“The kid. Did he say something about my shirt?”
A smile flashes across his face. “Uh huh. He asked why I’m sitting with the enemy. I told him sometimes people make poor choices, but that doesn’t make them bad people.”
I dig my elbow into his ribs.
He shrugs. “Not my fault my girl cheers for the opposition.”
Play has resumed on the ice, Ares is under fire from the Snow Pirates, and with Scott still in the box, I’m not sure how he’s going to keep the puck from hitting the back of the net.
“I cheer for you just fine. I mean, I didn’t always. I kinda wanted you to suffer agonizing loss after loss because I hated your guts with the fire of a thousand hells, but now...” I shrug. “I guess you’re not that bad.”
“I love you, too.”
Despite the noise of the game and the people around the arena, you could hear a pin drop in this moment. Tori tenses beside me, and I’d bet ten bucks that gasp came out of Eloise.
“Yessssss.” Karlya sounds gleeful, and loud as fuck.
They know we haven’t said the L-word out loud to each other yet, not like that. But that... that was it, right?
I turn to my girlfriends, they’re grinning at me, eyes wide. Tori jerks her head at Tate like she’s encouraging me to say it back.
I lean over to him so I can speak closer to his now bright pink ear. “You love me?”
“You can’t tell? Of course I love you Pitstop. If you can’t feel it, I gotta up my game.”
CHAPTER 30
Penelope
He loves me.
The man I spent a year channeling all my hatred toward, the man who stole my heart at a Halloween party, the man whose father ended my Dad’s career, loves me.
I’m not sure what to do with that.
For the first time since he arrived, he takes his attention off the ice and turns to me. He cups my face with both hands, stares me dead in the face. “I love you, Pitstop.”
My heart stops, the game stops, the whole world stops spinning because Tate Myers loves me.
“You love me.” Not sure why I’m repeating that back to him, but it’s like my brain needs a hot minute to catch up.
“I love you,” he repeats it like it’s the thousandth time he’s said it out loud to me, and not the first.
“Wow.”
He studies my face before planting a kiss on my forehead. “If that’s not okay, you’re just going to have to figure it out. I dunno how to put that train back in the station. You’re stuck with my love, She Devil.”
Before he can turn away, I catch his cheek with my palm. “I love you too.”
His nose twitches. “I know.”
“You do?”
He nods. “From the moment I complimented your taco.”
I’m laughing, but there’s probably an element of truth to his sentence. We shared a connection that night, which is probably why I was so fucking angry that he was who he was.
“You haven’t complimented my taco in a long time, Tate.” I tut. “Slacker.”
