Her face softens. He forces a smirk, a breath of dry air into the heaviness.
“And don’t get me wrong,” he adds, “you’re still annoying. And your handwriting is awful.”
Naomi lets out a surprised laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
The knot that’s been lodged between his ribs for weeks loosens—but only a little. He doesn’t smile. Not yet. But his pulse has finally stopped trying to punch through his throat.
Naomi’s biting her lip again, the corner of her mouth twitching. “How’d you find me?”
He winces, dragging a hand down his face. “Carter.”
“Of course.”
“Told me to pull my head out of my ass,” Garrett mutters. “Then let slip where you’d be. Guess I listened for once.”
Naomi’s smile turns sly. “So you waited outside Huck’s? Hid in the shadows like a very conspicuous stalker?”
Garrett looks over at her, letting his gaze drag over her face. “Turns out, tattooed men lurking in corners makes people nervous.”
“Can’t imagine why. You’re so friendly.”
He smirks. “Worked though. You’re here.”
She gives him a look—wary, amused, a little breathless—and suddenly the air in the cab feels heavier. Denser.
When she speaks again, her voice is softer. “You really waited that long?”
Garrett shrugs, eyes fixed on the windshield. “I would have waited all night.”
“I stalked you, too,” she blurts, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. “I missed you so much I watched grainy press conference footage just to hear your voice. I was zooming in on blurry highlight reels like some kind of forensic analyst. It was bad.”
That does it.
He turns toward her. Her lips part, chest rising with each breath. Her coat slips off one shoulder, revealing the pale curve of her collarbone. He drinks in the delicate line of her throat, the soft skin he hasn’t stopped thinking about.
His voice is rough. “Say it again.”
She blinks. “Say what?”
“That you missed me.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she leans in, her fingers brushing his arm where it rests on the center console. The contact jolts straight through him, white-hot.
“I missed you, Tall,” she says softly. “I wrote, like, fifty apology texts and deleted every single one because I was too chickenshit to send them.”
His throat works as he swallows. That same ache—inconvenient, completely unstoppable—pushes up through his chest.
“Stop calling me that,” he mutters. “My teammates call me Tall.”
Her brows lift. “What should I call you, then?”
His voice is low. “Garrett. I want to hear you say my name.”
The engine rumbles to life as he starts the truck, but the silence between them vibrates with everything unspoken.
For the first time in weeks, it doesn’t feel like he’s unraveling. It feels like he might finally get somewhere he wants to stay.
He clears his throat. “Bet you wrote that note just to get under my skin,” he says gruffly, grip tightening on the wheel as he turns out of the lot.
