Holly’s breath stopped. It washer.
Notnow.Not the ballroom assassin in rhinestones with her name in the credits. It was a gangly teenage girl with braces in an old leotard, hair scraped back, face flushed with exertion and joy, caught mid-laugh like someone had told her the future would be kind. The photo looked worn at the edges, as if it’d traveled. Beenloved.
She stared at it so hard her eyes stung, because she knew that photo so well. It had lived in her mom’s purse since the day it’d been printed. And she’d given it tohim.
“Nate…” she whispered, because what else was there? How did you speak around something like this?
His thumb brushed her knuckles. “Flip it.”
Her hands shook as she turned it over.
There it was on the back, in messy, masculine, ink pressed deep like it had been written with force.
Picked my star. It’s always been you.
Holly felt it like a gut punch and made a humiliating sound. A broken little inhale that turned into a sob before she could stop it.
“Jesus,”she choked, every version of her who’d clawed and scraped andfoughtto be good enough collapsing into one breathless moment. Confetti landed on the photo. She didn’t even brush it off. Her lungs forgot how to work. Tears blurred the ink, the edges, the whole damn world.
Nate had looked panicked for half a second as if maybe he’d accidentally offered her a grenade instead of a gift. Holly made a sound that might’ve been a laugh and a cry at the same time and then shelunged.
She slammed into him like a tackle, arms wrapping around his neck as she clung to him with the desperate force of someone who’d been starving and didn’t know she was allowed to eat. Nate staggered back a step but caught her like he always did. When she buried her face against his shoulder, she realized he was shaking too.
“You—” she tried, but the words kept dissolving into sobs. “You absolute—what thefuck, Nate!”
He laughed sheepishly. “Is that… good?”
She yanked back just enough to glare at him through tears, mascara probably bleeding into her soul. “You’re such anidiot,”she cried, furious at him for being this kind. Furious at herself for nearly missing it. “You’re such a—” her voice cracked. “Stupidbeautiful idiot.”
She reached into the bodice of her raspberry-red dress and pulled out her own photograph. Young Nate. Oversized jersey. All grin. She pressed it to his chest, right above his heart.
“He’s still in there,” she whispered, voice breaking on a smile. “I made sure.”
Nate glanced down with a slightly confused frown, took the photo, and turned it so he could see it properly. For a split second, he looked like he couldn’t breathe. For a moment they just stood there with two hopeful children held between them. Proof of who they had been… and who they had chosen to become.
When Nate lifted his gaze to hers his eyes glassy, and it destroyed her. Because this was the man who’d been told he was only good for damage. Who kept thinking love would flinch away from him. Holly cupped his face with shaking hands, thumb brushing over the corner of his mouth like she was proving he was real. And then she pressed up onto her toes and kissed him.
It was messy, wet with tears and laughter, her hands fisted in his tux like she needed to keep him in the world. Nate made a sound that was half sob, half groan before he pulled her closer, kissing her back like he’d been waiting his whole life for permission.
The crowd screamed louder when they saw it. The cameras flashed like paparazzi strobe lights. Indie’s voice ricocheted through the studio: “OH MY GOD! THEY’RE DOING IT! THEY’RE KISSING, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
Holly didn’t care. Nate pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, their breaths tangling. Years of internal independencespeeches, undone by one emotionally literate hockey player.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“No,”she laughed through her tears. “I’m ruined.”
Nate grinned, that wide, playful fucking grin of his that brought her full circle to the day he’d walked into cast orientation. “Good.”
Holly realized with awe that this was the payoff. Not the trophy, or the applause. Not even the money.
It was how Nate held her like she was his favorite thing in the world and he couldn’t believe he got to keep her. Looking down at that ink on the back of the photo and finally believing she deserved to be someone’s star. The way the fear was still there, but outweighed by so much more than she’d ever dreamed of having. So she kissed him again, just because she could.
And below the Hollywood lights, in the middle of a live finale full of screaming strangers, Holly stopped running from love and finally let it catch her.
“You ready?” she asked.
He glanced at her curiously. “For what?”
