“Yeah?” I murmured, unable to keep the smile out of my voice.
“Mm.” Eyes still closed, his head rested fully in my hands now. “You have no idea.”
I did, though. Or I was starting to. The sight of him like this—relaxed, pliant, letting himself be held—did something to me that felt just as intimate as anything that had come before. I kept touching him, slow and absent, tracing patterns I didn’t need to think about.
He opened his eyes again, gaze steady and warm as it met mine. I could’ve drowned in his eyes, I thought. I was sex drunk on him.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, dropping my hands from his hair, wondering if I should be a better host.
“I just had the best snack I’ve ever tasted,” he said, completely unbothered. “I think I’m good.”
He winked at me, and it was devastatingly charming.
I groaned, dropping my head back against the couch. “You are a diabolical human.”
He laughed and shifted closer until his shoulder bumped mine. “You invited me up here,” he pointed out. “This is on you.”
I glanced at him sideways and realized my smile was permanent today. “So you’re not even a little hungry?”
“Give it time,” he said lightly, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. “Right now, though? I’m good right here. You can keep petting me.”
A bark of laughter exploded at the notion of me petting him like an animal. “You’re not an animal.”
“Oh, sunshine, you have no idea.” He leaned in pressing a chaste kiss to my lips full of promise. “But you will.”
I wanted to. I wanted more. And that was scary because I’d never felt like this, the need, want, desire for another person that might not be temporary.
The TV flickered to life, and he immediately put onESPN.March Madnesswas on, showing highlights from sports in season.
“The Valkyries are featured here, right?” he said after a while of watching highlights from NHL and NBA.
“For the first time at our game, yeah. There was a small feature.”
He glanced back at the screen, then at me. “You didn’t get coverage before the professional teams were announced?”
“No. It was always local. Regional, at best. Community sports segments, weekend roundups. If people wanted to watch us live,it was usually through theWomen’s Sports Channelstreams, not anything national.”
“That’s wild.” His gaze stayed on me, eyebrows drawing together like he was recalibrating something he’d taken for granted.
“It’s just how it was,” I replied. “Women’s rugby didn’t exist to them outside of a niche. We had fans, we had numbers, but nothing that felt… official.” I shrugged, my shoulder grazing his arm. “This last week was the first time we crossed that line.”
He moved, and for a second, I tensed, but then one arm draped along the back of the seat behind me, his fingers grazing my shoulder once, absentmindedly, like he hadn’t thought about it at all. Or like he had. “And that matters.”
“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat, leaning into his touch. “It really does.”
I gestured toward the TV, where another highlight reel rolled past us without pause. “Even a small segment. A mention. A graphic on a screen like that—it tells people we’re real. That we’re worth watching. It helps with sponsors, with broadcasting, with kids seeing us and thinking maybe that could be them someday.”
He reached for my hand, keeping one wrapped around me and one holding me. It felt way too good. “That’s huge, Teddy.”
“It is,” I agreed, letting myself sit in that truth for once as I realized that so much of our hard work was beginning to pay off. “At least, it’s a step in the right direction. And we don’t get many of those without fighting for them.”
Connor watched the screen for a second, picking at a thread on his pants leg. “Did… Did your dad see your first game?”
I stilled, taking in the question. When I thought about it, I could only answer honestly.
“I actually don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s currently deployed, so I doubt it.”
“He’s missed a lot of games?”
