"I won tonight," he said finally. "I landed every jump. Twelve thousand people watched me do something no one else could do." His hand spread flat against my stomach. "I earned this."
"I'm not a medal, Joel. I'm not something you earn. I'm not a prize for landing your jumps." I squeezed his hand. "I'm here because I want to be. Not because you won."
His breath caught.
"I'd be here even if you fell on every jump," I said.
He didn't say anything for a long time. His fingers tightened around mine.
Then he kissed me slowly, like he was learning something new. I kissed him back the same way, and it was terrifying how much I wanted this. I wanted his hand in mine in the dark, his breath mixing with my breath, the quiet. I wanted the ordinary thing more than the heat, and that scared me more than anything else we'd done.
He pulled back but stayed close, his forehead against mine.
"I want—" He stopped. Started again. "This. More of this."
"Joel—"
"I know you can't—" He stopped again. His jaw worked. "I'm not asking you to. I just."
He couldn't finish it. Joel, who always had words, who could cut someone apart with a sentence, couldn't finish telling me what he wanted.
His hand found my face in the dark, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. "I want to know you'll answer when I text. I want to see you more than once every few months. I want—" He stopped. Swallowed. "Whatever you can give me. I'll take whatever you've got."
My chest went tight. He wasn't asking me to come out. He wasn't asking me to choose between him and hockey. He was just asking me to be real about this, to stop treating it like something that would disappear if we didn't name it.
"There's something," I said. "There's a lot of something."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." I turned my head and kissed his palm. "I don't know what it looks like yet. But it's there."
We fell asleep tangled together. I woke up once around four with his arm still around my waist and his face pressed into my shoulder, and I lay there in the dark listening to him breathe.
My alarm went off at five-thirty. I reached for my phone to silence it, and Joel's arm tightened, pulling me back against him.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled into my neck.
"I'll miss my flight."
"Take a later one."
"I have practice tomorrow."
He groaned but let me go. I sat up and he rolled onto his back, watching me through half-closed lids. His hair was wrecked, sticking up on one side, and he looked younger like this. Less armored.
"Text me when you land," he said.
"I will." I leaned down and kissed him. He kissed me back like he was trying to memorize it.
I grabbed my clothes and got dressed while he watched from the bed. At the door, I looked back. He was still lying there, sheets pooled around his waist, the medal glinting on the nightstand beside him.
"Hey," he said.
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you stayed."
"Me too."
