Page 105 of Lovefool

“And it was the greatest achievement of my life,” he murmurs against the crown of my head, mollifying me with loving ministrations.

I’m not ready to break away. For the first time in forty-eight hours, my heart slows to a crawl, and my impulsion to nosedive off the nearest cliff edge wanes. That desire to disappear forever—it’s finally gone.

I’m not sure how long we stay entangled in one another, but by the time I surface for air, the crowd has ebbed to a few stragglers, leaving me and Sutton stranded in the middle of the arena.

Something in my head tells me to glance up at the scoreboard, and when I do, the lapse in my tears is no longer. 4-2. A different kind of slickness lacquers the whites of my eyes.

“Holy shit. You guys won. I didn’t even realize—you’re going to the championship game!” I scream, jumping on him, allowing him to scoop me up by the butt and lift my feet off the ground.

My arms interlace behind his nape, and I don’t have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. I’m staring into whorls of espresso tinted with a luminescent appreciation for life that I feel myself, deep down in my bones.

“I couldn’t have done any of this without you. The world needs more people like you,” he tells me.

I press my forehead to his, the tips of our noses brushing. Torrents of pride and love rush through me. “They also need people like you, Sutton. You’re the best part of me. It doesn’t matter where the hell we end up in the future, you’ll always occupy the largest place in my heart. There’s nothing time nor distance can do that will minimize the effect you’ve had on me.”

“Good thing you’re stuck with me, then, because I’d be the biggest idiot in the fucking universe to let you get away again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“Not possible.”

“Very possible. And I have all the time in the world to prove it to you,” he drawls, enveloping my lips in the velvet heat of his mouth, kissing away the last needling dregs of self-hatred.

After today, I’ll never remember what it feels like.

33

THE BEGINNING OF THE REST OF OUR LIVES

LAKE

“Hold me up higher! I can’t see anything.”

“Oh my God, they could really win.”

I wave around phone-sized versions of Merit, Staten, and Irelyn, lofting them above the head of some rowdy spectators sitting in front of me. They could’ve just turned the game on, but they wanted to get the full experience.

The championship game is finally here. Buford, well, his absence is something to note. According to Sutton, he and Crew went all Batman and Robin on the poor dude’s ass, and Coach Lawson has now been notified about his behavior.

Harlan hurtles across the rink in a blur of color, currently in possession of the puck and looking for somewhere to offload it into the opposition’s net. If I thought the atmosphere yesterday was crazy, the tension today is so thick it’s nearly undigestible. The Mustangs are dominating the scoreboard by one point, there’s ten minutes left in the last period of the game, and anticipation scrapes at my guts as I scoot my butt to the edge of my seat.

I can’t keep track of everything going on. Between the skull-splitting commotion, the high tide of the Rhode Island Raptors coagulating into a dark mass behind one lone Mustang, the collective breath-hold of the arena, and the arctic temperature that keeps me awake, the overstimulation is going to take me out before the final score is announced.

High-pitched squealing blasts from my phone. “Come on, Harlan! You can do it!” Irelyn shouts.

Harlan does some cool behind-the-legs action that keeps the puck moving at an unpredictable rate. All the players are miniature hunks of automatized steel veering down the wrong tracks, destined to collide in an uncontained fire of sparks and gasoline.

My heart lashes against my chest—I paid a hefty toll of anxiety in return for a spot closer to the ice this time. Legs trembling, I slip a pink Starburst out of my pocket to give me a needed pickup—courtesy of Sutton—and pop it into my mouth for the sugar boost.

I’ve heard whispers here and there about the Mustangs over the weekend, but until Buford is convicted, it seems like their reputation is still up in the air.

Tamara was pleased with the article’s success. And I was pleased that she hinted at me possibly getting the promotion I wanted a bit earlier. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. I nearly lost the person who meant the most to me, but fighting is in my blood, and there was no way in hell I was going to let years of hard work swirl down the drain because of a little moral quandary.

The puck flits back and forth between teams—almost as intangible as mist—and the ice shavings in the air go diaphanous, washing the landscape in brush strokes of paint-muddied water.

I still don’t understand how hockey players move so effortlessly on their feet. It’s a mixture of choreographed dances and improvisation that can either make or break a play. I’d collapse under that kind of pressure.