“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“For giving me this back. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I was out there again.”
“You should skate more often. You’re incredible on the ice.”
“Maybe I will.” She wears a faint smile.
Kai rushes over, gibbering about ice skates with excitement. You’d think he just discovered King Arthur’s sword in the stone. The little dude is pumped. Mission accomplished, I guess. We go to the Fish Bowl and get a big plate of nachos to share, once more, family style.
Later that night, Kai dozes off on the couch halfway through what he said is his favorite animated movie. I didn’t quite follow the plot, but it involved an orphaned Hawaiian girl and an alien creature she adopts as her dog.
With Bibi’s quilt tucked around him, Nina and I sit on the other end of the couch in the glow of the Knights’ tree. At some point, my arm found its way across her back and her head nestled into the crook of my chest and shoulder.
“He called us his family,” she says softly.
“We are his family,” I reply, and the truth of it settles around us like a hug.
“Lane?”
“Yeah?”
She tips her head up toward me. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
The words hit me like a perfect pass, right in the sweet spot where I can’t miss. I turn to look at her, this incredible woman who’s given me more than I ever thought I deserved.
“I think I fell in love with you the moment you said ‘I do’ in Vegas,” I admit. “I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
“Because it was crazy?”
“Because it was terrifying.” I brush a strand of hair from her face. “Because I’ve never felt this way before.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Not even with Xoe?”
I bristle at the name, wondering how she found out. Then again, our breakup wasn’t exactly private, which likely gave Vinny an ulcer.
“Definitely not. That was something else. Not training wheels, but like I had to experience a bad relationship, what doesn’t work between two people in order to know what does.” The words appear on my lips almost before I think them, but it’s true. “How about you? Any great love stories in your past?”
“No. Just a few sets of training wheels,” she jokes.
Meeting her eyes, I wonder if our connection was actuallylove at first sight when we caught each other’s gaze across the ballroom on New Year’s Eve.
I say, “Before I was afraid to lose. I spent my whole career making calculated moves, doing my best to please my father and protecting myself from injury, from disappointment. Then all of that came, anyway.”
Her chest seems to crater, but that’s not my intention. “And now?”
Smoothing the pad of my thumb over the top of her hand, I add, “The best things in my life—you, Kai, even this trade to Nebraska—came from the unknown. From no longer trying to do things ‘my way.’”
“I get that. I really do.” Her gaze lingers on mine.
My pulse ratchets up.
The space between us closes.
