Page 62 of My Pucking Perfect Goalie

When I emerge from the bathroom, Sammy is under the covers, his hands up behind his head, his eyes still locked on me like he could see me changing through the door. His bare chest shows above the blanket, and I feel like I’m showing off my prom gown.

Or like I’m naked. Like this man can see right through me.

“Hi,” I say, surprised at the nervousness in my own voice. What is happening here?

“Come to bed,” he says, pulling down the other corner of the blanket and patting the flannel sheet. Slowly, I obey, walking to that side of the bed and climbing in. He pulls the cover around me and puts his arm over my shoulders, gesturing for me to come in close.

I shouldn’t cuddle into him—this is a friends with benefits situation, not anything else. We should be naked, gasping,simply looking for pleasure. I shouldn’t be sinking into his embrace, letting the rest of the tension in my shoulders and back fall away.

He shouldn’t be brushing the backs of his knuckles over my hairline, making me shiver. I shouldn’t be tracing a path down his chest with the tip of my finger, loving the way his skin feels under my touch. Alive. Real. Here, with me.

“You had quite a lot of champagne, didn’t you?” he whispers, so quietly I almost think I might have imagined it.

“No,” I protest, but when I try to think backward, I lose count of how many times Fallon giggled and topped up our glasses. “Maybe.”

“I thought so,” he says, shifting and kissing the top of my head. I realize, with a certain clarity, that he never had any intent of having sex with me tonight.

A beat passes, then Sammy says, “Seemed like you and Fallon were getting along great.”

“Oh, yeah,” I laugh, brain feeling bubbly and light. It shouldn’t—Sammy doesn’t want to have sex with me. So what am I doing in his bed? I need to sort this out, to keep clear boundaries between us.

But I can’t. Instead, I go on, “We have some shared trauma, apparently.”

“What, Fallon was adopted, too?”

“No.” I realize I don’t actually know what her trauma is about. And then, before I can run the decision through any logical part of my brain I say, “About being a mother.”

He pauses, like he needs to think that through. “…You’re not a mother, are you?”

“I am not.” The tone of that sentence must be enough. Sammy studies me for a long moment, then tightens his arm around me, pulling me snugly into his side. I brace myself, even in my warm, drunken haze, waiting for the million and one questions to come my way.

They always start with logistics—people want to know what the process is like. What does it actually look like to go through it? I think of a thousand needles and the vitamins. The consultations and the examinations. Then, when they get their fill of that, it inevitably shifts into more personal questions. Things people feel emboldened to ask, for some reason.

Why do I think I can raise a baby alone? Did I always think it would be like this? Did I even try to settle down the old-fashioned way, or am I some sort of strong feminist who only wants a woman in her child’s life? I am a feminist. But it has nothing to do with this decision.

“Finn,” Sammy says, and I realize I’ve sat up and away from him, my breathing coming a little faster.

His voice is so soft, so empathetic and reassuring, that it breaks something inside me. A tear slips down my cheek, and the words start to fall out before I can catch them and stuff them back inside.

“I got married just out of college,” I say, watching Sammy go still. My hands pick at the blanket, and my eyes focus on the fireplace flickering just under the mounted flat screen TV. “He was—I thought he was the love of my life. He…he was a professional athlete. My first client, actually. Accidentally. I was never really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I loved being in school. I had a dual master’s degree in anatomy and physiology. Had just gone back to school to get an MBA, thinking it would help me narrow things down. We met while I was doing an internship with the baseball team.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Sammy’s mouth tighten, and I wonder if he has a grudge against baseball players. I’d laugh, if I wasn’t suddenly gripped with grief.

“I’d started getting into this idea of human optimization—reading up on productivity and mental wellness and all this stuff, but specifically the study of reaching for perfection. This idea that, by fixing tiny things, you could improve the huge picture astronomically. I had this vague thought that I’d end up working with politicians, or other like, elite people. It never occurred to me to try it out on athletes until I met him.”

I can feel the weight of the question sitting between us—who ishim? There’s no way I can say it out loud.

“Anyway,” I sigh, still picking at my blanket. “Did the internship. Fell in love. I was practicing things, trying out theories on him. He went from a guy near the bottom middle of the roster to a sensation by the end of the year. Called me a miracle worker. We got married right after graduation. And then…”

I pause, voice choked up, remembering how happy I’d been. How a year went by of trying and trying, and I thought eventually I’d set up some cute way to tell him that I was pregnant. We were starting our family, I was starting my elite athlete coaching.

“And then it didn’t work out,” I say, voice tight. When I look down, I realize I’ve collected a little pile of lint on the blanket. And I’ve started to feel a lot more sober than when I started the story.

“It didn’t work out,” Sammy echoes. I meet his eyes, and they’re filled with genuine curiosity. “How could a man let you go?”

It sounds like a line, but comes out as a true question—something he’s finding hard to understand. It cuts through some of the pain of reliving the past and makes me laugh wetly. I return my gaze to the blanket.

“He, uh—well something came up.”

---