Today, neither had said much even if I’d brought their probably normal happy home down with my moroseness. Perhaps if I told myself I understood more, I actually would.
I got her need to be independent.
I just didn’t think it had to happen alone. She could do all the things she wanted with me. That’s what marriage was. Giving when you can and receiving when you needed it. But I’d grown up with privilege and money. Yeah, we’d been taught responsibility but we’d never wanted for anything and since we all spent so much time on the ice rinks, I’d never actually had a real job. I’d never had to worry about finding my path, paying bills. Hell, I had a financial manager who handled all that daily shit for me.
“I’m kind of all talked out,” I told Katie and turned back to the scorching heat. Not as bad as Vegas, but it was brutal enough especially since Jude had forced me into a three-hour workout earlier and then a game of one-on-one basketball.
Jason and Tessa were supposed to head over tomorrow to spend the day swimming.
Which would mean more questions.
Perhaps coming to see my brothers wasn’t the best idea given the circumstances.
In my hand, my phone buzzed and I glanced at it.
Almost all packed. Followed with two hearts, green and gold for my team.
The text included a picture of Gabby’s now almost completely empty apartment.
That was it.
She’d called last night before she went to bed. We’d talked this morning, three times this afternoon when she took packing breaks. Whatever plan she was working on somehow meant she needed to move out of her apartment her first day back in Seattle.
“Is that Gabby?”
“Yeah.” I set my phone on the small table next to the lounger and closed my eyes, resting my head back. “She’s packing up and moving home with her mom while she finds herself.”
I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice.
“You’ll be thankful for this later.”
I peered at her through one open eye. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
She slapped my shoulder. “Stop being so grouchy. You know how I grew up. My mom? The world’s ultimate hippie always trying to find herself? Do you know how hard that was on me? The kid who just had to follow along with her?”
I knew all of that. Katie had grown up living out of cars and never really attending schools until she’d forced her mom to settle down while she went to high school. She’d then gotten a scholarship to Chicago, a city she’d chosen because it seemed so normal and plain.
“I know how hard it was for you.”
“Good. Then you know why this is good. If Gabby needs to have this confidence in herself, it’ll only mean she’s that much better for you when she comes home.”
Home. To my house. In Vegas.
“Doesn’t make it easier.”
“I know.” She squeezed my shoulder. “And I hate you’re hurting again. I just don’t see this as a bad thing. Besides, she’ll be in Vegas in what… eight weeks?”
Lizzie was due in September with the babies but she’d already been warned she’d probably deliver early.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“So two months, at worst, until you can see each other.”
“And then what? What if she’s not more settled by then? What if she goes back to Seattle? What if…”
I stopped. The what-if game was useless. Always had been.
“Forget I said any of that.”
“What if she’s the absolute perfect woman for you and you two just met at the wrong time and everything will end up wonderful in the end?”
“You’re teasing me.”
Katie laughed and smiled out toward the distance. “I’m saying you two barely knew each other, got drunk and married, and now you’re acting like it’s unreasonable for her to need a minute to get her shit together.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “No matter if you two love each other, you have to see that it makes sense from her perspective. I mean, at some point she would have had to get rid of the apartment anyway, right? Gone back home… packed…”
“Maybe.”
She was making too much sense.
“So think of this as just her taking the time to close down what she needs to in order to start her life with you. Spin the perspective so it’s more positive.”
“Has my brother ever told you you’re smart?”
“And sexy,” Jude said, stepping onto the patio with a burp cloth still tossed over his bare chest. “And wickedly hot, and funny and hilarious and the best damn mom on the planet and the most incredible wife. Yeah… she knows.”
Katie laughed.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“My wife get you sorted?”
He grabbed Katie, yanked her off the lounger.
“Hey!” she shrieked, but before she could stop, she was settled across Jude’s lap where he’d sat in her spot.
“I think so.”
“She’s good at that kind of stuff.”
Katie grinned at me, eyes filled with happiness that made my stomach curdle with jealousy for what they had.
“Don’t forget, Joey. I had to close down my life in Chicago before I could be here with Jude. And I can guarantee you one thing.”
“What?” Guarantees would be fantastic.
“If she loves you half as much as she says she does, she’ll be busting her ass to get back to you sooner rather than later.”
My weights slammed back to the squat rack and I stepped back, letting Dominick take my spot.
We’d been the only two who were in the training facility, but that had been common. I was working out three times more than usual since I got back to Las Vegas.
After three days in Charlotte with my brothers, their wives, and happy families, I’d headed home. But outside of checking in on Malley’s and spending a weekend at our baseball league’s opening season tournament, I’d had nothing but time on my hands to work.
I’d been surprised as fuck the first time I stepped into the facility at five a.m., needing to get out of my house and even my own gym to find Dom already there, busting ass by himself.
We rarely spoke at first but had started taking turns spotting each other when necessary.
It hadn’t taken him long to figure out Gabby wasn’t in Vegas with me and it’d taken another week for him to ask about her.
“How’s Gabby?”
“Busy. Working on things.”
I kept my answers generalized. Mostly because I was starting to get concerned. All of Gabby’s answers to me asking that same thing had been general. “Things are good. I’m working on it. Mom and I are talking. I have some meetings coming up I’m looking forward to.”
What meetings?
I had no clue. She didn’t offer up the information and even though I was dying to know, I was letting her guide the pace.
She’d tell me when she could. Hell, maybe she didn’t tell me much because she wanted to do it all on her own. She didn’t want my help.
Which was starting to suck. I kept trying to hold on to what Katie said, that this might not be bad, but every time I had another call with Gabby where she didn’t tell me anything, a rock grew larger in my stomach.