Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Everybody cheers, and I pull Ava to me where I give her a hard kiss. When I let her up, I see our social media person standing there, taking pictures of us, and there’s no doubt in my mind this will show up on the team’s Instagram. I’d like to say I’m bothered by it, but I’m not.
I’m too fulfilled to be bothered by anything tonight.
♦
Two monstrous orgasms in the books—one for each of us—and my birthday celebration is coming to an end for the evening.
“I know your birthday isn’t officially until tomorrow, but…” Ava rolls away from me and bends over my bed, reaching underneath it. I’m shocked that she stowed something under there, and when she rolls back, she’s holding a small blue gift bag with white tissue paper. “I got my first paycheck, and the first thing I bought was your birthday present.”
I sit up against the headboard and pull her into me as I accept the bag. “That orgasm you just gave me was present enough.”
“That doesn’t count because you gave me an orgasm too,” she says primly, then nudges me in the ribs. “Open it.”
Laughing, I reach into the bag, past the tissue paper, and pull out a leather-covered journal. It’s small enough to fit in my palm and has an ink pen attached to the spine inside a leather sleeve.
“I thought it would be nice for you to hold this during the games to make your notes in, rather than that little spiral notebook you use.”
I’m beyond touched by the thoughtfulness of her gift. “It’s perfect. I will absolutely use it.”
“And then I figured, you should save them. You could always keep a box of your journals of game notes. It’ll be interesting one day to look back through them.”
Warmth flushes through me that she would look out for my future in that way, that she recognizes these are memories in the making that I’m taking for granted, but they might be important to me down the road.
I put the journal and bag on my bedside table before turning to her. We lie facing each other, close enough I can put my arm around her waist. “It really meant a lot to me that you would help plan my birthday party.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“You’re starting to mean a lot to me,” I say gruffly, helpless to stop this confession.
Ava jerks slightly in my hold, and I can tell I’ve shocked her. “Ditto,” she murmurs.
And that’s all I need to hear back.
“I wanted to talk to you about the next few weeks,” I say, and Ava tips her head in curiosity. “After tomorrow’s away game, I’ll be in Pittsburgh until Thanksgiving, except for the away game the day before. I was wondering if you would like to stay here the entire time, even during that away game, and we could celebrate Thanksgiving together. That is, unless you want to go home for Thanksgiving. But you hadn’t said anything.”
“I haven’t decided what to do. I assumed you would go visit your family.”
I shake my head. I’d like to go visit them and I could, but I would have to fly there and literally fly back the next day. That’s a lot of travel for only about ten hours of family time.
“So you really want me to stay here until then?”
“It’s definitely easier when you’re here. I live close to the arena, and you live outside of town.” I tell myself I’m not exactly asking her to move in, but I would like her to stay here more. “Maybe you could just keep some of your clothes here. Duplicates of toiletries. That way you don’t have to worry about carting stuff back and forth.”
There. Definitely not an invitation to move in, but an open door to stay more often.
You know, for convenience.
“Okay,” Ava says, and I exhale my relief. “I’ll bring some stuff to keep here, and I’ll plan on staying at least through Thanksgiving. Since you’re going to be gone the day before Thanksgiving, I’ll handle prepping all the food.”
“Perfect,” I say, leaning in to kiss her. When I pull back, she gives a little yawn. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”
I release her, reaching back to the table for my phone so I can set our alarm. There’s a notification that I’ve been tagged on Instagram by the Titans.
I tap the screen and the post comes up. It’s not a picture of the kiss I gave Ava after I blew out my candles but when we’d just pulled apart and were smiling at each other. The look is intimate, both our faces full of joy.
I turn the phone to Ava. “We’re official.”
She leans in and makes a soft sound in her throat. “Oh, that’s such a good picture of us.” Her eyes then slide to me. “Is this weird?”