Ruth Sadelle Alderson

When the lockout ends, Mike gathers up his stuff and Arnold, closes up the house in Kenora, and flies back to LA.

Jeff picks him and Arnold up at the airport, flip flops on her feet and hat jammed on her head. They hug for a long time, and where they'd be recognized at every moment in Philly, no one even notices them here, except for one annoyed person who glares while trying to maneuver a suitcase around them and Arnold jumping around at their feet.

Mike wraps his hand around Jeff's upper arm and squeezes. "Have you done anything but work out?"

Jeff laughs and pointedly doesn't offer to help carry Mike's bags. "We didn't all spend the whole lockout watching Duck Dynasty. I've been running on the beach too. You can come with me."

Mike makes a face at her, but he knows he's probably going to end up doing it.

When they get home, Jeff drops her keys into the bowl on the table and digs out a ring that she fits onto the ring finger of her left hand. Her wedding ring. The movements are so automatic she has to do it all the time. There isn't a tan line on her finger at all, so she only wears it at home.

The set of her shoulders dares Mike to say something about it.

He doesn't.

Despite the jet lag and staying up fairly late drinking beer on the balcony with Jeff, the time zone change means Mike still wakes up early in the morning. It's early enough that he hears Jeff's tap on his bedroom door and gets up to see what she wants. She's in shorts and a t-shirt he recognizes as her workout clothes.

Mike groans. "Are you really going to make me come with you?"

"Scared you won't be able to keep up?"

Mike puts on some clothes, digs out running shoes, and clips a leash onto Arnold. Jeff is annoyingly cheerful about it all, and she leads them down to the beach at a fast walk that's clearly meant to be their warm-up.

It's not like Mike hasn't done anything during the lockout, but it's obvious that Jeff's pacing herself slower than usual for him. He pushes himself harder because of it, and after a while, Jeff stops holding back. It means she gets ahead of him, and she turns and jogs backwards.

"Slowpoke."

Mike flips her off because he's breathing too hard to tell her to fuck off. Maybe he can push her into the Pacific.

Jeff laughs and says, "You have to catch me first," like she knows exactly what he's thinking. She probably does.

He doesn't push her into the Pacific, not then, anyway. When they get back to where they started, slowing down into a slower jog, and then a walk, then Mike tackles her into the ocean.

Jeff yells, "You fucker," and pulls him down with her, and Arnold runs into the water barking in excitement at his people rolling around in the waves like he usually does.

All three of them are dripping wet by the time they get home. Mike hoses Arnold off outside while Jeff ducks into the garage to grab a towel to dry him off with. They let Arnold into the house then, and the two of them stop in the garage and strip down to their underwear so they don't drip water all over the house.

Mike runs an assessing eye over Jeff in her sports bra and boyshorts, the same thing he does at the beginning of every season, checking to make sure his team is ready. His eyes catch on her abs, which look unreal, like the kind of thing you only see in ads for miracle weight loss scams.

Mike pokes her stomach. "Really, what did you do during the lockout?"

"Gotta be in shape if we're going to repeat," Jeff says. She pokes Mike's admittedly softer stomach. Not that he doesn't have muscle, but it's a little deeper hidden. "What did you do during the lockout?"

"I skated." Mike goes into the house ahead of her. "And I just have to get pucks to you."

Jeff pauses at the door to leave her keys and get her ring, and then she follows Mike up the stairs laughing.

After three days of too early morning runs and Jeff making Mike wash dishes because she cooked, Mike digs out his ring and starts wearing it around the house. Jeff looks at it the first time she sees it, and Mike, for one of the few times in his life, can't read the look on her face.