Page 277 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

Caleb finally steps out of the corner where he has been silently observing everyone.

He stops in front of me. “I’m glad you came back.”

His tone is so solemn that I smile. “Thank you.”

He looks at Jamie. “You were impossible without her.”

“I was injured.”

“You were impossible before that too.”

Liam raises his drink. “I’ll toast to that.”

Jamie gives them both a look that should silence the room. It does not.

Toby hands me a plate. “We have pizza, wings, chips, three kinds of dip, and something Liam insists is a dessert.”

“It is a dessert.”

“It came in a plastic tub.”

“That does not disqualify it.”

Paige takes my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen. “You have to tell us everything.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“You drove here from Idaho.”

“That sounds like something to tell,” Becca says.

Jamie follows close behind us. I glance over my shoulder. “You don’t have to guard me.”

“I’m not guarding you.”

“You’re standing six inches away.”

“I like standing six inches away.”

Liam makes an exaggerated gagging sound. Paige swats his arm.

For the next twenty minutes, I am hugged, questioned, fed, and welcomed back into the strange, loud, loving family I had convinced myself I did not belong to.

I tell them about finishing my rotation and being ready to graduate.

About packing my car and driving for three days with Jamie’s voice in my head.

I do not tell them everything. Some things still belong only to us. The moment he opened the cabin door. The way he said my name. The first time he told me that he loved me to my face without fear or hesitation. The promises we made after. Those memories are mine. Ours.

But when Paige asks what finally made me turn toward Briar Cove instead of away from it, I look across the room at Jamie. He is talking to Toby, but his eyes keep finding me every few seconds as if checking, as if reassuring himself.

“I realized I had spent weeks deciding what was best for him,” I say quietly, “without ever asking him what he wanted.”

Paige follows my gaze. “And what does he want?”

Jamie must sense us watching him because he looks over. His expression changes immediately. Softens. He leaves Toby in the middle of a sentence and walks toward me.

“Her,” Paige says.