“Dating both of us?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Why not?”
I sat there for a long second, chewing on my cheek, trying to make sense of everything that had just come out of our mouths. The idea was insane. On paper, it was completely fucked, but in my chest, it didn’t feel wrong.
She had just come back into my life. After all those years, after all that damage, she’d shown up again, and I’d tasted her mouth and touched her skin and knew, without a doubt, I wasn’t letting go.
The way I loved her wasn’t easy. It was too fucking intense. I gave her fire, heat, and control. She took it and gave it back with teeth.
But... .I never stayed afterward. I never knew how.
Dirks somehow said it like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“She talks to me. After.”
That stuck in my ribs, but not in jealousy. It was the realization that maybe Luna gave him something I’d never had, and maybe he gave her something I couldn’t. I didn’t know what that looked like. I’d never stayed long enough to hear her talk after. Not once.
I wanted her happy. That was all. If that meant sharing her and letting her be everything with someone else too, then what the fuck else could I do?
I finally spoke. “We could date her separately.”
Dirks glanced at me, something flickering in his eyes. Then he nodded. “And together.”
My throat tightened, but I nodded back. “Yeah.”
It sounded crazy. It probably was. But it was honest.
I looked over at him, my heart still thudding, and said quietly, “Then let’s find out.”
The memory faded, slipping back into the noise of the stadium around me.
Watching Dirks, I couldn’t stop thinking about that night in the locker room. About how we saidLet’s find out. About how the three of us became something that didn’t have a name.
The jumbotron lit up, and the crowd roared as it cut to a wide shot of the stands. Camera zooming in. Flashing images of celebrities in attendance. A few local anchors. Some ex-players. And then?—
There she was.
My stomach dropped.
Luna fucking Pierson.
Her blonde hair was pulled up in a loose ponytail now, curls still escaping to frame her face. The collar of her jersey was stretched a little wide. Her skin glowed in the bright stadium lights, her cheeks flushed, red lips parted in a grin that stole the breath from my lungs.
She was waving and laughing while looking directly at the camera. The jersey was Dirks’s number, but it wasn’t the name that got me.
It was the way she looked.
Truly, undeniably happy.
She was right. I did regret what I said.
I regretted every single word I threw at her the day she left. I regretted the drinking, the blow, the nights I chose the high instead of her. I regretted not chasing her when she walked out.
I regretted it all. Every ounce of it sat in my gut like lead while I stared at her face on the screen. I sat there, invisible in the crowd, high up in the stands, while Dirks owned the ice and Luna lit up the screen beside him.
I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
I had lost her.
