Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Gratitude unravels inside me like an endless ribbon, along with relief, disbelief, hope, and awe. All of it at once. I stand there, reeling, trapped in a tornado of emotion that only this person is capable of making me feel. “You do?” I manage.
“Yeah. I could make a wall of pictures out of you.” She laughs tearfully and kisses my neck, my jaw, my cheek. “And add one every year.”
My neck muscles are straining so painfully, I sound like I’m choking. “Does this mean you’re coming to California tomorrow?”
She cradles my face in her hands and nods. “Yes. I’m coming. I’m scared, but I’m a lot more scared of staying behind and not feeling this way ever again.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen, sweetheart. I would have kept right on loving you until you came home to me.”
“I know,” she whispers.
And those might be the best two words anyone has ever said to me. Because in other words, she trusts me. She believes in me. Forget going pro; this is the greatest accomplishment of my life. One that will be a lifetime reward. A daily one. The reward is keeping my wife forever. I’m almost too overcome with happiness to speak, but she needs to hear the words I’m dying to say. “Look what you faced for me, Britta. I’m so proud of you. Humbled.” I lay a kiss on her mouth, and the crowd goes wild, cheering and stomping their feet. “If you can do this, you can do anything, okay?”
The hope in her eyes is so powerful, it knocks the breath out of me. “I want to prove that to myself. I need you with me while I do.”
“That’s a given.” I work her mouth in a deeper kiss that makes her purr in the back of her throat. “When it comes to you, I’m always a given. I am your given, wife.”
I love the fact that her eyes are glassy after one stroke of my tongue. “I’m yours, too, husband,” she whispers, giving me one more teasing kiss on the chin. “Now go out there and win.”
My voice is thick with emotion when I tell her, “I already have.”
Epilogue
SUMNER
New Year’s Eve 2024
My wife walks into the party, and my brain cells go tumbling out of my ears.
Forget my train of thought. It’s gone extinct.
Who gave her permission to look this fine?
God, I guess. He’s the one who handcrafted her, right down to the hips that are currently wrapped in champagne-colored silk. She turns in slow motion, clearly looking for me among the sea of guests, the waves of her blonde hair floating around her in a shiny cloud. When she finally spots me where I stand in a group of coaches and players, the dreamy smile actually causes me to suck in a breath, fumbling for a place to set down my bottle of beer.
“Whoa. You all right, Mayfield?”
“Yeah, I just can’t believe that’s my wife.”
“Neither can we,” jokes the team’s goalie, shoving me in the shoulder to let me know he’s kidding. “You going to introduce us?”
I attempt to roll the tension out of my shoulders. “Give me half an hour.”
“Why half an hour?”
Backing away from the group, I tap the breast pocket of my suit jacket. “Finally got her that ring. I want it on her finger when I bring her around you dogs.”
When I turn around, several balled-up napkins are thrown at my retreating back, accompanied by laughs, wishes of good luck, and of course, some good-natured bullying, but I only have the attention span for my wife right now, and the closer I get to my girl, the more convinced I’m becoming that she’s going to burn them out of my head.
I reach Britta and wrap her up in my arms like a present, drawing her up onto her toes and then squeezing her out of sheer happiness that she’s there. Which might seem like overkill since we live together and I see her every day, but that’s life when you’re obsessed with your wife. “You could have warned me you were going to show up looking like this,” I growl into her neck.
“Like what?” she asks innocently.
“In twenty years, Britta, when our kids ask how they came into the world, I could easily tell them it started with this dress.”
I feel a sly smile bloom against my ear. As recently as a few months ago, any mention of starting a family would have made her go white as a sheet, but not anymore. She’s able to talk about it more and more, the future becoming solid. Exciting.
The fact that it involves me will never stop being my life’s greatest miracle.
We moved to California in October.
I spent one month in the AHL before being signed by the affiliated NHL team here in Anaheim. Signed a nice contract while Britta sat right next to me at the table, visibly overcome with pride. I’m losing count of the “best” moments I’ve racked up since meeting Britta. The night we got married, the time she showed up at my game in an Anaheim jersey and lumberjack hat, the day we walked into our first apartment together and slept side by side in sleeping bags holding hands.