Where We Belong (Carolina Rebels 6)

“I’ll be home tomorrow,” I remind her.

“I know. Is the team doing anything tonight?” she asks, clearly over the subject.

“I don’t know; Cal and I are in the hotel room. I think we just plan on getting some sleep. Our flight is early.”

Julie lets me talk to her for about thirty minutes. Once I’m satisfied she is in better spirits, we hang up to go to bed, especially since it’s way later back home than it is here.

“She is still not doing so good?” Cal asks.

“No. Maybe she’ll do better once I’m home and not set to go anywhere.”

I walk into my apartment the next day and wonder how I missed the fact that Julie’s car was in the parking deck. Because when I walk inside and into my bedroom, there she lies in bed asleep with Marmalade down by her feet. She didn’t tell me that she would be here. Did she intend not to go into work? Do I wake her and ask? She’s had so much trouble sleeping lately. I’d hate to disrupt some decent sleep when she might have actually called in.

I quietly place my bags on the floor and walk over to the nightstand. I pick up her phone and decide to snoop. There’s no password, so it takes me two seconds to see that she texted her boss yesterday evening to say she just needed today off. I wonder why she didn’t tell me? I place her phone down and leave the room. She should get all the sleep she can get.

It’s so weird to have nothing to do in the foreseeable future. The time right after the season ends is a time I actually hate. My anxiety normally spikes because of there being this decompression period we’re all expected to take. While decompression can be good for the soul, especially for someone like me, for some reason my anxiety rebels when it comes to a hockey season ending.

I like to have a bigger purpose and relaxing just isn’t enough. While Julie rests, I decide to bide my time by searching for places we can travel this summer. We’re going on a trip whether she believes me or not. She’ll get the time off work one way or another. The question is where to go, when, and what all will we do?

About two hours, one trip booked later, Julie stumbles out of the bedroom.

“You didn’t wake me up?” she asks with a frown as she comes to sit next to me.

“You needed the sleep.”

She cuddles into my side. “I told my boss I needed the day off. I didn’t want to spend the day working when you would be here. I needed this instead.”

“What do you want to do today?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Okay.”

We spend the day being lazy. We take a trip to the grocery store. We watch TV. We spend time making love in bed. I tell Julie about our upcoming trip to Europe. We talk about random things, regular life things, our future, anything and everything. Julie seems better than last night. I’m hoping today will prove to actually do her good. I see Trace tomorrow and I’ll admit that I plan to ask him about her. He more likely than not won’t tell me anything, but it won’t hurt to ask.

“Do you like seeing Trace?” I ask.

“Some times, I do.”

I laugh, understanding her answer.

“Even though I struggle some still, I think he’s helping.”

That’s a relief to hear. I’m not in her head, so I can’t be absolutely sure how she’s doing. Knowing that she thinks she’s improving is great.

“He thinks I need to read the police report about what went down with Dwight.”

“Why?” I ask, immediately outraged that he would send her mind back to that day.

“He thinks if I know, if I can picture how it happened, it’ll give me some closure and the nightmares will stop.”

I lack the optimism Trace seems to have about this, but I don’t voice that. Julie watches and analyzes me for a moment.

“I want to do it.”

“Okay.” I nod in agreement. That one word, one action, seems to relax her, as if she was looking for permission. As if she needed to know I was on her side and thought it was a good idea too, even though I don’t think so, but I most definitely am on her side.

“He also thinks I should talk to my parents.”