I respond immediately:
Wouldn’t miss it.
I set the phone down and stare at the kitchen table—the second chair she always takes, the mug she left from the other night, her sweatshirt draped over the backrest.
It already feels like she lives here.
I picture it without hesitation: her things next to mine, Sophie’s laughter echoing down the hall, the twins in her arms.
She’s moving in, but standing here now, it doesn’t feel like enough.
I think about Tom Blake, about the kind of man he is. The one who taught me discipline before I even understood what that word meant. The one who raised the woman who keeps my whole world steady.
Somewhere between exhaustion and clarity, the thought settles deep and sure:
I’m going to ask him.
Not because I have to.
Because I want to.
The Final’s ahead. The kind of future I never saw coming. The woman I can’t imagine any of it without.
Yeah. It’s time.
It’s Friday night, a couple days after Game 2. The buzz still hangs over the city: billboards, radio segments, the kind of energy that doesn’t let you sleep even when you’re dead tired.
Charlotte rides beside me, window cracked, her hair shifting in the breeze. She’s quiet, thoughtful in that way she gets after long days. I rest my hand on her knee at a red light; she threads her fingers through mine and gives a small squeeze.
“How are you feeling?” I ask quietly.
“I’m fine,” she says, smiling faintly. “Just tired. Twins are making their presence known today.”
I glance over, half a smile tugging at my mouth. “They’ve got good timing.”
“They get it from you,” she murmurs, squeezing my hand again.
“And you don’t have to keep adjusting your collar,” she teases softly. “My dad always liked you, remember?”
“That was before I started dating his daughter,” I say.
She laughs. “Just talk hockey. That’s both of your love language.”
We pull into the restaurant lot a few minutes later. Warm light spills through the windows. David’s already there with her dad. I catch the familiar figure immediately: same posture, same steady coach’s presence, just a little more silver at the temples.
Tom stands when we walk in. “Well, if it isn’t Tremayne himself,” he says with a grin that still carries the echo of a whistle.
“Hey, Coach,” I say, shaking his hand. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s been—what—fifteen, sixteen years since I tried to get you to stop over-skating drills?”
“Sounds about right,” I say, laughing. “Didn’t work then, still doesn’t.”
That earns a chuckle.
He claps my shoulder, that same fatherly weight that used to meando better, kid.Now it just feels… steady.
David grins across the table. “I told him you’d still argue your way through a drill if someone gave you a whistle.”
