“You ok?” he asks gently.
“I think I am now,” I answer.
He studies my face for a second longer than necessary.
“Now?” he repeats.
“I didn’t realize how scared I still was until tonight,” I admit.“Watching you skate again felt like breathing properly for the first time in weeks.”
Something in his expression shifts when I say that.
He steps toward me slowly. Not like he’s unsure. Like he’s giving me time.
“You stayed,” he says quietly.
“Of course I stayed.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I did,” I answer.“I wanted to.”
His hand lifts to my cheek the same way it did the first night in Nashville, familiar now in a way that still surprises me sometimes, and the warmth of his palm against my skin makes my heart start beating faster even before he leans closer.
“I kept thinking about you the whole game,” he murmurs.
“That seems distracting.”
“It was motivating.”
“That sounds safer.”
When he kisses me, it isn’t tentative. It isn’t hesitant. It feels like something that’s been waiting all night. All week. Maybe longer.
My hands slide into his jacket automatically, pulling him closer without thinking, and he exhales softly against my mouth like he’s been holding something in since the moment he stepped onto the ice tonight.
“You scared me,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I didn’t like not knowing what the future looked like.”
“I didn’t either.”
“But now?” I say.
“Now I know exactly what it looks like,” he answers.
He pulls back just enough to look at me properly.
“You’re part of it,” he adds.
The words land somewhere deep in my chest.
“I hope so,” I whisper.
“You are,” he says again.
The second kiss is slower.
