I multi-task around the kitchen, tripping over myself as I rush to rip open the stove. I almost reach for the hot baking dish, but remember at the last moment I need an oven mitt.

My eyes scan the kitchen, searching for a mitt but it’s been so long since I’ve used the oven, I’ve no idea where to find one. I pull open a drawer and grab a kitchen towel to use instead.

I retrieve baked spaghetti from the oven and rush it into the dining room to the right of the kitchen. I place it on the long dining table beside a fresh plate of breadsticks. I reach into my pocket and grab a lighter to light two candles in the center of the table, and when I’m all done, I stand back and admire my work.

There’s just one thing missing. Wine. Lots of fucking wine. I maneuver into the kitchen and drop to a squatting position to pick out a bottle in the wine fridge. I reach for one Moscato and one Riesling. Food pairings be damned, he likes his red wine and I love my white.

I carry them into the dining room, grabbing two glasses on my way, and pour each half-full before storing the leftovers in the refrigerator. Coach—Brock, I mean—has a drinking problem, but he’s nowhere near as bad as he used to be. After his father died in the fire that burned his childhood farmhouse to the ground, he went on a bender, and that was before he broke his back.

I flip off the lights to the foyer, living room, and kitchen and stand in the candle-lit darkness waiting for Brock to come home from Old Town. My heart skips a beat when he pulls into the long driveway, headlights streaming through tall windows. When the engine is cut, I take a long sharp inhale, and pray this night won’t devolve into the same old fights as every other night.

The door is pushed open, and he calls out to me with an earnest tone, “Stas, are you home?”

“In here,” I call back and wait for him to approach.

His shadow enters the room before he does, and it’s his shadow that I surprise first, throwing my hands in the air and exclaiming, “Happy Birthday, Brock!”

“You did this?” His eyes shift around the room with apprehension, like I’ve just set some kind of trap for him. “For me?’

“You’re one game away from making State.” I shrug. “I thought you deserved it.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He hangs his jacket on the chair the furthest from our assigned seating. “Thank you,” he says sincerely, and I’m reminded that he’s the one who’s been pushing for us to stay married.

“You don’t need to say anything.” I slide into my seat and he follows suit, taking his seat across from me.

He picks up his fork in one hand and scoops the baked spaghetti into his mouth as I watch him. He catches me watching him and places the fork on the table. “I’m sorry. Did you want to pray?”

“No,” I chuckle. “We don’t pray in this house.”

“Maybe we should?” He laughs again and reaches for the glass of wine. There’s a weight that’s been lifted from his body. Mine too. “This is really good, Stassi.”

“Thank you.” I smile and take a small bite. “How was the charity event?”

“Uneventful.” He nods and finishes chewing. “The boys spent a few hours raising funds over the phone.”

“Interesting. How did that go?”

He’s laughing before he can even answer my question, throwing his hand against his chest for support. “It was terrible.”

“That bad?” I arch my brow.

“Yeah. I think they actually lost money.” He raises the glass to his lips, but his eyes shift upward at me. He resigns the glass back onto the table without so much as taking a sip.

“It’s okay,” I assure him. “It’s okay to drink.”

“I don’t want to ruin the mood—“

“Then don’t.”

“I have to ask.” His face is painted with contemplation as he searches for the right words. “Why are you being so nice?”

“I woke up today with a different perspective.”

“Care to share?”

I gesture toward the food, the wine, and the candles. “This about covers it.”

His eyes sink to the table, and then settle on mine. “I’ve missed this.”

“Me too.” I force a smile, but I agree fully with his assessment. This is the Brock I’ve missed in the past year since our lives went up in flames. “How did we get so broken?”

“The hell if I know,” he says softly, but we both know exactly what happened, but maybe it doesn’t have to matter anymore. “Is there hope for us?”

“I want to believe there is,” I say with a certain weight to my voice, but wanting isn’t the same thing as having. We’re good tonight, and then fighting tomorrow. There are too many cracks in our relationship to ever repair them all, but maybe we only need to patch them. “One day at a time?”

“One day at a time.” He wipes red sauce from his mouth with a napkin and rises to his feet.

I look up at him with a frown. “Where are you going?”

He reaches his hand for mine, and without thinking, I take him up on his suggestion as he pulls me to my feet. “You want to take this upstairs?”

“I—“ This can’t happen. “Why not?”

He pulls me into the bedroom and shuts the door behind us, as if someone could come in and catch us in the act. After being fucked on a carousel, there’s not much that scares me in that regard anymore.

But this right here? It terrifies me. He twists on his foot so that we’re face to face, and he looks at me the way someone looks at someone else when they want to kiss said person.

I should protest. I should put a quick stop to this. But I don’t. I can’t. He shifts forward, grabbing me by both cheeks as he lands a kiss on my lips. My entire body shudders from his touch, and my senses kick into overdrive. It’s been forever since I’ve seen him this way; primal and full of life.

He tastes different, but it’s been six months since he’s kissed me. In the timespan between that kiss and this kiss, I’ve learned to acquaint his scent with that of alcohol.

He mouths a trail down my neck and, and his hand crawls fast under my shirt. I raise my arms to help him dispose of my top. He lifts me by the curves of my ass and lies me down on the bed, where he moves fast to crawl atop me.

In one quick motion, he pulls my jeans and panties from my body, and a warm hand is pressed against my cunt, preparing me. He takes no time shifting into overdrive as he pushes his jeans down enough to free himself and positions his throbbing cock against my opening.

His mouth hangs open as he rocks into me, slow and gentle and not the way I thought this would be if we ever got around to it again. He’s smaller than Kemper, not by much, but it feels like I’m being ripped apart from the inside.

“Brock,” I cry out and tangle my hands into the thin fabric of his blue shirt. My legs kick up in the air and I lower them against his back, holding onto him as he picks up his pace

I stare at the ceiling, trying to escape my body as my mind races into overdrive, but it’s my heart that’s screaming the loudest. Any clarity I’ve had at all over the past few weeks is wiped away in an instant, and as he surfs to a shattering orgasm above me, I close my eyes until I feel the weight of his body crushing down on top of me.

His head lies parked beside my head, his face buried in the pillow as he fights to breathe. That’s the quickest I’ve ever known him to come, and I know without a doubt he hasn’t stepped out on me in the longest time.

I remember the way I used to love him, and compare that with the way I still love him. Up until this morning, the love I had for him felt conditional as if it wasn’t real. My heart broke every time we used to fight, but I eventually became numb to it all. Now, my heart beats from under my chest and I know, without a doubt, I still love him. And that hurts. It fucking hurts.

As he comes down from a rousing high, I’m left spinning under his body, and all I need is to simply run. Just fucking run somewhere where I can breathe, and make sense of this tragedy I’ve found myself involved in.

Life is a football game, and I’m wracking my mind trying to figure out my next play, but in this game of life, there’s no such sure thing as a touchdown. White chalk is nothing but a blur beneath my feet as I rush closer and closer to the end zone, but in my blind side, I could never see the avalanche coming.