She laughs, leans in, and kisses me. Jace wolf-whistles somewhere to my right. Somebody bangs a glass. I flip them off without breaking the kiss.
When she finally pulls back, she’s glowing. I’ll do everything to see that smile every day.
“You did it,” she whispers.
“We did,” I say.
What I don’t say is we’re not done.
In forty-eight hours, I’m putting her on a plane. She doesn’t know that yet. A week ago, half-asleep on my chest, she started naming places she wanted to see.
Next morning, I called my travel guy, anybody who could move dates around without pissing off the League.
Three calls, one rearranged charity thing, and an argument with a PR rep later, I had two tickets. Ten days of no media, no cameras, no obligations.
Just us.
She thinks we’re taking a couple days at the beach house and then diving straight into Academy work, fittings, and whatever house wants her next. She hasno idea there’s a folder in my desk upstairs with printed confirmations and a handwritten list titled “things Jessica likes.”
It’s not the only thing she doesn’t know about yet.
There’s a building downtown I keep circling. Nothing special from the outside—old brick, bad paint, a half-faded sign from whatever it used to be. But the inside…I can see it. A rink on the lower level for the Academy kids. Studio space upstairs. Room for bolts of fabric and sketch walls and racks of clothes with her name on the tags.
I haven’t bought it yet, but I will once we get back. When it’s more than an idea, more than a fantasy I run in my head, I’ll take her there. Put the keys in her hand. Tell her I want to build something permanent with her—kids on the ice downstairs, her work on display upstairs, our life threaded through the whole thing.
She feeds me another bite off her plate, not even looking as she does it.
“Stop zoning out,” she says, mouth curving. “You’re freaking me out. What are you thinking about?”
You. Us. A building with your name next to mine.
“Nothing,” I say.
She narrows her eyes. “Liar.”
“Eat your food,” I tell her. “You’re gonna need your strength.”
“For what?”
“For however many times I’ll fuck you while we’re here.”
She laughs and smacks my chest, head tipping back, throat exposed.
My hand tightens on her thigh.
Yeah.
We did it. And we’re just getting started. I won’t be doing any of it alone.
The Academy’s already bigger than I imagined. An organization with a board, lawyers, and actual teams behind it. We’ve got the organization in for a chunk, with so many people wanting to be involved.
And Zed.
That one still throws me. He didn’t want his name on any press release. Didn’t want recognition, visibility, anything. Alton told me Zed had wired in an amount that made even him sit up straighter.
When people look at Zed, they see the wall in the net, the heavily tatted giant, the impossible save percentage plastered on graphics. I see that too.
I also see everything underneath it that I can’t quite get my hands on.
