Page 47 of Vegas Heat

I give her a quick tour of the place, and when we stop in the kitchen, she moves toward the refrigerator to check out the artwork displayed there.

“A noodle baseball?” she asks, and I laugh.

“My mom brought all my papers she saved from when I was in school. The noodle art I made in third grade, a paper onJane EyreI wrote in high school…”

“Wait a minute. You did this inthird grade?” she asks, her eyes widening as she looks between me and the noodle baseball.

I clear my throat. “I didn’t exactly win any awards for my stellar artwork as a kid.”

She laughs, but it fades as she stares at it. “Your mom kept stuff like this?”

I nod. “Yeah. Doesn’t everybody’s mom do that?”

She shakes her head, and my chest squeezes for a beat. I take for granted that my mom is thoughtful, kind, and an all-around incredible mom. Gabby didn’t have that, and it makes me sad.

I wrap my arms around her.

“I wish my mom would’ve done stuff like that,” she says quietly.

A pang of guilt stabs me in the ribs. I was planning to take that box filled with all the shit my mom brought me straight to the dumpster, and it took one conversation with Gabby to realize how priceless all that shit actually is. I took it for granted, and I should know better. After losing my dad at such a young age, I should know how fleeting life is, how lucky I am to have the mom I have. And yet, even after spoiling her here with me for the last week, I was less than grateful that she kept all those papers when Gabby would love to have just one ridiculous piece of noodle art from her own childhood.

I hold her in my kitchen for a beat, and then we head out to the balcony. She looks out over my view with a bit of awe. “This is beautiful.”

“Have you been to San Diego before?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t go on vacations with my mom when I was growing up. She was busy either working or dating. We did some local things, and my junior year we took a class trip to New York City. That was my first time on a plane, and my mom made me raise the money for the trip myself.” She blows out a breath, and I sling an arm around her shoulder as she shares the memory. She slides her hand around my waist, squeezing me closer to her. “By the end of my senior year, I knew the best option for me was to get out of Denver, away from her, and then I found my dad. It was perfect timing. What about you? Did you travel much?”

“We’d drive up to Wisconsin Dells every spring break when I was a kid. My parents love to travel, so they had something planned for every summer break and every winter break. We were almost never home on New Year’s Eve since we’d be on an adventure somewhere in the days after Christmas.” I smile fondly at the memories of my childhood. My mom did her best after Dad died, but money was a little tighter as she raised two boys on her teacher salary, so mostly we went to the Dells, oftentimes with her parents tagging along.

“What’s Wisconsin Dells?”

“It’s a place known for water parks and all sorts of different entertainment. It’s changed a lot since I was a kid, but we used to go to Noah’s Ark and race down waterslides all day, then we’d go next door and battle it out on the mini golf courses as our sunburns started to peek through. We’d stay at some seedy old hotel that always smelled like smoke and mildew, but it was walking distance to the park, and we’d go across the street to Pizza Pub for a late night dinner.” I stare out over my view of the water. This is sure a long way from Wisconsin, but there aren’t any places quite like the Dells out here.

“Oh wow! We didn’t have anything like that by us in Denver. You and your brother would battle over mini golf?”

I chuckle. “All four of us would battle. I was the youngest, and I never won, but I always spent the entire time with a stomachache from laughing so hard. Time with my family always meant a great ab workout.”

“Must be how they got to be the way they are today,” she muses, and I chuckle. “So where else did your family go on vacations?” she asks.

“Oh, we went anywhere and everywhere. Before my dad passed, the trips that stick out the most in my memory besides the Dells were to Disney World, Disneyland, Hawaii, South Carolina, and Nashville.”

“Do you like to travel?”

I nod. “I love it.” And I do it—a lot, and I will even more once I’m playing again. But my time to actually tour the cities I’m traveling to is limited. We get a decent amount of free time if we’re not warming up, working out, sleeping, or rehabbing, and I made it a personal goal a long time ago to visit at least one landmark or museum and to try a new restaurant in every city I travel to.

I get that wanderlust from my dad. He loved museums, and when I was a kid, I found them boring as hell. I wish I could get those years back.

“You’re quiet,” she murmurs. “What are you thinking?”

I pull her a little more tightly into my side. “I’m thinking it’s a little scary how well you already know me.”

She wraps her other arm around me to hug me from the side. “You’re thinking about your dad, aren’t you?” Her voice is soft, and I lean over and press a kiss to the top of her head.

“Yeah. He’s been gone twenty-three years, and I miss him every day.”

“He’d be proud of the man you’ve become,” she says.

“I like to think so.” I press my lips together as emotion plows into me.

---