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Quinn presses her lips to mine, sucking my tongue into her mouth. Her hands move to the bottom of my shirt and she presses her fingers into my skin. My stomach jumps under her touch as she pulls the fabric up and over my head. I’m drowning in heat, my dick aching in my jeans as her mouth finds mine again. I don’t even hear my shirt hit the floor.
“I want to be clear,” I say, feeling like I need to get this out into the open before we move past the point of no return. Past the flash point. “I’ve loved you forever, Quinn Cooper. Possibly since that first day when I watched you pull out a e-book in an arena full of hockey fans while you sat directly behind the home team. You were always the right person.”
She sits back on my thighs. The warm weight comforting as she listens to me bare my soul.
“Right person. Wrong time and place.” She nods because she gets it. She always gets it. Gets me.
“Yeah, well, I got sick of waiting for the right time and place.” I tip my forehead to hers again and close my eyes, breathing in the scent that is Quinn and sunshine and everything good in my life. “I made this the right time and place because if I didn’t… well, you’d be the one to haunt me, Quinn. For the rest of my life, I’d have missed you and wondered what we could have been.” I touch my mouth to hers. Not a kiss, just a brush of lips to lips. “I don’t want to wonder any more, Quinn. I want to know.”
She’s quiet for longer than I’m comfortable with, studying me with eyes that miss nothing. Her head tips to the side, curls spinning away from her face. She’s sitting here in just a tank top and a pair of old cotton leggings. Every single time I see her, she takes my breath away.
Quinn presses a soft kiss to the stubble covering my cheek and slides off my lap. I want to protest. To pull her back into place against my chest because now that I have her within reach, I don’t want to let go, not even for a moment. But she slides onto the couch next to me and snuggles into my side. Her pulse slows as she twines our fingers together.
“I want to know too.” She traces my thumb with her own. “Hence why I was ready to close the distance myself. I was going to look for jobs for next year, assuming my dad was doing okay. I’m choosing to be optimistic.”
I’m broken apart by her faith in me. In her dad. Her courage to go after what she wants. And I was a dummy who hurt her, no matter how briefly, because I didn’t think before I said something.
I wince. “I wasn’t supposed to be texting you. I was under strict orders to be on radio silence.”
“Orders?” She shakes her head. “I don’t care. I want you to be sure that you’re changing your life for you, not just me.”
“Quinn, if the fact that your roommate, my brother, your father, and my mother all came together to help me surprise you doesn’t prove that I have a support system here, then nothing will. I’m home for a lot of reasons, many to do with you and many to do with fixing what went wrong between me and my family. But you’d have been enough, Quinn. All on your own, you are enough.”
“Of course there was some elaborate plot,” she chuckles, her head resting on my shoulder. The soft weight of her makes my chest ache.
The banner had been my idea. Vic talked to Tristan and got the team’s support. Sean concocted a reason to watch the game a day late, which gave me just enough time to fly back with Loki. Jen ensured Quinn avoided watching the actual match up and avoided social media where every sports network has been frothing at the mouth over “Varg’s hidden twin” and the stunt we’d pulled during the Chicago game. My old game footage has been making the rounds and interview requests have been pouring in. The Arctic’s PR team has been fielding it all. My mom is cat sitting. And the woman next to me is the reason we’ve all come together.
“I love you.”
Quinn tugs me to my feet and my heart lurches ahead, a train picking up steam on a downhill track. I’m not worried about the out-of-control speed. I’m too busy enjoying the thrill of the ride. “I’m in this with you,” she says as she leads me to the stairs. “You’re officially my boyfriend, Erik Varg. This is exclusive.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nod as she pushes me up the first step.
“Upstairs,” she urges. “I love you, you love me, we’re in love, but the couch belongs to Jen and she’ll kill me if we defile it.”
I try not to take the stairs two at a time, dragging my girlfriend along behind me. At the top of the landing, I press her up against the wall and fuse our mouths together.
A kiss. A promise. A future.
The crowd is on fire tonight. Not literally, that would be tragic, but the energy is infectious as Vic’s line takes the ice. They’re playing Chicago, just like that first game over a year ago, but this time Erik’s wearing the Arctic’s baby blue instead of red. We’re also in a box tonight, instead of crammed into the too-small seats, and while I’d like to say that I’m not growing used to the luxury of the private viewing area, that would be a lie. The box has seats, a bar, and space. There’s even a little TV in here in case we don’t want to watch the actual game below us. The seats aren’t as close to the bench, but the view of the ice is better and I’m keeping better track of the puck as the guys pass it back and forth. That could also be a year’s worth of watching hockey under my belt, too.
I’m still not the biggest hockey fan—don’t tell Vic—but I no longer avoid the game. Between my dad and my boyfriend, it would be impossible to try. Dad still has his season ticket, and Erik bought Andrea’s. Sometimes I go with one of them, but most of the time they go together. I see them from the couch at home, their heads tucked together as they discuss plays and penalties, so happy it makes my heart clench. A few times Maria went, sitting with my dad and waving every time the camera panned across them. Erik and I took pictures of the television and texted them for old times’ sake.
We had too many people tonight to use regular seats, so Erik got permission to use Grace Hospital’s box. That’s definitely a perk of the job, and one we’ll happily take advantage of on nights like tonight. I’d say it isn’t every day that someone you love gets their 6-month all-clear following chemo, but it’s happened for two people in this box. I may have only been around for my dad’s first NED, but I am forever grateful for Erik’s, too. We even got a cake to celebrate.
Erik slides his hand around the front of my waist and pulls me back into his chest. I rest my head against his shoulder and watch as the whistle blows and play stops.
“What are you thinking about?” my boyfriend asks. His words tickle the shell of my ear.
I’m thinking about Graham and that first night we sat next to each other.
I’m thinking about the color coming back into my dad’s skin and the fuzz of his new hair.
I’m thinking about how I don’t see Jen enough now that she’s moved out and Erik’s moved in, and I’m going to ask her if she wants to get lunch later this week.
I’m thinking about how happy Maria is to have all three of her kids in one place since Anna is in town.
I’m thinking about how exciting it is to be watching the Arctic dominate during this first playoff game, and how Vic could conceivably pull off a hat trick.
