Page 25 of Her Forever SEAL

He made a sound that meant he knew that was bullshit. “Go back to sleep after this.”

“I will.” She wouldn't. “How are you?”

“Good. Tired.” A pause. “Dirty.”

She laughed softly. “How dirty?”

“Let's say I'm looking forward to our shower.”

“Our shower,” she agreed. She shifted against the pillows and pulled the blanket up and let herself just breathe him in through the phone, because somehow, she could. Twenty-two years of this, and she still hadn't found a word for what it felt like to hear his voice in the dark.

“Tell me a story.”

She smiled. “Like what?”

“About the girls. About the bakery. About what you’re wearing. About what you thought about today.”

This was their thing. He asked, she answered. He wanted the details, the small ones, the ones that meant home was still home.

“We sold out of the cardamom rolls again on Thursday. I'm making a double batch on Monday.”

“Good.” She could hear the smile in it. “Lisa?”

“Thriving. Extremely loud. She put a footnote on a fourth-grade science assignment defending Pluto's status as a planet.”

A beat of silence. Then, “That's my girl.”

“It absolutely is.” Sophia smiled at the ceiling. “Kayla is playing attack in lacrosse and is failing art class.”

“She's not failing.”

“She's not failing. But she wants you to know she considers one-point perspective to be a personal attack.”

He laughed, low and real. She stored it away the way she stored all of his laughter when he was gone.

“What else?”

She considered. She could feel him settling in on his end, stealing whatever minutes he had, just wanting to hear about home. She knew exactly what she was about to do and she did it anyway, because she hadn't been able to resist for approximately thirty-six hours.

“Connor Walsh asked Kayla to save him a seat at the pep rally.”

Silence.

“Mason.”

“Who is Connor Walsh?” He asked it slow and low.

“He's the baseball team captain. He's a junior.”

“And?”

“And he’s apparently very shy, and very smitten, and Kayla has no idea what to do about it which means she's handling it perfectly.” She kept her voice light and easy. “He smiled at her in the hallway.”

The sound that came through the phone was not quite a word.

She couldn’t help the giggle that came out of her mouth.

“Don’t you dare laugh.”