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Four years I built on one word, ‘drunk’. I made a whole plan around this and he was sober.

"You let me think." My voice won't hold.

"It's the worst thing I've ever done." He steps in closer. "I let you believe you were forgettable, but I could never forget you. I kept your graduation photo on my mantle just to keep you close. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted."

"Margot, I love you. I've loved you since we were kids. I want the rest of my life, and every version of the rest of my life to be with you." His voice drops, just for me. "So don't get on the plane. Choose me"

I drop the boarding pass.

"I've loved you since I was kid too, you absolute idiot." It comes out of me wet and furious and laughing all at once. I grab two fistfuls of his shirt. "There was never anyone else. There was never going to be."

He kisses me.

But it doesn’t last long. Somebody clears their throat.

Cade's near us, eyes suspiciously bright, hands shoved in his pockets.

"So." He rocks on his heels. "Are we hugging, or am I just standing here?"

I let go of Jax with one hand and grab my brother with the other and haul him in, and Jax gets an arm around the both of us.

The three of us stand there tangled up in the middle of an airport, crying and laughing. All of us are finally in the right place telling the truth.

"For the record." Cade's voice is thick against the top of my head. "I gave him my blessing and he drove like a lunatic to get to you. You'd have been so proud."

"I'm always proud of you. And I mean it.”

"I meant Jax."

Jax laughs into my hair, and it's the best sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

“Okay.” Jax claps his hands together. "We've got a mess to clean up. Your name's in a headline that isn't true, your job is not actually gone if I have anything to say about it, and I've got a story to tell the whole world, the real one, and I'm going to need the best PR mind in hockey so I don't screw it up."

He kisses my forehead. "You in, Callahan?"

I look at the two men I love most on this earth. I wipe my face with the sleeve of the green sweater.

"I'm in. Let's go burn the lie down and build the true one."

Chapter 24: Jax

Cade's in the back seat looking at his phone, and he makes a noise like he caught a puck in the ribs.

"Oh no."

"What?" I’m driving and looking into my rearview mirror at him. "What oh no."

"Somebody got a photo." He flips the phone around. And I wait for a red light to glance down at it.

"Of us. Just now. Inside."

And there we are.

Some stranger caught the three of us tangled up in a hug. My arm's hooked around both of them. Cade's got his whole face buried in Margot's hair, eyes squeezed shut, wet-cheeked, grinning like a fool. Margot's mid ugly cry, with mascara everywhere, and there on the floor at our feet, in perfect focus, is her dropped boarding pass.

Somebody captioned it HE CHASED HER THROUGH AN AIRPORT AND THE BROTHER CAME TOO.

"How many?" Margot's gone very still.