And then he crossed the line into the end zone. Touchdown. The scoreboard flashed. The Tigers won.
Momentum carried him a few more feet before he dropped to one knee, his head bowed, clutching the ball to his chest like he could feel the heartbeat of the win inside it.
The crowd had gone feral. Students vaulted over barriers. The band screamed out the fight song like it was a war cry. Gold-and-white confetti cannons exploded somewhere to my left, dusting the field in a storm of color and light.
But Matty wasn’t looking at the crowd as he stood up, he wasn’t taking in the way they were worshipping him.
His gaze cut through the noise, searching…and then locking. On me?
My feet stuttered to a stop, the heavy tiger head bobbling slightly as heat prickled down my spine. He was still twenty yards away, his teammates slapping his back, shouting, celebrating…but he still didn’t take his eyes off me.
A nervous laugh caught in my throat as I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to see someone else behind me. A cheerleader, a reporter, anyone who actually belonged in his world. But there was no one in particular I could see. Just me.
My lungs forgot how to work.
He started walking. Then jogging…slow, uneven steps at first, the limp still there. The helmet came off with one easy motion, his dark hair curling at the edges, sweat glinting alonghis neck. The lights hit his face, and that grin, completely devastating, spread across his mouth.
Cameras might’ve been everywhere, the whole stadium watching—but it still felt like he was moving through the noise just for me.
My breath caught behind the mesh as he closed the distance between us, stopping right in front of me. His gaze traveled over the ridiculous suit like he could see straight through it.
Then he smiled. The slow, dangerous kind that usually meant trouble. I’d learned that after all my months of watching him.
“I have to say,” he murmured, leaning closer, “finding out you’ve been here on the sidelines with me all season? It feels like fate.”
The words sent a rush through me, hot and dizzying. I took a small step back, the tail of the suit brushing the turf.
He didn’t let me retreat.
Matty reached out, his gloved hand catching the side of the tiger’s head, holding it steady. His thumb traced the painted cheek, and the world tilted on its axis. The crowd, the band, the deafening roar…all of it blurred into silence.
Then he leaned in.
His mouth pressed against the mesh, not my skin, but close enough that it didn’t matter. The faint scratch of fabric, the heat of his breath, the pressure—it stole every thought I had. The kiss wasn’t soft or careful. It was fierce, unapologetic, the kind meant to leave a mark even through layers of foam and fur.
Some part of me knew he was kissing thetiger’sgrin…that our lips weren’t actually touching. But my heart didn’t seem to care. It felt like the whole world had just shifted around that single impossible moment.
So impossible, it felt like I would wake up any second now and find out I’d been dreaming this entire time.
I was vaguely aware of the stadium getting even louder…of students screaming, and the band losing their rhythm entirely. Somewhere close by, I think someone shrieked Matty’s name.
All of it was background noise, though. Nothing compared to the fact that his arms were wrapped around me and he’d pulled me against him even though everything about my tiger costume was awkwardly shaped.
He pulled back with that grin that could end civilizations. “Guess I’ll have to do that again when you’re not wearing twenty pounds of fur,” he said, his voice low enough that it was meant only for me. “Gotta let everyone know who my lucky tiger really is.”
The words had barely left his mouth when a sideline reporter rushed in, shoving a microphone toward him as her camera crew swarmed closer. “Matty, how’s the ankle? What was going through your head on that play? Was that kiss planned?” she fired off.
Matty didn’t even blink.
He snatched the mic right out of her hand.
“Ophelia,” he said into it, his voice amplified just enough to carry over the nearest cameras and sideline noise. That grin curved slow and certain, the kind that said he knewexactlywhat he was doing…and that he wanted everyone close enough to hear it. “You can run if you want, but everyone here just saw it. I’ll find you. Tunnel, dorms, hell, even the moon, if I have to.”
The crowd detonated. The reporter gaped. Cameras flashed like lightning.
I froze, my heart slamming so hard I thought I’d pass out right there in the suit.
Then instinct kicked in.
