Page 84 of If All Else Sails
And Wyatt? He’ll go back to Boston where he’ll lace up a pair of skates and then resume whatever normal life looks like for a hockey star.
There is noourwith Jib. What’s next will be a custody battle.
Or not, actually. I can’t see Wyatt fighting me for her. Not when his job involves so much travel.
Still. He saidour—that one little word holds way too much possibility.
Jib finishes peeing—finally—and I make the conscious choice to shake off all the giddiness brought on by a single syllable. I can’t go catching feelings for Wyatt.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s walk Jibby before we head inside.”
Quietly, Wyatt falls into step beside me.
Tonight we’re staying at a yacht club that has reciprocity with Wyatt’s yacht club. Reciprocity with a yacht club is a statement that feels silly and pretentious at the same time.
But I won’t complain about the fact that there is a locker room with nice showers, or so Wyatt told me, and a great restaurant. We have lots of provisions on the boat, but there will be no fancy meals in the limited kitchen. I anticipate a lot of sandwiches and soups direct from a can. I’m excited for the hot shower and also a few minutes’ break from Wyatt to reset my brain.
I expect him to ignore the weirdness ofourthe same as I’m trying to do, but he doesn’t. After a few minutes of walking in silence other than to say hello to strangers who stop to admire Jib’s outfit, he turns to me.
“At the end of this—”
“Nope,” I interrupt, waving the hand not holding Jib’s leash as panic shoots through me. “We’re not doing this.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You’re right. But it’s day one of the trip. I am in no way prepared to think about the end of it.”
“I just think it would be good to have a conversation about expectations,” he says.
Somehow, the way he words this and his tone of voice make it sound like he thinksIhave expectations—and they’re not realistic. Or not the same as his. Like he needs to make sure I understand there will not be anour, awe, or anusat the end of the trip.
“You know what this feels like?” I say. “You’re trying to force me to read the last chapter of a book I just started so I can be prepared for how it will end. I don’t read that way, mister.”
He drags a hand through his hair, clearly agitated, leaving the dark blond strands a mess. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
Maybe not. But that’s how it feels. And I’m not sure how I’ll make it through the next few weeks if I know every day is taking me closer to certain doom.
Do I really think something could work between Wyatt and me?
No.
Or—I don’t know. It’s highly unlikely.
Even if I am picking up on signals and there is a real spark here, at the end of the day, Wyatt lives in Boston and has a totally abnormal job. One where the hours and the travel and the intensity make a normal life hard, and where the perks include women waiting in hotels and sliding into DMs. Though I don’t think Wyatt even uses social media. Jacob has told me that he hires people to run accounts for his clients who don’t want to do it, and I’d place bets Wyatt is one of them.
I also know from Jacob that most of his clients don’tdonormal. They don’t date elementary school nurses; they date models and actresses and heiresses. Leggy and booby and on a first-name basis with their eyelash-extension people. Women who are willing and eager to put up with all the downsides of the lifestyle. When it comes to Wyatt, I may have been able to move past my long-held hang-up with athletes, but that doesn’t mean I’m eager to be a WAG, the term I learned from Jacob to refer to athletes’ wives and girlfriends.
Speaking of Jacob, how would he feel about me and Wyatt?
Any way I try to think about this, about us, about the future, I can’t see one ending with us together.
But this—here and now with Wyatt? This, I can see. This feels good—like something real and right.
I’m not ready to look past the present moment, afraid it will pop like a bubble with no warning. There one minute, translucentand delicate and perfect, hanging in the air, and gone the next, like it had never existed at all.
Wyatt is still staring at me, his jaw working like he’s trying to come up with the right answer, the arrangement of words that will convince me to have this discussion. And honestly, he just might. I feel my resolve cracking the longer I look at his gray eyes.
Jib provides the perfect distraction by choosing that moment and a flower bed to finish doing her business.
