I grin back, pulling her close as we walk. "They've been waiting for an occasion special enough. Get ready, McKenzie."
She laughs, the sound bright and unguarded, and takes my arm with the kind of easy trust that makes my chest tight with gratitude. "Dinner sounds perfect. Though I should warn you—I'm starving. Destroying corporate empires works up an appetite."
The elevator arrives with a soft chime, its polished interior reflecting our joined image like a preview of our future. When the doors slide shut, the sudden privacy wraps around us like a cocoon, intimate and charged with possibility.
"Garrett," Sloane says, turning to face me fully. The warrior is gone. In her place is the woman I fell in love with—brilliant and fierce and beautifully, perfectly human.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you." Her voice carries the weight of everything we've been through, everything we've overcome. "For trusting me to fight my own battles. For being my partner."
The elevator descends through the floors, carrying us from the corporate stratosphere back toward earth, backtoward the real world where we'll have to figure out how to be together without secrets, without hiding, without shame.
"Thank you," I reply, "for giving me the chance to get it right. For seeing who I was trying to become instead of just who I'd been."
Her hand finds mine in the space between us, fingers threading together with the perfect fit of puzzle pieces finally finding their proper place. "I want to try again," she says quietly. "Not hiding. Not pretending we're just colleagues. I want to try being us. Really us."
The elevator slows as we approach the main floor, and through the small window, I can see the expansive lobby of the Mammoth Center opening before us. In thirty seconds, those doors will part, and we'll step out into the public space where our relationship will be visible to anyone who cares to look.
"Are you ready for that?" I ask, studying her face for any trace of hesitation. "For everyone to know? For all the speculation and gossip and judgment that comes with being public?"
Her smile is radiant, fearless. "I'm ready to stop being afraid of what other people think about my choices. I'm ready to be with the man I love without apology or explanation." She squeezes my hand. "I'm ready to be proud of us."
The elevator chimes softly as we reach the ground floor. Through the gap in the doors, I can see the soaring space of the lobby beyond—marble floors that reflect the afternoon light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows, the distant sounds of the arena coming to life for tonight's game, the normal flow of staff and visitors moving through the space that houses our dreams.
As the doors begin to part, something settles in my chest—a deep, abiding certainty that feels like coming home after a long journey through hostile territory. This woman beside me isn't just my girlfriend or my lover. She's my partner in every sense of the word. My equal. My match. The person who makes me better not by completing me, but by challenging me to become the man worthy of standing beside her.
The lobby opens before us like a stage, and without hesitation, without fear, without the slightest trace of shame, our hands remain laced together.
The simple gesture feels like a declaration of war against everyone who ever tried to make us smaller. Let them see. Let them talk. Let them judge. We're done hiding, done apologizing for taking up space in each other's lives.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Ready," she says.
We step out of the elevator together, hand in hand, into the bright expanse of our future. The afternoon sun streams through the massive windows, casting everything in golden light that makes the ordinary lobby feel like a cathedral celebrating new beginnings.
I can feel eyes on us as we cross the marble floor—staff members doing double takes, visitors recognizing the familiar face of the team's alternate captain, the whispered speculation that follows in our wake. But none of it matters. For the first time since this all began, the judgment of strangers feels irrelevant compared to the weight of her hand in mine.
We push through the main doors together, and Minneapolis opens before us like a promise. The city air carries the scent of possibility and change, and I realize this isn't really an ending at all.
It's a beginning.
The drive to my loft passes in comfortable conversation about everything and nothing—her plans for restructuring the partnerships division, my thoughts on the upcoming road trip, whether Steve will adjust well to a new environment. Normal couple things. The kind of easy back-and-forth that makes the ordinary feel precious.
The door swings open and she steps inside. I close it behind her, the soft click echoing in the sudden, charged silence, sealing us off from the world.
She drops her briefcase by the door, the sound loud in the quiet room. The work is done.
A soft, familiar smile touches her lips as she looks around. She wanders toward the mantel, her fingers gently tracing the glass of the ridiculous little Zamboni snow globe. "I missed this place," she says, her voice quiet.
Having her here again, not as a storm refugee but as my partner, changes the very air in the room. The loft finally feels complete.
She turns to face me, and the warrior from the boardroom is gone. In her place is just Sloane, her green eyes shining with unshed tears of relief and victory. I don't know what to say, what words could possibly capture the immensity of what she just accomplished, of what I feel for her.
"You were..." is all I manage to get out, my voice thick with emotion.
That's all it takes. She meets me halfway, her hands coming up to frame my face as my own find her waist, pulling her flush against me.
