“You could always help me with that.”His voice drops suggestively.“I seem to remember you being very thorough about my flexibility assessment.”
Heat floods my face.“We're in a public arena.”
“An empty public arena.”
“Jay—”
He kisses me, and I forget what I was going to say.His mouth is warm despite the cold air, and he tastes like Gatorade, victory and home.
When he pulls back, he's smiling at me in that way that makes my heart skip.The way that says he knows exactly what he does to me and plans to exploit it for the rest of our lives.
“Ally Hart,” he says, and something in his voice makes me still.
His hands leave my waist and he skates back slightly until he’s dropping to one knee on the ice.
“Jay—” My voice cracks.
“Let me do this,” he says softly, pulling a small box from his equipment bag that I didn't even notice he'd brought onto the ice.“I've been carrying this around for two months, waiting for the right moment.Thought about doing it at a fancy restaurant.Thought about doing it at Owen's next game.Frankly, I thought about a hundred different perfect scenarios.”
He opens the box.
I gasp when I see the simple silver band that crosses on each side with a subtle heart-shaped diamond in the center.It’s understated and beautiful and so perfectly me.
“But then I realized,” he continues, “that there's no perfect moment with us.There's just...us.Being idiots together.You yelling at me about my recovery schedule.Me convincing you to do inadvisable things in semi-public places.Both of us pretending we're not completely gone for each other when we obviously are.”
My eyes are burning, and I'm trying so hard not to cry because I refuse to be the girl who ugly cries during a proposal, but Jay Cross on his knees on the ice is doing things to my emotional stability.
“You walked into that training room two years ago looking like you'd rather be anywhere else, and I thought 'Finally.There she is.The girl who walked away from me in my freshman year.The one who got away.'“ His voice roughens.“Except you didn't get away this time, and I don't plan on letting you get away ever again.”
“Jay—”
“I love you, Ally Hart.I love your smart mouth and your terrible taste in reality TV and the way you can't resist fixing my tape job even when you're mad at me.I love that you fell asleep on my chest after the best sex of my life and that you checked my thigh one more time before you left because you couldn't help yourself.”He grins.“I love that you're late to my games because you're too busy being brilliant at your own job.I love everything about you, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving it.”
He takes a breath.
“So.Ally Hart.Will you marry me?”
The arena is completely silent except for my heartbeat thundering in my ears.
I look down at this man.This beautiful, ridiculous, persistent man who chased me for years and somehow convinced me to run with him.This man who's currently kneeling on ice in full hockey gear, holding out a ring, looking at me like I'm the answer to every question he's ever had.
“You're supposed to be stretching,” I say, because apparently, I can't handle genuine emotion like a normal person.
He laughs.“Is that a yes?”
“You just played a full playoff game.Your muscles are going to seize up if you stay in that position much longer.”
“Ally.”
“And the ice is cold.You're going to give yourself hypothermia.”
“Ally.”
“Plus, you're probably dehydrated, and your recovery routine specifically calls for—”
“I'm not getting up until you answer me.”His eyes are dancing with amusement, but there's something vulnerable underneath it.Something that reminds me of that night in his apartment when he told me I was the only one he trusted to fix him.
I take a breath.
