Then she nudged me gently — but firmly — toward the photo booth curtains.
“Go,” she whispered. “Just for a second. We’ll keep an eye out and pull you when it’s time.”
I frowned. “What—”
The curtain parted.
And there was Shane.
It was the first time I’d seen him since he held me, since his lips were on mine, since I ripped away from him knowing I couldn’t have what he was offering, that we couldn’t take what would ruin us both.
The sight of him now had my heart in my throat.
His hair was styled, perfectly placed, but one rogue strand fell over his forehead. I longed to sweep it away. He wore a tailored charcoal suit, the silver threads of it bringing out the gray in his blue eyes. Those eyes were wide and fixed on me, a thousand questions within them.
He smiled, the corner of his lips tilting up as he made room for me next to him on the small bench.
That smile knocked me back to 2006.
Why was it that my heart clung to that time in my life so fiercely, to the boy who grew into the man before me now? A whole life, I’d lived, and yet nothing made me ache inside the way those two years with him did.
Is that what it meant to have a soul mate?
Did the universe really know I belonged to him in a way I couldn’t anyone else? Did it remind me every time I was nearhim, daring me to leap into the timeline I was meant to live in and abandon the wrong path I’d somehow stumbled so far down?
“Go,” Grace whispered, and with a little nudge of encouragement from her, I slipped inside the booth.
The curtain dropped behind me, the sound of the gala dulling behind it. I didn’t realize how hard I was breathing until that very moment, until my chest heaved, and my ragged breaths lingered in the quiet space between us.
Shane’s eyes flicked between mine, his brows pinching together, throat constricting as he swallowed. Carefully, slowly, he lifted one hand, his fingers catching my hair and brushing it back as he framed my face. His thumb lined my jaw, his fingers curling against my scalp, and tears flooded my eyes instantly.
“Oh, baby,” Shane said, his voice soft and tinged with pain.
The words broke me, and then his lips were on mine.
His other hand came up to join the first, holding me to him as he kissed me long and soft and sweet. There was no passionate urgency like there had been the last time. There was no hesitation or question of permission.
And maybe it was because he knew, just like I did, that the permission was already granted.
I was his to kiss, even if I could never be his at all. My heart beat for him the way his was bound to mine. It didn’t matter if timing and circumstance were against us, if we were locked inside a reality where we couldn’t exist together. We still did. We had to. There was no other choice.
I broke our kiss with a sob breaking free, my hands clutching at the lapels of his suit jacket as I pressed our foreheads together. “I don’t know how I got here,” I whispered. “I… I can’t believe I’m… I’m in the same…”
“Don’t do that,” Shane said, shaking his head. He kissed my forehead before pressing his against mine once more. “This isnot your fault. You hear me? This is not on you. And you don’t have to face it alone.”
“I’m scared.”
The admission leaked out of me in a strained whisper, making fresh tears flood my eyes. Now that I’d voiced it, I’d freed it. The fear and shame burst from the cage I’d locked them in and attacked me, fierce and merciless.
“I know,” he said, his fingers curling in my hair. “I know. But you don’t have to be. Not anymore.”
“How did you know?”
He pulled back, his eyes searching mine. “I didn’t. I still don’t. I won’t until you let me in and tell me everything. But I… I sensed it. I felt it, Ari.” He swallowed. “That’s how it’s always been with us, hasn’t it? Since the first moment we met. I felt you. And you felt me.”
I rolled my lips together, nodding, and when I closed my eyes tightly, more tears rushed down my face. “But there’s nothing we can do. He… heownsme, Shane. He’s tied up in every aspect of my life. And you,” I added, touching his face with reverence like I didn’t want to point out what he might not have yet realized. “If he even knew we dated two decades ago, you’d lose your job. You’d lose hockey.”
“I don’t care.”
