Fall slipped away like a summer vacation after that.
In so many ways, nothing had changed. Vince still had practices and games and travel. I was still there with him every step of the way. We still volleyed back and forth with each other around the team, nothing out of the ordinary, him trying his best to push my buttons only for me to turn around and do the same to him. I grew closer with the other players and the coach. I spent what spare time I could wiggle into my schedule catching up with Livia over cocktails or a greasy pizza at her place.
But in every other way, my life was unrecognizable.
Whenever we weren’t traveling or at the arena for practice or a game, Vince was inside me.
He took me every morning, every night, and every afternoon we could make it work. Any time we were alone, his hands were in my hair, his lips fastened to mine, his thighs spreading mine open until he could find the contact he so desperately searched for.
I knew that man’s hands and mouth and body more intimately than I knew my own now. I knew how his fingers pressed into the skin at my hips when I straddled him, knew the exact sighs and moans he would set free the moment he was inside, knew the gentle sweep of his tongue when we were warming up, and the passionate frenzy it became when foreplay turned to fucking.
And I was content.
No, I was floating, high on life and on the elixir Vince pumped into me with every single touch. I didn’t think about the rules we’d set or the fact that it all would end after that first morning together in my bed because I didn’t have time to think.
We were wrapped up in each other in every possible way, and I was living in the present moment as if the future didn’t exist.
November bled into December, the holidays kicking up in a whole new way in Tampa. We were always a bit cheeky in our Christmas celebrations, anyway — lawns boasting Santa Claus in his swim trunks on the beach, palm trees glittering with lights, our weather staying firmly in the eighties while the rest of the country battled its first falls of snow.
But this year, the city hummed with an exciting energy, because for the first time in over a decade, the Ospreys had a winning record.
We were 14-11-1, and every home game was packed to the hilt now. The city was lit up in blue and white, too — buildings painting their bricks with Ospreys Nation or Fly Birds Fly. Our players were healthy and hungry and out to prove a point, and every eye in the city was on the prospect of making playoffs.
Every eye in the nation seemed to be on Vince Cool.
Our accounts had swelled to a combined three-million followers in just two months, sparking the demand for me to have not one, but two social media associates to manage the comments and messages while I focused on content creation. Reya and Camilla also worked with our marketing team to launch an entire store of branded merchandise, everything from t-shirts and stickers to beach chairs and umbrellas.
And in the midst of all the chaos, Reya had pulled me to the side and told me to start drafting my concepts for what would come after the season.
“You’ve earned the spotlight,” she’d told me. “What you do with it next is up to you.”
Full control. I had full control of my content, my subject focus, my future career, and — most excitedly — my sex life. I was flying so high I was dizzy off the lack of oxygen. And, strangely enough, this new chaos somehow felt… comfortable.
I found a home within the mayhem.
One afternoon before a five home-game stretch, Coach gave all the players the day off to rest and recharge. I snuck away long enough to have brunch with Livia, who was just as busy as I had been lately with the team dentistry and her other South Tampa clients, before finding a text from Vince.
Vince: I have a surprise for you.
Me: Sounds dirty.
Vince: Oh, you have no idea. Wear something you don’t mind getting stained.
My interest piqued, I stopped by my bungalow long enough to change into a t-shirt and overalls before I made my way back downtown and up to Vince’s floor. When he opened the door, he took in my appearance with a shit-eating grin.
“How did you know the perfect way to dress?”
I laughed, looking down at the overalls that had remnants of projects past etched into the jean fabric. There were paint splatters from working on houses with Dad, grass stains from gardening with Mom, and a host of other organic matter that had collected over the years.
“Lucky guess? What are we doing?”
“Hang on, I’m still appreciating the view,” he said, reaching out for my hand. He held it over my head and gave me a spin before letting out a low whistle. “How the hell you manage to make overalls sexy is a puzzle I’ll never solve.”
“Witchcraft,” I said as he pulled me into his arms, one hand hugging me tight to him while the other slid up to frame my face.
“Mm.” He kissed me long and slow before adding, “Then I’m gladly under your spell.”
It was moments like this, so small and quick I’d miss them if I blinked, that I felt it. My heart would stutter and expand, brain going haywire trying to stop myself from reading more into things than I should.
“Close your eyes,” Vince said, and when I did, he circled me until his hands were on my shoulders and guiding me inside.
I held out my hands, walking slowly so I didn’t slam into anything. My face was split in a smile, wondering what the hell he had in store as he kissed behind my neck and muttered about how he couldn’t wait to peel my overalls off me later. I didn’t have any context for where we were by the time he pulled me to a stop, but something smelled earthy, and sunlight warmed my face.
“Okay,” he said, releasing my shoulders. “Open.”
I blinked my eyes open, pupils dilating a bit as the sun streamed in through the window.
And then, I gasped.
I’d never been in this room before, but judging by the equipment that was shoved out of the way, I assumed it was a sort of multipurpose area for Vince before. A treadmill was pushed against the back wall, along with recovery equipment like bands and rollers, and there were some trophies displayed in a floor-to-ceiling case.
The rest of the area had been cleared, and the entire floor was littered with gardening tools, soil, seedlings, and plants.
It was too much to take in at once, my eyes shifting from one corner of the room to the next in a frenzy before I closed my eyes tight and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, I started over, beginning at one inch and letting my gaze float to the next.
There was a brand-new wooden plant shelf, its pine surfaces empty and begging to be filled. Next to it was a working table and two low stools. The table had gloves and trimmers and other tools, all brand new.
The floor was a jungle of color — marble queen pothos, African violet flowers, pearls and jade pothos, a rubber plant, an arrowhead plant, a Christmas cactus, a split-leaf thaumatophyllum, neon pothos. I shook my head as I identified more and more, everything from tiny tugela cliff-calanchoe succulents to a large and healthy monstera.
My hand floated up to my mouth, covering it as my eyes welled without me willing them to. I turned to find Vince watching me with his hands in his pockets, his brows furrowed, a slight tilt in the corner of his mouth.
“Do you like it?”
“What is it?” I breathed.
He ran a hand back through his hair. “I know you’ve been missing your plants. I thought maybe you could make a home for some new ones here.”
I blinked, turning back to survey the room with my heart thundering in my chest. “Did you build that shelf?”
He nodded, his smile shy.
“And these,” I said, bending to carefully retrieve one of the empty pots. There was an assortment of them in the corner, from five-inch to twenty-four inch, if I was guessing. They all had the perfect drainage holes drilled into the bottom. The one I had was creamy white, with painted black bohemian designs swirling around it. “Did you make these?”
My eyes floated back to him, and he shrugged. “I thought it could be a blending of the things we love — your plants, my pottery.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was thick, blocked with a wad of sandpaper. “You did this for me?”
His eyes searched mine, worry etched into his brows as he moved close enough to slide his thumb along my jaw. “Oh God, I didn’t freak you out, did I? I just thought—”
“I love it,” I said, interrupting him. And as soon as I carefully set the pot back down, I threw myself into his arms, inhaling his masculine scent and how it mixed with the earth in that room. “I love it.”
He sighed, as if he were relieved, burying his nose in my neck.
Every part of my brain wanted to overanalyze in that moment. He’d bought a whole fucking indoor garden for me.
But he’d also immediately worried that it would freak me out, that I would read too much into it.
So I did my best not to, squeezing him tight and shoving anything that resembled feelings into the pit of my stomach where I hoped they’d stay.
When he released me, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I hope you know I’m completely clueless when it comes to what to do next. I don’t even know if I got the right supplies.”
I looked around with a smile so big it hurt my cheeks, excitement thrumming in my veins. “You got plenty. Let’s get to work.”
Vince put on a playlist before letting me take charge, directing him how to help me. I started with assigning each plant to its new pot, making sure we had them all in the right sizes and with the right drainages. Then, I showed him how to repot them, arching a brow when I asked if he realized what a mess this was going to make on his beautiful wood floors. But he didn’t care. He promised me the cleanup would be worth it.
After that, we fell into a comfortable rhythm, repotting each plant and clipping any dead leaves off before we situated them on the shelf. I smiled wider each time a new one was placed, feeling a fuzzy warmth spreading in my chest at the notion that we were displaying a little piece of each of us.
“Why do you listen to French music?” I asked as I worked on the monstera and he carefully packed soil into one of the pots with pothos.
“It’s soothing,” he said.
“Do you have any idea what they’re saying?”
“Not a damn clue.”
I laughed, listening to the song currently playing. It was slow and romantic somehow, even though I couldn’t comprehend it. “It is quite lovely.”
“I feel about music the way I feel about pottery, I think,” he said. “I don’t have to fully understand it to know that it’s beautiful.” He paused, frowning at his own words, and then his gaze sifted to me. “Funny. I kind of feel that way about you, too.”
I fought back a smile, grabbing a bit of soil and rolling it into a clump before I tossed it at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere, sir.”
“You sure about that?” he asked, and he dropped the plant he was working on, crawling across the floor to me, instead.
“Hey, do not interrupt me. This monstera needs—hey!”
I laughed as he tugged me by one leg from the stool, and I tumbled into his lap, inhaling a breath as he caught me with a kiss. We were both dirty, soil under our fingernails as our kisses went from lazy and sweet to urgent and intentional.
The afternoon slipped into evening, the sun moving slowly across that room as Vince undressed me and laid me down right there on the dirt-covered floor. It felt like fucking in a forest, the French music adding a magical element that would burn that memory into my mind forever.
• • •
Later that night, while Vince was sound asleep, I pulled up an article on my phone in bed next to him.
I must have wanted to torture myself.
I must have wanted to remind myself who I was, and who Vince was, and how the rules we’d outlined were the ones I needed to remember to play by.
I must have been determined to cast a dark cloud over the most beautiful day, to rain on that sunny afternoon before anything had the chance to bloom.
Because I googled wives of NHL players, and doom-scrolled.
Models. Actresses. Sports broadcasters. Pop stars. Hotel heiresses.
My stomach tied itself up into an impossible knot the more I read, and when a tear pricked my eye, I sniffed, batting it away and closing out of the app. I laid there, staring up at the ceiling with the phone on my pounding chest.
Then, I blew out a breath, opened my phone and started a new note.
Bullet after bullet, I listed out goals and to-dos: create name for new account, build six months of content with local community outreach programs and heroes, link website with resources for people who want to get involved, invest in new camera equipment and upgraded phone, take a girls’ trip with Livia, spend a long weekend with Mom and Dad, remodel my patio, try a new hairstyle, get a new dress, get a tattoo, get a cat?
I sighed when it was twenty-bullets long, staring at the list with my heart in my throat.
I titled it Life After Vince Tanev.
Then, I quietly slid my phone onto the nightstand and curled up behind the nation’s hottest rookie hockey player, wrapping my arms around him and letting myself admit in that dark silence what I’d never admit out loud.
