“What?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head. “Just - I used to watch you from the stands. Before everything. You were just this player. This guy I didn’t know.”
“And now?”
She touches my face. Traces the line of my jaw.
“Now you’re here watching me.”
I grin. “Best view in the house.”
She kisses me again.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For being there. For-” She gestures vaguely, encompassing everything.
I touch her face. “You don’t thank someone for watching you become exactly what you were supposed to be.”
I think about the first time I saw her - in the stands, shouting at a game, her voice cutting through the noise like she already knew what was going to happen before any of us did.
She was right.
She always was.
“Come on,” she says. “I’ll introduce you to my team. Just - maybe don’t mention the part where you used to think I was a guy.”
“Can I mention the part where I was obsessed with you anyway?”
“Shut up, Blake.”
“Never.”
I take her hand and we walk towards the arena door together.
LEONORA
The apartment is small - the kind of place a professional just starting out can afford in a city that doesn’t make anything cheap. But it’smine. My gear in the corner. My medals on the shelf.
Zane stands in the middle of the living room, turning in a slow circle, taking it in the same way he took in my childhood bedroom two years ago.
“This is nice,” he says.
I lean against the doorframe, watching him.
He crosses the room, stops in front of me, and takes my face in his hands.
I kiss him.
“I missed you,” I say against his mouth. “I’m tired of sharing you with the NHL.”
He pulls back, something changing in his expression. “What are you saying?”
I take a breath. “I want to wake up and know you’re here. I want to fight about whose turn it is to do the dishes. I want to watch you play on TV fromourcouch.”
“Are you asking me to move in with you, Shaw?”
