A laugh bursts out of me, wet and unexpected. "God, please don't let Beck near a camera for this."
"Is that okay?" he whispers. "Can you wait?"
"I can wait." I press the stack of remaining posters back into his chest, mostly so I have an excuse to touch him in public. "But for the record, when we do go public, I'm telling everyone you cried at the end of that dog movie Beck made us watch the other night."
"That's a lie and slander."
Then he steps in, shields one side of my face with a poster, and kisses me as if we're hidden beneath it.
It's brief. It's soft. But it tastesincredible.
When he pulls back, I'm dizzy and the staple gun is dangling uselessly from my fingers.
"Declan," I breathe. "Anyone could've—"
"I know." He adjusts the posters, entirely too pleased with himself. "Consider it practice."
He starts walking toward the pier, and I stand there for one more second, touching my lips, watching the posters flutter down the lamppost line like a trail of promises.
I've got one hockey match to sell out. One mother to deal with.
And then no more secrets.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 18
Josie
"Okay, Josie. Deep breath. You've got this."
The woman in the hotel mirror stares back at me, half-zipped into a gold slip dress, one eye finished, the other slowly getting there.
"Tonight, Beachside," I tell the mirror, flipping through the index cards balanced on the bathroom counter, "we celebrate not just a team, but atown—no. Ugh. Too Hallmark."
I shuffle the card to the back and focus on the next option.
"Good evening, Beachside. Tonight isn't about hockey. It's aboutus—God, no, that sounds like I'm proposing to the whole room."
With a groan, I forget all about practicing tonight's speech and try to finish getting ready instead.
Below my balcony, the boardwalk is already glowing. String lights are blinking to life one strand at a time, food trucks are rolling into position, and the carousel is spinning slow testrotations at the end of the pier like it's warming up before the big dance.
This is it.
It's been three weeks since Declan kissed me behind a poster on this exact boardwalk and told me to wait until after the game. Three weeks of eighteen-hour days, of falling asleep face-down on my laptop, of surviving on Goldie's honey lattes and stolen minutes with Declan in his Rover when neither of us could stand it anymore.
Three weeks of watching the ticket counter climb like my own heartbeat.
And it all comes down to tonight.
Every permit, every vendor contract, every sponsor call I've made over these three weeks has been worth it. Twenty-one days of hunting Colin down between golf rounds, of Rose and Darcy staying late to help me color-code seating maps, of my own name slowly becoming something people in this town actually recognize.
Because I did it.
Every single seat for tomorrow's Portland game issold.It was confirmed right before I left The Bear Cave this afternoon, when the ticketing system flashed the words I've been chasing since I circled that date in red pen.
SOLD OUT.
