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I wake up cold. The blankets have been tossed aside like someone missed their alarm and needed to race out the door. Not only that, the warm body that had been draped over me when I fell asleep is gone. I turn over to look at the clock next to the bed. The little red numbers read just after 3 AM, and as my brain starts to come out of the deep sleep I had been enjoying, I know where she went.
As I walk into the hallway, I see that the door at the end of the hall is cracked, light spilling out from the sliver of space. I sigh as I pad across the carpeted hall. This has become a sort of random routine. At some ungodly hour in the middle of the night about twice a week I wake up to find she isn’t beside me anymore. The other half of the bed empty and when I get up to investigate, the room at the end of the hall is illuminated. I know what I’ll find when I push the door open.
She doesn’t look up when I stand in the doorway. I’m happy she doesn’t actually because the picture before me is perfect and breaking this moment would be a shame. Hannah is curled up in the window seat I built her last summer, the light from the street and the soft glow of the floor lamp creating shadows across her features and the wall.
Her hair is mussed from sleep and our earlier escapades. She’s wearing nothing but one of my old t-shirts, legs pulled up under her, guitar in her lap. I didn’t hear the strumming or her soft, haunting voice until I pushed the door open. Even with her trying to be quiet, the sound hits me like a brick wall, just like every other time I hear her voice moving through a melody. She’s so beautiful, sitting here in the middle of the night, a song that entered her head in a dream pouring out of her fingers and mouth. The only thought that’s in my mind as I look at her is “damn how did I get so lucky.”
When I bought the house, I promised her a studio. So one of the many bedrooms got a facelift and some sweet recording equipment. Hannah didn’t want me to spend as much money as I did, but she deserves the best, and this means she doesn’t have to book and pay for studio time. It’ll basically paying for itself in a year or two. And she made the room completely her own once my stubbornness won over hers. It’s cozy and full of color and feels like home. Sometimes, when by some miracle I only have an off ice training, I’ll come in here while she’s working and just sit and answer emails or whatever. It feels like being surrounded by her completely and that’s pretty damn comforting when I’m constantly on the move and in and out of the house.
Her concentration face is plastered across her features. She keeps switching from strumming to scribbling music and lyrics down in the custom notebook spread out in front of her. I got it for her for Christmas, it has staff paper on one side and blank lines on the other so she can have the lyrics and the music without necessarily having to put the fragments together. Watching her is engrossing, I can’t look away from her, she consumes my thoughts as I’m standing here. I almost wish I had my phone to capture this but I know the snapshot won’t do this scene justice. I have a whole album on my phone dedicated to candids of Hannah and pictures of the two of us. I travel so much now, I need pieces of her with me. It makes me a sap and Logan gives me hell for it despite the fact that I know he has the same thing on his phone of Grace, but I don’t care. Being on the road for most of the year is hard, for both of us, but I get to live my dream and she gets to live her’s even if it means we’re apart a lot; it’s a delicate balance.
I watch her a little while longer, a voyeur to her creative process, before I cross the room and she finally looks up.
“Is it going to be a billboard number one?” I ask her as I slide in behind her, wrapping my arms around her middle as she sets down the guitar.
“It’s a little early to tell, but I really like this one. But that could just be my 3 AM brain talking,” I smile into her hair as she melts back into me. “You really shouldn’t be up right now, you have practise in a few hours, coach will kill you if you skate like a drunk toddler with the Montreal game on Wednesday.”
I chuckle. She’s not wrong. Hangovers and sleepless nights both cause me to skate like I just learned to walk and have never set foot on ice in my life.
“He’ll get over it and if I get back to bed in the next ten minutes or so,” I look down to my empty wrist to check an imaginary watch. “I’ll get a solid five hours.”
She turns around and sticks her tongue out at me, always showing her appreciation for my smartass remarks. She shifts back around to face the open notebook and picks up her pen, furiously scribbling now, like she’s trying to rid herself of a mental swarm of bees. After a minute she lifts her head again and moves to stand up, smiling.
“We’ll see if any of this is coherent come morning, but I think this could make the demo.”
“Well then, I think you deserve a few more hours in bed with me before I drag your ass to breakfast.”
“Just because your schedule means you have to be places before eleven doesn’t mean I have to cater mine to fit it.”
“Aw, come on baby, are you really going to make me eat breakfast with Logan? We already share a room more often than you and I. Do you really want to be replaced when I’m home in Boston too?”
She laughs and shoots back: “Are you telling me that you and Logan get your cuddle on after games? How precious are you two?!”
“We’re down right adorable, I even rub his feet when we’re on the plane.”
She pulls me up to stand with her and encircles my waist with her arms. I lean down to kiss her softly before shutting off the light, taking her hand, and leading her back to our room.