“You froze your career.”
“I have time.”
“You froze your ears,” I whispered, brushing my thumb over his cheekbone.Ice cold.“Where’s your hat?”
Luke ignored the question.He reached into his hoodie pocket, his hand trembling as it pulled out something.
“I carried this for four days,” he whispered, his voice rough.“I didn’t want to look at it, but I couldn’t put it down.”
He reached out and pressed the puck into my gloved hand.
“It belongs on your shelf, Austen.Nowhere else.”
He turned his face into my palm.“Take me home, Austen.Please.”
Home.
Not the dorm.Home.
“Okay,” I said.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t like the first time in the dark, tentative and testing.And it wasn’t like the desperate, hidden kisses in the hotel room.
This was an anchor.Heavy and sure and claimed everything.He kissed me like he was trying to breathe for both of us.He kissed me like he was rewriting the last four days.
I buried my hands in his wind-tangled hair, pulling him down.His arms wrapped around me, crushing the air out of my lungs, lifting me off my toes.Messy and desperate and cold—teeth clashing, noses bumping—but the heat radiating between us was enough to melt the ice on the creek below.
I tasted the salt of his tears and the coffee on his breath.I felt the shudder run through him as he let go.
When we broke apart, he was shivering violently.Adrenaline crash.
We stood there, foreheads pressed together, breathing clouds into the frozen air.“I thought you were gone,” I whispered.“I thought I’d calculated it all wrong.”
“You calculated it right,” he said.“I was just too scared to run the proof.”
I pulled back enough to look at him.His face was red from cold and crying, his hair a disaster.He looked terrible.He looked like everything I wanted.
“I need you to understand something,” I said.“I’m not going to be a secret anymore.If we do this—if we iterate—it has to be real.Public.Named.”
“I know.”He didn’t hesitate.“I’m done hiding.Even if it costs me.”
“It might.”
“You’re worth more than the cost.”
“Car’s over there,” he chattered, jerking a thumb toward the curb.
“You parked in a tow zone.”
“I didn’t care.”
I grabbed his hand—intertwining fingers.“Let’s get you out of the wind before you get frostbite and I have to explain to Harper why her starter is compromised.”
We reached the truck.I pushed him into the passenger seat because his hands were shaking too hard to drive.
I got in the driver’s side.The engine was still warm.I started the truck and the heater blasted, slowly thawing us.Luke had his head back against the seat, eyes closed, but his hand was on my thigh—anchoring, not hiding.
