I laugh.

“I am sure she will”.

I hug him and he brushes my back affectionately.

Then I pull back.

“You kissed my wife”, I say giving him a fake killer look.

He raises his eyebrows. The stitches move a little on his scratched skin.

“Aaaah… Uhm, well, yeah, I think I did, but she kissed me first…”, he jokes, wincing at Carmen.

I turn to her.

“You kissed my friend, Carm”, I say again in a monotone voice.

She laughs in that way of hers that always makes me shiver.

“Yeah, I did”.

“And that little tongue action…”, I add raising my eyebrow.

“More a hairpin action…”, Dante laughs.

“Never kiss my wife again, buddy”, I warn him jokingly.

He places his hand on his heart.

“Word of honor”.

“Cassandra is a lucky woman”, Carmen chimes in, teasing me.

“Carm…”.

“What?”, she giggles.

I smile at her, sweetly.

“I am lucky, too”.

”This is stranger than love or loss,
Turning backwards you face the dawning,
No excuse for a wasted life,
Lightly falling through a whisper of sky…”

“Where’s Cass, by the way?”, Carmen asks flipping a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Oh, she’s having an ultrasound”, Dante says conversationally.

“Is there any problem?”, I ask, concerned.

He just shakes his head.

“Uhm, no…”, he smiles, “…I think we’ll just discover if we’re having a baby boy or a baby girl…”.

End Flashback

Sitting at the kitchen table, a coffee mug in front of us, talking about anything and nothing and I watch Shane and there she is. She’s the person I used to know. She has that look, that slightly cocky attitude that I love so much, that mischievous grin I thought was lost forever. She’s back.

I don’t know if it’s because of Dante’s words, or my words. I don’t know if it’s because our late night talks, our perpetual making love since the game finally ended. In our bed, on the floor, on the table – yeah, this same table… -, on the beach, in the car, in the shower… wherever we are, we can’t take our hands off each other. I always need to reassure her, to tell her that everything is alright. And she always need to reassure me, to tell me that she loves me, that she feels it. That she means it.