"Stop staring at me." Lou's voice drifted from the kitchen, teasing.
"Can't help it. You're staring material."
Lou laughed, that low sound that still made Camille's stomach flutter. "Dinner's almost ready. Set the table?"
They ate at the small kitchen table, Max hovering hopefully at their feet despite knowing he wasn't allowed table scraps. The pasta was perfect—al dente, the sauce rich with tomatoes and herbs and the particular care Lou put into everything she did. Fresh basil from the tiny pot on their windowsill added a brightness that reminded Camille of summer. They talked about the game, about tomorrow's practice, about the camping trip Frankie was planning for the team's off-week.
Normal things. Everyday things. The kind of conversation that would have seemed impossibly boring to the Camille of two years ago but now felt like the greatest luxury she'd ever experienced.
After dinner, they migrated to the sofa—Lou at one end, Camille stretched out with her feet in Lou's lap, Max curled contentedly between them. The television played some documentary neither of them was really watching, the volume low enough to be ambient noise.
Lou's hand rested on Camille's ankle, her thumb tracing absent circles against the bone. The touch was familiar,grounding, an anchor in the comfortable domesticity they'd built together.
"Hey." Lou's voice was quiet, different somehow. "Can you sit up for a second?"
Camille shifted, swinging her legs off Lou's lap and sitting up properly. Lou was looking at her with an unfamiliar expression—nervous, maybe, or excited, or some combination of both.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Lou reached into her jacket pocket—the jacket she'd been wearing all evening despite the warmth of the house—and pulled out a small velvet box.
Camille's heart stopped.
"Camille Laurent-Dubois." Lou slid off the sofa, lowering herself to one knee on the carpet, Max watching with his head tilted in confusion. "I spent thirty-four years thinking I wasn't the kind of person who got to have this. A home. A partner. A life that felt like it belonged to me instead of just happening around me."
Her voice caught, and Camille's eyes burned with tears she couldn't stop.
"Then you walked into that locker room and demanded my attention, and everything changed. You changed me. Made me brave in ways I didn't know I could be. Made me believe that I deserved love, and happiness, and a future with someone who sees all of me and loves me anyway."
Lou opened the box with trembling fingers. Inside, a sapphire ring gleamed in the lamplight—deep blue stone surrounded by diamonds, elegant and unexpected and absolutely perfect. The lamplight caught the facets and scattered tiny rainbows across Lou's face.
"Will you marry me?"
The word came out before Camille could think, before she could analyze or plan or calculate the implications.
"Yes."
Lou's face transformed—relief and joy and love all tangled together in an expression that made Camille's heart ache. She slid the ring onto Camille's finger, the cool metal settling against her skin like it had always belonged there.
"Yes," Camille said again, pulling Lou up from the floor and into her arms. Her voice cracked on the word, tears streaming freely down her face. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes."
They kissed—soft and sweet and full of promise—while Max circled them excitedly, tail wagging at the sudden shift in energy. The ring caught the light when Camille pulled back to look at it, the sapphire glowing like a captured piece of sky.
"It's beautiful," she whispered. "Lou, it's?—"
"It reminded me of your eyes."
Camille laughed, the sound wet with tears. "That's the cheesiest thing you've ever said."
"Get used to it. I'm going to be cheesy for the rest of our lives."
Our lives.The words sank into Camille's bones, warm and solid and more permanent than anything she'd ever known.
Later, they lay in bed together, Max curled at their feet in his usual spot. The sapphire ring caught the moonlight streaming through the curtains, and Camille turned her hand to watch it sparkle against the darkness.
"I've been thinking," Lou said, her voice drowsy. "About the future. About what comes after hockey."
"Lou Calder, thinking about life beyond the ice? Who are you and what have you done with my fiancée?"
