Same Time Next Year

by Tessa Bailey

Once you go hockey boy, you never go back.

“Say the word, and I’ll stay, sweetheart.

“But you should know I’m going to miss you, too, Britta. Every day I have to go without seeing your eyes is going to be a slow death.”

How is everything in the world not canceled right now? Are people still traveling, going to work, and eating in restaurants when my wife looks this hot?

It has always been hard to be around her without making my feelings obvious. But being away from her has been even worse.

I missed the sight of her so fucking badly today that I came here as soon as I dropped off my bag at the house and rushed through a shower.

Can you not see that I’m starving to death for you? Can’t you tell I missed you so horribly that my family couldn’t even make me smile?

“No. I’ll want more.” I’ll want everything.

“You don’t have to stop me from looking at anyone but you, because I don’t want to look in the first place. Put parental controls on my phone, my laptop, block porn sites. Track my location. Lock my dick in a cage. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you realize I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. I’ll make you feel secure until you realize it’s only ever going to be you.”

“I’m not . . . asking you for any of that.” “It’s all on the table, regardless.”

Sí a todo.

But Sumner wanting to give me those reassurances felt like a giant gulp of oxygen.

“You like the reassurance, Britta, so why shouldn’t I give you something that’s so easy? I’ve got nothing to hide, and I never will.”

Damn. No me han querido ni un poquito.

Part of me wants to laugh out loud because the very idea that I could even consider another woman is so far outside the realm of possibility, she has no idea. What women? Where? I’m blind to every last one of them. There’s only Britta. Mainly, however, I’m fucking outraged that she might spend a single second feeling jealous. My wife? Jealous? No. Never. I enabled her to track my location on her phone as a formality, but deep down, I didn’t think she needed it with any kind of immediacy.

Si mi futuro esposo no tiene esta mentalidad, I don't want him.

I found you.”

“You are my last. I’m not going anywhere. Do you understand me?”

“Love me like I love you.”

I’m going to start my campaign to bring her west as soon as I land in California. I’m going to call her relentlessly. I’m going to visit Bridgeport so often, she’ll wonder if I ever left. If I have to spend every dime of my savings on flights, so be it. When she opens her apartment door in the mornings, there will be flowers waiting in the hallway, just delivered. I’m going to write her name in silver Sharpie on my skates, maybe my helmet, for every game if they let me. She is not done with me.

Well, I choose her. I’ll choose her every day for eternity.

“I wouldn’t have let that happen, sweetheart. I would have kept right on loving you until you came home to me.”

“Good, Britta. Because we don’t have an end date.”