“Okay?”
We aren’t finished with this conversation, but I need time to process it.
“We’re not fixed,” I tell him, pressing my lips together. “But we will be. We’re going to work on it.”
Hope fills his eyes and he nods. “We’re going to work on it. Thank you.”
I want to ask him about the team. I want to ask him not to sell after the season’s over, but the part of me that still wants to make him proud keeps me silent. The Storm can win the Cup. I know they can.
And I’m going to show him.
“Do you still have her summer house?” I ask as we walk back to the arena.
His expression softens. “Oh, yes. Kept it up just the way she had it.”
I should feel more relieved, but I think deep down, I knew he wouldn’t part with it. “With all her records?”
“Mhm.” He nods, smiling more now. “And the twinkle lights across the ceiling.”
“You thought those were so silly.”
“Well, now I see them and I think of her.”
Silence stretches between us as we wait for the light to change.
“You can use it anytime,” he says. “It’s going to you eventually, anyway.”
An idea forms in my head. There’s a week between the end of the third round and beginning of the fourth, if we make it. And if we don’t, well, Tate could use a getaway regardless.
I picture the stars in the sky, so clear and bright without the light pollution from the city.
“I’d like to take you up on that offer.”
CHAPTER 85
TATE
“This was a great idea,”I tell Jordan on the ferry to the island as we lean on the deck railing, gazing at the sea and the mountains rising out of it. Clear blue sky as far as we can see.
“Just wait.” She raises her eyebrows at me, eyes so bright and lovely in the daylight. “You’re sleeping in the hammock outside.”
“Uh-huh. And who are you bunking with?”
“No one. I’m going to stretch out in my old bed.” She sighs, biting back a grin. “No one to take up half the bed. I’m going to get an amazing sleep.”
“Over my dead body are you sleeping alone tonight.”
She chuckles, looking out at the water, and I let my gaze linger on her pretty face, her hair shining in the sun, fluttering in the wind.
The third round of playoffs went to game six, with the Storm advancing to the fourth round. The Stanley Cup finals start in four days. Connor McKinnon’s team hasn’t finished the third round yet, with one game left to go, and we’re reserving judgment on Miller’s ability to play until the day before the final round begins.
All of that is waiting for us back in Vancouver, and yet I’m happy to leave it there until we return, and enjoy this time with Jordan. In a few short months, she has become essential. It’s not just the way my insomnia has vanished. It’s the way I count down the moments until I see her. The way I look forward to her playful littlejabs. The way we fit together, her pushing me until I take what I need from her. How she lets go for me.
The way I think about her being part of our life.
Is she ready for me to tell her how I feel? I’m not sure.
“What?” she asks, giving me a curious side-long look, the corner of her pretty mouth tipping up, and fucking hell, I want to kiss her.
