Getting a glimpse into her unfiltered thoughts has my heart lifting. I know she’s attracted to me. That we’re explosive together. But her giving voice to what’s between us sends warmth careening through me, making my heart pound, like it’s reaching out to her, looking for its other half.
“Me too, Wildcat.” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I feel it too.”
She blows out a long breath. “I know. I also know that Brian and Liv’s kitchen is absolutely the wrong place to have this conversation.”
I smile, running a finger over her hand. “Sure is. Although, Liv already knows, and she’s solidly Team Maddy and Cam.”
Maddy shakes her head and laughs. “I know. She won’t tell Brian though. She’s good like that.” A shadow passes over her face. “Brian can’t know. At least not yet. I mean, I don’t know if there’s anything for him to know, but if there is, he can’t. Not now.”
I nod, understanding her reasoning even though I’m dying to tell everyone. To claim her so that everyone knows she’s mine. “Then he won’t. And Maddy…” I lay one of my hands on the side of her neck, skimming my thumb over her jaw. “There is definitely something here. A big, important something here. Something that we’ll get to tell everyone about, when you’re ready.”
I have the fleeting thought that I should be more hesitant about this. That I should be wondering what this means for my kids, thinking about the importance of my first major relationship since Lainey died and being slow and careful about it all. But nothing in me feels even a little slow or careful about Maddy. Everything inside me feels wild. Impatient. Like the rest of my life is standing in front of me and all I have to do is reach out and grab it for it to be mine.
“So, what now?” Maddy asks, and I realize I’ve probably been silent for a little too long.
I shrug, taking a step to the side and turning on the water just as the song switches to “River Deep, Mountain High” and Ismile, thinking of Maddy driving her Jeep just a little too fast, this song pouring out of the open windows. “Now we do the dishes, and we eat cookies.”
“That simple, huh?”
I study her for a second and realize that, despite all the complications, it can be as simple as that. Dishes. Cookies. Family. Life. Her. Me. Leaning down, I kiss her cheek and grin when she flushes again. “Yeah, Wildcat. That simple.”
And for the rest of the day, it is.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MADDY
“Jesus, Little Red,” my dad says as I whip my Jeep into a parking spot at the Lightning practice arena. “This isn’t the Indy 500.”
“Too fast for you, old man?” I ask innocently, cutting the engine and giving him a wicked smile.
He scoffs, opening his door and getting out of the car, grabbing his hockey bag from the back. “Who are you calling old? I just skated this morning and here I am in the afternoon, about to skate with you again. Would an old person do that?”
Jingling the disco balls on my rearview mirror for good luck, I sigh, grabbing my own hockey bag and following my dad to the arena doors. “I miss skating early in the morning. What’s the fucking point of having a literal key to the arena from my famous dad if I can’t use it to skate before the sun comes up?”
My dad tosses an arm around my shoulders as we push through the doors. “I know how much you love an early morning skate. You can still do it, you know. You can work your schedule around it.”
I shrug, adjusting the bag slung over my shoulder. “A lot of the guys get in super early to get a workout in, and they like to come and see me after. I like to be there for them when they need me, and for some of them, early morning is that time.”
“I’m proud of you, you know. You’re doing amazing things there already.”
I shrug, even as I feel a shot of pride at my dad’s words. He’s my favorite person in the world, and knowing that he sees what I’m trying to do means everything. “I couldn’t do it without you. You’re my OG inspiration.”
He kisses the top of my head. “I love you big, you know. And that’s all I’m going to say unless you want me to lose my shit completely and turn into a very teary puddle of emotion right here in this arena.”
I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder and smiling. Jeremy Wright, the big, bad former professional hockey player, is actually a total marshmallow when it comes to the people he loves. It’s the very best thing about him. “In fact, I do know that. And if you want to turn into a teary puddle of emotion, you know I would be here for it.”
We come to a stop at the wall of glass separating the rink from the arena lobby and pause, like we always do before we walk through the doors and out onto the ice. My dad looks down at me, face tight with emotion. And just like every time we’re here, I know he’s thinking of the first time we stood at this door together, just him, my mom, and me.
My dad was one of the best centers the Lightning had ever seen until a bad hit during a game left him with a shattered kneecap, a mess of torn ligaments, and an early retirement. Even after he was healed enough to put on skates, his grief for what he lost was a massive wall preventing him from getting back on the ice. But when he and my mom started dating—right around the time I came to live with her—she saw how badly he needed skating back in his life. One day she and I surprised him at therink with brand new skates, and we both held his hand as he took his first steps back onto the ice in fifteen years.
I think, more than any other, that was the day we became a family.
My dad coached my hockey teams for years, and we’ve skated together hundreds of times since, but I know that neither of us will ever forget that day. That day changed us. Changed me. It was the day my mom and dad made their relationship official, even though I know now that nothing between them had ever been casual. And it was the day I understood, for the first time in my life, that home wasn’t just a place. Sometimes home is a person, and I found my home in Emma Langley and Jeremy Wright. After that day on the ice, we belonged to each other, and we have every single day since.
“Looks like we’ve got some company.” My dad’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts, and I glance out at the ice, my stomach bottoming out when I catch sight of a very familiar head of messy brown hair right in the middle of the rink.
Cam.
