“And you deserve Cam,” my brother says, laying a hand on mine. Hearing Cam’s name makes my stomach clench, thinking for the millionth time about how I left him. All the days in between then and now. “If you want him. Do you?”
I nod. “So fucking much. I…” I hesitate, wondering if maybe I should say these words to Cam first. But these people are my people. My family. They deserve to hear it too. “I love him. I love Riley and Ethan, too, and I want them all to be mine. To be ours,” I say, looking around the circle. Because they won’t just belong to me, they’ll belong to my family. To all the people who love me and who will love them too. “The way I ran.” I stop and shake my head. “I just hope he still wants me.”
“He does.” The two words come from every single person currently sprawled out on this ice, and they all laugh. The sound lifts the rest of the burden I’ve been carrying and god, I don’t know how I could have lost sight of all of this. I know it’s not this easy. I know I have some pretty deep trauma I have to work through, and I probably have some time on a therapist’s couch coming my way. But right now, all I want is to be right here. In this place. With these people.
“Mads, that man is head over fucking heels for you,” Oliver says.
“How do you know?”
He grins at me. “I may have gone with Ty and Drew to Cam’s house on Friday. He told me himself.”
Sophie raises her hand. “Can confirm. Ty said Cam is practically a World War II wife staring out the window waiting for her husband to return from battle. He’s gone for you, Maddy. That man is yours.”
Mine.
Cam is mine. Ethan and Riley are mine.
Suddenly, the distance between them and me is entirely unacceptable. I need to get to them.
Now.
“I have to go.” I shoot to my feet, wobbling on my skates and practically tripping over a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
“Woah there, Little Red. Respect the Crunch.” My dad rescues the box, standing too. “Where are you going?”
“To Cam. I need to go tell him I love him. I know the game is starting soon, but I don’t care. I need to do this right now.”
“Fuck yes, I love a grand gesture!” Sophie stands and slides her way around to me. “What?” she says as we all look at her. “Ty and I have been on a real nineties rom-com kick lately. A grand gesture always slaps.”
“I have the best idea!” Emmy and Sarah say in unison.
“Same.” Maya looks at Emmy and Sarah. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The three of them trade looks and have an entire silent conversation the rest of us aren’t privy to. I bounce on my toes, feeling like if I don’t get out of here and into Cam’s arms in the next two minutes, I’m going to lose my shit.
“What?” I finally say. I eye them just a little warily because knowing these three, their idea could be anything between a simple, private love declaration to hiring a plane to write the words on the sky over the stadium. They’re unpredictable like that.
Maya gives me a bright grin. “Got a Renegades jersey?”
CHAPTER FORTY
CAM
“That’s the way to fucking do it!” Tyler pulls off his helmet and slaps Drew’s shoulder as we head off the field after Drew’s forty-yard reception right into the end zone.
“That pass?” Drew smacks a kiss to his fingers. “Perfection, my beautiful bestie. A thing of fucking beauty.”
“I know,” Tyler says with a grin, running a hand through his floppy mess of brown waves. “I’m the best quarterback to ever quarterback. Bring me the finest grilled cheeses and the coldest ginger ale in all the land.”
Drew laughs, swinging an arm around Tyler’s shoulders and ruffling his hair with the other hand. “Keep throwing like that for the rest of this game and I’ll come over and make the grilled cheese for you myself.”
Tyler flops down onto the bench and grabs a water bottle, squirting a stream into his mouth. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Thanks for the block.” He looks up at me. “Their defensive tackles are fucking tanks, and they’re out for blood today.”
I just nod because the truth is, it was a lucky block. Every single thing I’ve done right in this game has been by musclememory and sheer dumb luck alone because my brain isn’t anywhere on this field right now. Instead, it’s where it has been for the last five months—with the gorgeous, freckled redhead who has tipped my life upside down and reshaped it into something so incredible it doesn’t even seem possible that I could be living it.
Who has made me believe in things I didn’t think existed anymore, at least not for me. Things like a soul-deep love. The kind that alters your DNA, reshaping you into someone wholly different and entirely better than you were before. Things like forever because god, I want forever with her.
Who has loved my kids and, more importantly, has taken the time to know my kids just as much as she’s taken the time to know me.
