I choose love. I choose joy. I choose adventure and laughter andhim.
“Thank you for being so patient with me,” I whisper.
“It’s what you do for the people you love. And Addie Bloom, I love you more than I ever have or ever will love anyone or anything else.”
If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be madly in love with Duncan Lavoie and happy about it, I would’ve laughed until I cried.
But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here, with him, peppering his face with kisses and whisperingI love youuntil he straightens, carrying me into his bedroom and making me feel like a dainty, delicate flower.
We still have things to deal with and issues to overcome, but for the first time in my life, I believe in love.
I believe we’re supposed to be together.
And I finally believe in happy endings.
28
Duncan
Only thingbetter than winning a game is leaving the locker room afterward to find my girlfriend wearing my jersey and waiting for me in the family room at the arena.
“I’m sorry, who was that complaining that he was old this morning?” she asks with a grin as she lifts herself the few inches necessary to press a kiss to my lips. “Because that guy out there on the ice tonight looked about twenty-three.”
I grab her around the waist and spin her in a hug. “One of the rookies was telling you he felt old this morning? When? Which one? I’ll have a talk with him.”
“You two are gross,” Paisley says.
“But it’s a cute gross,” my sister replies.
She gets the next hug. My family’s visiting for American Thanksgiving.
So is Addie’s.
I’m getting the brother glare times four.
All of them are in Minnesota jerseys.
It’s funny as hell.
“How’d you like the front-row seats?” I ask them as Addie introduces me to all of them, their wives, and their kids.
They don’t answer.
Her brothers don’t, anyway.
They just keep staring.
I try to suck in a smile and fail. “You know you have nothing on your sister when it comes to intimidation factor, right?”
It’s safe to say Addie’s sisters-in-law like me far more than her brothers do.
I’m good with that.
We all head out to Chester Green’s, the sports bar dedicated to all things Thrusters, for a postgame drink, where Nick and Kami, Ares and Felicity, Zeus and Joey, and some other old teammates are waiting.
I stop at the bar and order drinks. When I get to the table, Felicity and Kami have already cornered Addie. Paisley’s grilling Zeus about Joey’s airplane. My sister is chatting with Addie’s sisters-in-law, and Ares and Nick are staring down Addie’s brothers.
I shove between Addie and Kami, who lights up. “Duncan! I saw the cutest dog today. Shelter guy. Total mutt. He needs a new home.”
