We stand there, wrapped up in each other, swaying slightly to a beat of our own. The world outside may be thawing from a storm, but inside this house, something else is warming, blooming, settling into place. It feels right.
After a long moment, she tilts her head back to look up at me. “So… how was practice. Did we come up?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I’d say we did.”
“What does that mean?” She grins.
I shrug. “Jaden knew. So did everyone else.”
“Just like we figured.”
“Yep.”
“They’re all happy and supportive, of course. Lots offinallys,but we knew we’d get that.”
She laughs. “Perfect.”
I brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear and let my thumb trace her jawline.
“I’m really glad you’re mine,” I murmur.
Her breath catches, her cheeks flushing. “I’m really glad you’re mine, too.”
I kiss her slowly and sweetly, and the realization hits me hard—whatever I replayed in my head on the ice today, as good as those memories were, nothing holds a candle to the real thing.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
MIRANDA
My hands tighten and loosen on the steering wheel in the same repetitive motion. The constant clenching is starting to make my fingers cramp. I check my rear-view mirror, my side-view mirrors, the speedometer, and the space between me and the car in front of me. Then I repeat the cycle. And repeat it again and again.
Miles sits beside me, giving a steady stream of encouragement, but I'm not absorbing a single word of it. I can’t. I simply have to focus.
And it’s working because I’m actually doing this.
Red light? I stop.
Green light? I go.
Cars around me? I don’t hit any of them.
Should a simple drive home from the grocery store be an epic feat? For most people, absolutely not. But the grocery store we went to is six miles away, and now I am two blocks from home—and guess what?
Not a single person has honked at me.
No one has swerved or glared.
We have not almost died even once.
It’s almost too good to be true, and my chest fills with giddy excitement because I cannot wait to pull into our driveway and end this triumph before the universe realizes its mistake.
One more block.
A child rides her bike along the sidewalk to my right. Now that the snow has melted and spring is threatening, Michiganders have emerged from their winter hibernation like eager woodland creatures. People are everywhere. While I normally find that adorable, today it’s one more obstacle that I, a newly competent driver, must avoid flattening.
But I’m doing it.
