Page 38 of Gravity
When we hit the outskirts of Montréal, Bryce asks, “Where are you living? Did you rent a place, or…”
“I'm in a hotel near the arena.”
“Non, you're living in a hotel? The team did not put you in an apartment or rent you a house? They put you in ahotel?”
“I don't think anyone's had time to do anything. I came up on an afternoon flight with what I had in my duffel, and I was playing in the game a few hours later. Then we were on the road.” I shrug. “I don't think my trade was something that was planned for. No one in Montréal was saying my name until you and I played together in Vegas.”
“I have been saying your name.” He squeezes my hand. “You have been my favorite player since you joined the NHL.”
“Did you like me before Vegas?”
“Bien sûr.”
“No, I mean… did you have a crush on me?”
He drags in a deep breath. We're still mostly alone on the highway, though a few more cars and trucks are braving the post-storm roads. “I respected your talent and your skills.” His cheeks and the tips of his ears flush a dusty pink. “And I thought you weretrès beau, but… I couldn't admit that part to myself.Alors, j'avais des vues sur toi.Probably. In a place I could not acknowledge.” He tries to laugh, but turns serious a moment later. “I did notknowyou. You could have been aconnard, and no matter how sexy you are, that would have been the end of any crush…” His voice trails off and his hand squeezes mine. “But you aremagnifique, and I fell for youtout de suite.”
This time, I squeeze his hand, and I pull our joined fingers to my lips. How this man thinks I am worthy of his inexhaustible heart, I will never know.
Bryce's eyes dart to me and then to the road and then back to me. “If you'd like, if you want… you could stay with me? At my place?” He gnaws on his lip, and then his next words come almost too quickly. “Non, désolé. I should not have said that—”
“Bryce, I'd love to stay with you.”
His expression is frozen when he looks at me. “Es-tu sûr?”
His French runs through my rudimentary mental translator. “I'm very sure.” I want to spend an endless amount of days and nights with him. I want every morning to begin with him in my arms, and every night to end with him in the same place.
Bryce takes me to my hotel and waits in his truck as I rush to my room, throw my clothes into my duffel, and then check out at the front desk. When I get back, he's staring out the windshield and rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. He's silent as we passÎle des Soeursand cross the Champlain bridge out of the city, and then turn onto a small, snow-packed highway that takes us out into the country. He stays silent past blizzard-covered fields and a dairy farm full of grumpy cows, and he only starts speaking again when we turn off the road at a small village.
“My place isn't large,” he starts. “I don't know what you're used to. If you're expecting something grandiose, I'm going to disappoint you. Some of the other guys live in penthouses in the city, but I prefer things quieter—”
“I know. Remember Vegas?” His knuckles go white against the steering wheel, and I rest my hand on his thigh. “We both liked getting out of the city.”
He swallows. “Calisse, I don't even know if I have anything to eat.”
“I think we're good there.” The backseat is crammed with bags of snacks.
Bryce exhales, his cheeks going as round as a blowfish.
We pull into a long, snow-covered drive wreathed with ice-coated branches. Bryce's truck growls through the drifts, and we bounce left and right as he winds us toward a one-story house set against a winter wonderland of open meadow. His home is cozy, done in classic country French architecture with sloped roofs and dormer windows. Not a mansion by any means. Still, it looks like a painting of a fairy tale come to life. It is perfectly, undeniably, Bryce.
There's a covered carport attached to the house, and Bryce pulls us in and shuts off the engine. “Bienvenue chez moi.” His hands drop to his lap as he stares out the window, and he pinches one fingertip until it turns maroon.
He's nervous. Why is he nervous?
Bryce grabs my duffel before I can, so I fill my arms with the bags from Guy'sdépanneurand follow him inside. Like the outside, the inside is gorgeous, furnished in a masculine style that favors dark wood, rich leather, and white-paneled walls. A well-worn leather sofa topped haphazardly with thick wool throws faces a television and a gas fireplace, and a colorful old rug stretches across burnished umber hardwood floors. Landscape pictures are grouped gallery-style on the walls next to dried flower arrangements and a few candle sconces. If it was a fairy tale from the outside, it's even more so from the inside.
Bookshelves line one wall, and miniature trophies and medals from Bryce's years of winning championships share space with framed family photos and pictures of the Étoiles. These are candid shots, behind the scenes stills. Laughing in the dressing room, laughing on the road, laughing during warmups. He looks so dazzlingly happy in each photo that his smile stops me in my tracks. His elation and the light in his eyes draws me in, commands my attention.
“I have a guest bedroom,” Bryce says. His hand is opening and closing around the handle of my duffel. “You can stay in there.”
I set the grocery bags on his kitchen counters and go to him. His eyes dart from the walls to the floor to the ceiling.
“Should I go?” Does he not want me here, after all?
“Non. But…calisse, I don't want to scare you away.” His voice is a whisper.
“You won't.” My hands cradle his cheeks, and his eyes close as he presses his lips to my wrist. He drops my duffel, and then his fingers dig into my hips. We move in synchronicity like we're on the ice, him stepping into me and me moving into him. His chin tips up. Our eyes lock.
