AllFreeNovel
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“What’s the plan for the day?” He asks, sitting beside me with a donut and cup of coffee of his own.
“Rest. I go back to physical therapy on Monday, today is a day to rest before the hard work starts.”
“So there’s no plan,” he grins. “Just you and me and whatever we want to do.”
Stevie barks, drawing our attention to where she watches us from her bed.
“Just you and meandStevie,” Stefan amends and Stevie huffs before laying her head back down on her front paws and watching us with barely disguised contempt. “I’m glad I get some time with you.”
“Me too,” I lean into him, “even if it’s just for the day.”
I don’t want to sleep the day away, but I’m still drowsy, and after breakfast Stefan takes Stevie for a quick walk while I nap on the couch. When I eventually wake up, Stefan is beside me on the couch, glasses perched on his nose, reading a well worn paperback.
“Hey sleepyhead,” he glances over, throwing me a disarming smile. “Good nap?”
“Too good.” I sit up with a yawn, stretching out my muscles as best I can. “I don’t want to waste the day with you.”
“Trust me Stats, this isn’t a waste.”
“Stefan…”
“Sweetheart,” he closes his book and moves closer to me on the couch. “You just had surgery. Your only job right now is to rest and recover.”
“But you only get this one day off and I’m terrible company.”
“You’re the best company. We both need a rest day. Want to watch a movie?”
“I don’t know how much of it I’ll actually watch,” I answer with a laugh and barely concealed yawn, “but sure.”
He scrolls through a streaming service until landing on a movie about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team. A movie we’ve probably both seen a hundred times, but it never gets old.
“Who do you play for?” Stefan whispers under his breath during an intense practice scene and I shush him for the hundredth time since starting the movie. By the time we get to the locker room speech near the end of the movie, we’re both quoting word for word, tears flowing as Al Michaels asks the audience,do you believe in miracles?
“You know they still had one more game to play,” I tell Stefan as the credits roll. “Everyone talks aboutthisgame, because it was a huge win, but they still had to play the gold medal game against Finland.”
“Sweden,” he remarks, scrolling through the menu to find us another movie to watch.
“Nope. The Soviets played Sweden, the US played Finland in the gold medal game.”
“Are you sure?”
“Stefan. Don’t test me on my hockey history.”
“I would never question you,” he presses a kiss to my temple. “Canada took sixth. Most of us stopped caring at that point.”
“How old were you?” I ask with a laugh.
“Irrelevant. How old wereyou?”
“You know what else is a great movie?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject, plucking the remote from Stefan’s hand and scrolling until I find literally anything else. “This one.”
“Is this the talking llama movie?”
“It’s so much more than that! It's a social commentary about class differences and the importance of family and connection and…”
“It has a talking llama.”
“Just watch this movie with me please.”
