Guy and Reason

Chapter 28 (Guy): That Sounds Fair

Copyright © 2025 by GroveltoHEA

I stood just inside the doorway of Reason's hotel suite that had three separate bedrooms and watched her snoop around. This was new to me; when we'd been together, we'd never stayed in a hotel, so I hadn't seen how she reacted to new spaces. Our mothers had gone into their own bedrooms, tacitly agreeing to give the two of us some privacy.

Reason was like a curious kitten, looking into everything, opening drawers and closet doors and looking into all three bedrooms. My mother had asked if they wanted to stay in the suite I always got for her, and Reason and her mother had readily agreed. I may not have lived in luxury, but I made damn sure my mother always had the best room the hotels had to offer.

"The Minotaurs spend the night in this hotel, too," I told her as she darted here and there. "We're one of the teams that requires all players to spend the night in the team hotel before all games, even the home ones."

"I always thought it was smart to keep the players in one place," she said from across the room, her fingertips touching one of the fresh flowers in the vase on the coffee table.

When she'd finished checking out the suite, she walked up to me, hands on her hips.

"Well, I have to say I'm extremely disappointed," she said.

"Is that so?" I asked, responding to the twinkle in her eyes she always got when she was teasing me.

"Yes. This suite is in no way crappy, and you promised me a long time ago that only the crappiest would do," Reason said, referencing our old joke.

Could you inhale an old memory? I would have loved to draw it into my lungs, back to a time when we were happy and had our dreams, and I hadn't cheated on her and messed everything up.

"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to make do with this," I told her. "I tried all the crappiest hotels in town and they were either booked up or the health department had shut them down."

With a shrug, she accepted her fate. "I guess I can make do. But next time, I expect the worst of the worst, or I'm going to have to lodge a complaint."

Maybe I was inspired by her nod to our past, but my hand reached out to her waist, and I pulled her to me. She didn't resist, and I took that as another good sign.

"Will there be a next time, Reason?"

Her hands smoothed the front of my T-shirt.

"Yes."

That was all I needed. Just a promise of one more time, and I was a happy man.

"You've never seen me play professionally before, have you?"

"No."

"When I got drafted, they'd just started relaxing the rules on the numbers players could wear. I made it a condition of my contract that I could be number seventeen, and change it if I wanted to down the road. They wanted me, so after a lot of negotiating and finagling, they agreed."

She knew the significance right away.

"Our number."

"The date we met, your birthdate, the date we first said I love you, the date we went out together for the first time, the date I gave you this promise ring." I patted my chest where the ring lay against my skin. 

Maybe I shouldn't have reminded her of my broken promises, but I was done tip-toeing around it. It had happened, and she knew that better than anyone.

"I've been number seventeen for three years, but this year I changed it."