He moves and the bed hits the wall, a rhythm that matches my heartbeat, and I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper, harder, closer.
“I want-” He breaks off, gasping. “I want-”
“What?”
His hand finds my face. Cups my jaw. Forces me to look at him.
“I want you to stay this time.”
The words hit me somewhere soft. Somewhere I didn’t know was still vulnerable after everything.
“Zane-”
“Stay.” He drives into me harder. “When this is over. When we go back. Don’t disappear again.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
He kisses me. There’s just him. Just this. He says my name when he comes, ragged and broken and perfect, and the way I follow him over the edge, holding on like he’s the only thing keeping me from flying apart.
Afterward, we don’t move.
His weight is still pressed against me, his face buried in my neck, his breath slowly evening out. My legs are still wrapped around him. My fingers are still tangled in his hair.
I wait for him to pull away. To remember that he’s angry. To put the distance back between us.
He doesn’t.
He kisses me. Soft this time. Gentle. The kind of kiss that says more than words can.
When he pulls back, his face is different. Lighter. Like something that was wound too tight has finally loosened.
“You know what I kept thinking about?” he says.
“What?”
“When you were on the ice. When you went down and didn’t get up right away. You scared the hell out of me.” He says it simply. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I pull him down to me. Kiss him. Feel the words he can’t say vibrating through his skin.
He settles beside me, pulling me against his chest, his arm wrapped around my waist, his face pressed into my hair.
ZANE
She wakes up next to me the next morning and my heart contracts. She looks tired but also beautiful.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About nowhere to play.”
“It’s true,” she says sleepily.
“I looked it up. The women’s team had all their funding cut. I didn’t even know. I’ve been here three years and I never once thought about it.”
“Most people don’t.”
“Yeah, well.” I shake my head. “That’s fucked up.”
