He kisses me again, deeper, before he pulls himself back, takes a deep breath, and hauls me up the ladder.
“Come on.” He takes my hand. “Let’s get you warmed up, and then I’ll make you breakfast.”
CHAPTER 88
JORDAN
After dinner,as the sun goes down and the stars appear in the sky, Tate and I sit on the deck with his arm around me, listening to the sound of the water against the shore.
“My mom would have loved this,” I tell him, and his eyes soften.
“The summer house?”
“All of it. Me working for the team. Me and my dad.” Figuring things out, slowly. “You and me.”
Finding somewhere I belong, where I’m not just sitting in the background, listening in on the periphery of where good things happen.
Tate makes a low, pleased noise in his throat. He presses a warm kiss to my temple, and I am so full. I am full right to the top, overflowing with this feeling.
So this is what they all have. This is why they all act like that at the bar, all heart-eyed and dopey with each other.
His eyes lift to the stars and the corner of his mouth hitches more.
“There she is,” he murmurs, and when I give him a questioning look, he points to a cluster of stars. “Beside the Big Dipper. See it?” He brings his head beside mine, pointing it out. “The Little Fox. There’s the head, the body, and the tail.”
My eyes linger on the sky, on the sparkling pinpoints of light. “You’ve been looking for it.”
I’ve caught him glancing up to the sky for weeks now. On thedrive home after games. After dinner in the living room. Late, in his bed, as we’re falling asleep.
He nods. “I knew she’d show up. I just had to be patient.”
My heart twists and I can’t look away from the deep, affectionate green of his eyes.
“Guarded and nervous by nature. Solitary.” He gives me a knowing look, and I narrow my eyes. “Clever, highly intuitive, and resourceful. Playful.”
I’m smiling a little. “I’m not the fox.”
He laughs. “You’re the fox, Jordan.”
A silly, warm feeling grows throughout me that I get my own constellation, right beside him and Bea. We’re meant to be, aren’t we? It’s written in the stars.
A moment passes where our gazes hold, and emotion rises in his eyes.
He blows out a heavy exhale, running his hand through his hair. “I’m in love with you, Jordan. And I think you might be in love with me, too.”
My heart pounds, in terror at being found out and so utterly transparent. At standing on a cliff’s edge while the wind picks up.
Also, with relief, because I don’t have to pretend anymore.
“I’ll wait,” he says. “A decade. A lifetime. You’re worth it.Weare worth it.”
“What about Bea? What if it doesn’t work out?” I breathe, barely able to get the words out. It’s the last reality I’d ever want for any of us, but especially her.
He nods to himself. “I want to protect my daughter from getting hurt.”
My heart sinks. Well, there you go.
“But I also want to teach my daughter courage, to take a risk for what matters. I want to show her that I matter, too, so that one day, when she’s grown, maybe with a kid of her own, she’ll know she matters, too.”
