Just white silence.
For the first time in months, my mind isn't crowded with hockey.
Not contracts.
Not trades.
Not statistics.
Not the future.
Just them.
Jillie laughing inside a blanket fort.
Sadie smiling over a coffee mug.
The three of us sitting together like we'd been doing it for years.
The realization arrives slowly, then all at once.
I don't want this to be temporary.
Not the bakery.
Not Briar Cove.
Not them.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it feels suspiciously like certainty.
Because somewhere between grocery stores and school concerts and snowstorms, something changed.
For the first time in years, I'm not imagining a different life.
I'm imagining a life that stays exactly where it is.
And that's when I finally understand the truth.
I don't just want to protect them.
I don't just want to stay.
I want to keep them.
The thought follows me upstairs.
And for the first time in a very long time, it doesn't feel impossible.
It feels like home.
Chapter nine
Sadie
Tiny School Chairs
I fully expect Colby Reid to cancel.
