I pull back from the kiss just far enough to look into her eyes, to make sure this isn’t some post-game hallucination brought on by too many hits into the boards.
“Your sister has excellent timing,” I say, and she laughs.
“I was packing,” she admits. “Had my suitcases out, was folding everything into those little squares that are supposed to maximize space. Then my sister called, screaming about Parsons, about New York, about how she couldn’t do it alone.”
“And you realized you couldn’t leave.”
“I realized I didn’t want to.” She looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “Saint Petersburg felt like running away. This—staying—feels like running toward something.”
“I should probably learn your sister’s name,” I say. “Since she’s my new favorite person.”
Petra grins. “Claire.”
“Thank you, Claire,” I say.
Outside, New York continues its relentless performance—ambulance sirens and car horns and drunk people arguing about nothing. But inside this apartment that I’ve never bothered to decorate, with this woman who was supposed to be gone tomorrow, everything feels suddenly, impossibly, perfectly still.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up, and she’ll still be here. I’ll go back to that ballet studio. I’ll work on becoming whatever hybrid creature I’m evolving into—part hockey player, part dancer, part desperate man trying to deserve his second chances.
But tonight? Tonight, I get to stop counting down because the clock’s no longer ticking down on our future.
“Thank you,” I whisper into her hair.
“For what?”
“For Claire having good taste in schools.”
She laughs again, and I think maybe this is what winning actually feels like. Not the scoreboard. Not the marquee. Not the crowds. Just this: someone choosing to stay when leaving would have been easier. Someone seeing you fail at the thing you’re supposed to be best at and deciding you’re still worth it.
The city doesn’t care that my comeback stumbled. The kid with the Sharpie won’t remember me tomorrow (hell, he didn’t remember me tonight). The hockey world will move on to the next story—the next attempt at redemption.
But she’s here. With me. And that’s enough. More than enough.
That’s everything.
Chapter Seventeen
My front door swings open and there they are, Petra and Claire, proof that their parents won the lottery twice.
Claire shares Petra’s DNA but arranged slightly differently, like someone hit shuffle on the same exquisite playlist. Petra moves through the world with a dancer’s softness, all watercolor edges and fluid grace. Conversely, Claire operates in sharper focus—same bone structure, different resolution. Where Petra has sky-blue eyes, Claire’s are storm gray. Where Petra has blonde hair, Claire’s is a deep chestnut.
“Liam, this is Claire.” Petra deploys that gentle older-sister nudge, part affection, part stage direction. “Claire, Liam.”
The hug arrives with a smile, and the ghost of Alabama still lingers in her vowels. “Nice to finally meet you,” she says. “Y’all are such a cute couple.”
“Welcome to New York, Claire.”
She crosses my threshold. “Thanks. First time here without Mom turning every museum into an educational hostage situation, so I’m already winning.”
My laugh emerges wrong—too high and nervous, too much like someone who knows he’s about to be professionally judged by a teenager with better taste.
We settle in the living room where we all take a seat on my couch.
“Congrats on Parsons. Petra said you’re here for some pre-orientation stuff. How’s it been so far?” I ask.
“Can’t wait for the fall.” Her fingers drum against her knee, energy barely contained. “Parsons, the city, everything. I’m already connecting with classmates online. Though I need to sort out work. Even with financial aid, the tuition bills are for real.”
“You’ll be majoring in interior design, right?” I ask.
