He looks up, and his expression is soft in a way I’ve rarely seen. “I’m sending it. Right now. Unless you want to stop me.”
I don’t stop him.
His gaze finds mine. “Wait. One more thing.” His fingers fly across the keyboard. “WOOOOOO! Explosion emoji, explosion emoji, explosion emoji.”
His thumb hits send, and for a moment, everything is still. The message has gone out into the world—to his teammates, his brothers, everyone who’s been watching us dance around each other for years.
A giggle escapes. “You didn’t!”
He kisses me straight on the lips then turns the phone around. “You bet I did. See for yourself.”
There’s no taking it back. My chest unlocks with a click. A door I didn’t know was still closed.
“Done,” he says quietly.
“Done.”
We stand there, my phone still open to the bingo card, his phone probably already buzzing with responses. The silence feels different now. Heavier. More real.
Then his phone starts exploding.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz buzz buzz.
“Shep is losing his mind,” Bennett says, glancing at the screen. I shouldn’t find this as satisfying as I do. Professional, mature adults don’t need their relationships validated by a hockey player’s group chat. I find it extremely satisfying. “He’s sent seventeen exclamation points and a GIF of someone doing a victory dance.”
“That tracks.”
“Boone says ‘about damn time.’ Brogan wants to know if this means he can finally stop pretending he didn’t know.” He scrolls. “Heath is asking if the Post-it boards were some kind of foreplay.”
“They were not foreplay.”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” More scrolling. “Mom says... actually, Mom says a lot. Mostly variations on ‘I told you so.’”
“Beth has been waiting for this moment.”
“Beth has been orchestrating this moment.” He looks up from his phone. “She’s invited us to dinner Sunday. Both of us. Officially.”
The invitation hits differently than I expected. Not just a family dinner—an acknowledgment. Public. Intentional. The kind of thing that happens when a relationship is real.
“You told them,” I say, and my voice cracks slightly. “You actually told them.”
“I told you I would.”
“People say they’ll do things all the time. They don’t always follow through.”
“I know.” He sets his phone down, gives me his full attention. “That’s why I wanted to do it while you watched. So you’d know it was real.”
The tears I’ve been holding back finally escape. Not sad tears—relief tears. The kind that come when you’ve been bracing for disappointment and get something else instead.
“Hey.” He closes the distance between us, cups my face in his hands. “Hey. This is supposed to be good news.”
“It is good news.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I’ve been waiting for this for so damn long.” The confession comes out wobbly. “Because I convinced myself it would never happen. Because yesterday I thought things might go sideways, and now you’re standing here texting your entire team about us, and I don’t know how to process that.”
“Process it slowly.” He wipes a tear from my cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”
