Page 50 of The Rebound Plan

“Tired,” I murmur.

The episode is coming to an end, and as soon as the credits start, I tug at my husband’s hand. “You want to go to bed?”

There’s nothing Max likes better than going to bed early. He takes his sleep seriously, and he thinks it’s more virtuous to wake up before dawn. Normally I don’t join him, but tonight feels like a precarious moment, a turning point, for who I am as a person.

I am not going to flirt with my husband’s teammate. I’m not going to press my thigh into his, desperate for some warmth and attention.

“Come on.” I take Max’s hand and tug him along with me.

He grins and waggles his eyebrows at his teammates.

I don’t look back at Russ. I can’t.

On the main level, I wind myself around Max and kiss his neck. He fills his hands with my ass and gives a good squeeze, pulling me into his body. I don’t feel the hard thrust of an erection yet, but he’s trying. When he get upstairs, he kisses me just outside our suite, pushing me against the wall and playing with my tits.

But as soon as we get to the bed, he yawns.

It feels like a slap across the face. As if I am boring.

He pushes me onto my back and climbs on top of me, only to yawnagain.

I push him off me, accepting that this isn’t going to happen.

“Maybe in the morning,” he mutters.

But I know he's going to be up and out of bed before I even wake up in the morning. “Yeah, okay.”

He sighs and heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

I change, then follow him.

He avoids my gaze in the mirror.

When we climb into bed, ready to actually sleep this time, I make another effort. I curl up beside him as he pulls the blankets up, and circle my finger on his t-shirt covered chest. “You could wake me up,” I murmur. “You know, as early as you want. I’ll go back to bed after. You can use me however?—”

But he’s already asleep.

Which is better than him chiding me and saying that's slutty, which is always a possibility—and he wouldn’t mean it in a good way.

One of the continuous issues in our relationship, albeit in a one-sided way, is Max’s discomfort with sex when he’s not turned on. I know for a fact he is as horny as any other guy out there, and when the mood strikes him, he can be hot and filthy. But when his head is not in it, his head is really not in it. And there's no point in trying to push him. Nor do I want to be somebody who pushes him.

So I let it go.

I listen to his breath even out. I think about reading, but I don't want to turn on the lights. I think about finding something to read on my phone, but I actually don't want that background glare for long.

I find my earbud, make sure it’s connected to my phone so I won’t wake up Max, and open TikTok. I pretty easily find the video Emery was talking about with the sleep hack. I watch it three times, then put my phone aside and close my eyes.

I try it.

My heart is racing and it doesn’t seem to work. I hate that Max might have been right, that it might not be this simple.

I try again, but I can't seem to make my thoughts random or soothing enough. I keep circling back to what we were talking about downstairs. I think of gruff Midwestern boys. I think of Canadian country boys like Shoresy. Hockey players who don't do it for fame or fortune, who don't do it for their legacy, but they do it because they love the game. They do it even if they'll never be famous. I think about that type of man turning that kind of passion in my direction, where I'm not an afterthought or a footnote in his hockey career, but I'm his entire life, equally as much his love for the game that he adores.

I picture Shoresy jumping into the lake. Making me a drink.

I picture someone with golden red stubble on his jaw. Russ has a beard. He doesn't have stubble. It's not the same person. But if he shaved, it wouldn't take long for there to be a delicious scrape, a five o'clock shadow on his jaw that would feel so good running up the inside of my thigh.

My breath catches, hot fire inside me now. Terrible. I’m a terrible person.

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