"She's winning," he admits, following my gaze. "But I refuse to let her have the last word."
We eat at his dining table, simple pasta with fresh herbs from the garden box on his balcony. The food is perfect, but it's the conversation that feeds something deeper in me. We don't talk about hockey or marketing or the impossible tightrope we're walking at work. Instead, he asks about my childhood, about what I wanted to be before I discovered I had a gift for turning passion into profit margins.
"A teacher," I admit, twirling pasta around my fork. "Elementary school. I wanted to be the adult who made kids feel safe and seen."
"What changed?"
I think about it, really think about it, instead of giving him the polished answer I've perfected for networking events.
"My dad left when I was nine. Mom fell apart for two years. Someone had to keep the lights on, make sure Easton ate breakfast, forge Mom's signature on permission slips." I shrug, but it doesn't feel casual. "I got good at managing crises. Turned out there was a career in it."
Garrett's hand finds mine across the table, his thumb tracing slow circles on my knuckles. The touch is gentle, grounding.
"I'm sorry," he says, and I can tell he means it. "That's too much responsibility for a kid."
"Maybe. But it taught me that I could survive anything. That I was strong enough to rebuild when everything fell apart." I meet his eyes. "What about you? What did you want to be before hockey chose you?"
He laughs, and the sound fills his loft with warmth. "A chef. Seriously. I was obsessed with cooking shows, used to drive my mom crazy experimenting in the kitchen. Hockey was just something I was good at, but cooking... that felt like magic."
"You still cook."
"Still love it. There's something about creating something nourishing from nothing. About the precision and patience it requires." He pauses, considering. "Maybe it's not so different from hockey. Both require timing, practice, understanding how all the pieces work together."
We talk about his grandmother—fierce, tiny woman who taught him to read and bake bread and never let him get away with anything. About the farm where he grew up, the weight of being the oldest son, the pressure of carrying a family's hopes on his shoulders from the time he was sixteen.
I tell him about Easton, about watching my brother grow into this massive, protective force who still worries about me like I'm made of glass. About the loneliness of being the smartest person in most rooms, the exhaustion of always having to prove I belong.
The wine disappears. The candles burn lower. The jazz shifts from melancholy to sultry, and somewhere between his story about accidentally dying the team's laundry pink and my confession about organizing a protest for better vegetarian options in my college cafeteria, we migrate to the couch.
It happens naturally, like gravity. One moment we're sitting on opposite ends, talking and laughing, and the next I'm curled against his side, his arm around my shoulders, feeling safer than I have in months.
"This is nice," I murmur against his chest, breathing in the clean scent of his soap and something indefinably him.
"Yeah." His voice is rough with something deeper than contentment. "It is."
He tips my chin up with gentle fingers, and I see the exact moment the evening shifts. His eyes are dark, intense, focused entirely on my face like I'm the only thing in his universe.
When he leans down to kiss me, it's filled with comfort and peace. This is slow, deliberate, reverent. His lips are soft and sure, and when I part mine with a soft sigh, he deepens the kiss with a thoroughness that makes my toes curl.
This isn't stolen. This isn't desperate. This is chosen.
His hand slides into my hair, angling my head as he explores my mouth with a patience that sets every nerve ending on fire. I can taste the wine on his tongue, feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my palm where it rests on his chest.
For the first time since this started, there's no clock ticking in my head. No fear of footsteps in the hallway or doors swinging open. Just this—his hands in my hair, his mouth on mine, the perfect weight of him surrounding me like a sanctuary.
I'm drowning in the sensation, in the rightness of being here with him, when his phone buzzes loudly on the coffee table.
The sound cuts through our bubble like a knife. We break apart instantly, the spell shattered, reality crashing back with brutal efficiency.
The screen lights up, and I see the name before Garrett can grab it.
Easton
Just finished film review. You still at the rink?
A wave of dizziness washes over me. The professional panic floods back—ice-cold and immediate. Easton at the rink, looking for his teammate. His teammate who's supposed to be laying low and focusing on the game, not entertaining his sister in his apartment like some kind of romantic retreat.
"Sorry," Garrett breathes, reading the message.
