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He bends down, his pillow soft lips lay a gentle kiss against the apex between my neck and shoulder.
My eyelids flutter closed, and I bend my head further out of the way instinctively to give him more access, but he doesn’t kiss me again like my body is craving. Instead, he lifts his head, his mouth close to my ear, and his right hand snakes around to the front of my flat belly where no baby bump is growing.
“I can’t tell you how to feel, Penelope. But I can tell you that when I thought you were pregnant, I ran full speed from the apartment building to your office because I had to see you. That brief hour that I thought we had made a baby together was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”
I spin around in his arm and he keeps it secured around me.
“The best day of your life?” I ask. “And how would you have felt if these tests were positive?”
He was so sure of what he wanted that day when he found the pregnancy test, thinking they were mine.
He wanted that baby, and he wanted it with me.
“If you’re asking if I wish those tests were positive, the answer is yes. And the answer will always be yes because I know what I want… I want you.”
His hazel green eyes stare back into mine.
With every passing moment, he makes it harder and harder to pick Win—the one that got away.
Win is steady and sure, while Slade is wild and fearless. But being with Win feels safe, and being with Slade feels like I might end up learning my mother's lesson all over again.
Falling for a hockey player who will love hockey more than me. Do I even have a shot at being on Slade's starting lineup?
Being with Win is the safest decision and that's the choice I should stick with.
Then I remember the tattoo on his left arm and the conversation that Seven and I had about it. I remember seeing the bandage and Slade saying I couldn’t see it because it was healing.
I turn to look at the inside of his forearm and there it is in all its glory. The banner is now filled with my birthday—April 16th.
“You put my birthday on the other woman’s tattoo?” I ask.
“There is no other woman,” he says.
“Yes, there is. You said she’s the one that got away,” I tell him, recalling the conversation vividly because we were stuck in a copier closet together.
“You’re the one that got away, Penelope. There’s no one else. There’s never been anyone else.”
“But I… that can’t be true. You said you got that when you landed in Canada. I hated you then… my father banished you. You couldn’t have gotten that for me,” I argue.
“Banished is a little strong. I’d say that he highly encouraged it. And did you not see the initials on the blade when you saw it in the copier room?” he asks.
I study the tattoo closer, and then I see it, shaded in the blade. It's hard to read, but it matches the older ink from the rest of the tattoo. It’s not new like my birthday date; it's part of the original tattoo.
“P.R.,” I whisper out loud.
“Penelope Roberts. The girl that got away. I got the tattoo as a promise to myself that someday I’d find a way to redemption and earn your trust again.”
I turn back to him, locking my eyes with his, waiting for him to tell me he’s kidding. But he doesn’t. He just stares back, waiting for all the information that I just received to sink in.
“Will I ever be more than you’re dirty secret? The guy you don’t want to tell your friends about?”
There’s a sadness in the way he’s looking at me, but I think I see hope in there, too.
I have to be honest and tell him the truth.
“Slade, I need to tell you something,” I say, unsure of how to word this after everything he just confessed. I don’t want to hurt him but he needs to know about Win. “There’s someone else.”
“I know,” he says simply.
