?” Coach asks.

“Yeah, but between her job and my travel schedule and games, sometimes we’re both too tired for the serious stuff.”

“You have tomaketime for the important things. Trust me. Especially when you’re moving fast. Tessa and I went through something similar when we met since I was living in Vegas, and she was in Chicago. I moved her to Vegas, and that solved a lot of our problems. Not all of them, but it made a huge difference. Have you thought about that?”

“Oh, that’s the plan,” I say. “I was going to talk to her about all of that over Thanksgiving, but now I’m not going to see her until Christmas.” I probably sound a little put out, but I don’t give a shit.

“The only advice I’d give you is don’t make her feel bad about her job,” Zakk Cloutier adds. “Yourjob takes up a lot of time, but you love it, so don’t begrudge her the same satisfaction in her own work.”

That makes sense.

“Unless she doesn’t make any money,” Jordan says. “I mean, if she’s making thirty K a year, what’s the point?”

Christ, I never should have brought this up in front of my teammates.

“Well, she makes quite a bit more than that, but not as much as me,” I say thoughtfully.

“She loves what she does,” Johan says, speaking up for the first time. “You can’t ask her to leave.”

“No. I can’t.”

So, I need to tamp down my irritation and go with the flow.

Christmas isn’tthatfar away, and if I can fly her to meet me somewhere one weekend, it’ll tide us over. Maybe I can meet her in L.A. at some point, if she has to go back.

I feel better by the time we land and send her a quick text telling her I’m thinking about her. She doesn’t respond oracknowledge the text, but I figure she’s working so I put it out of my mind.

It’s not until the next morning that I realize I never heard back from her.

I’m not typically the kind of guy who needs constant reassurance in a relationship, but something is off. I can’t put my finger on it, but Claudia hasn’t been herself. She didn’t feel well last week, and now she’s working even more hours than usual and starting to travel. I don’t know why this bothers me, but it does.

We’ve been so close, so in tune to each other, I know something isn’t right.

To test out my theory, I don’t text her all day.

And she still hasn’t reached out to me by the time I’m ready for bed.

Something is definitely off, but I don’t know what to do about it because she might just be crazy busy.

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