Page 332 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

When we part, Liam's voice echoes dramatically from somewhere behind us.

"I give them thirty seconds before they completely forget we're all standing here."

Annette laughs against my shoulder. "I think your teammates are impossible."

"They're family."

She smiles. "So are you." The words settle deep inside me, not because they're unexpected, but because they're true. I slip my fingers through hers as we begin walking toward the waiting group.

For the first time since the injury...

I don't feel like I've returned to the life I left behind.

I feel like I've stepped into the life I was always meant to live.

Chapter thirty-seven

Annette

Coming Home

For the first time in longer than I can remember...

I have absolutely nowhere that I'm supposed to be.

No lecture waiting to begin.

No clinical rotation.

No hospital shift.

No suitcase sitting open on the bed because another assignment starts in forty-eight hours.

Just...

today.

The realization still feels wonderfully strange.

I curl a little deeper into the wicker chair on the front porch of the Briar Cove Inn, tucking one foot beneath me as I balance a mug of coffee in one hand and an unread novel in the other. The lake stretches out before me, sunlight dancing across the water while a pair of kayakers drift lazily toward the opposite shore.

I've turned exactly three pages in the last twenty minutes. Not because the book isn't good. Because my thoughts keep wandering.

Finished. The word still doesn't quite seem real.

***

A week ago, I signed the last of the paperwork. Yesterday the final confirmation arrived that everything had been accepted. In two weeks, I'll officially begin my position with the Frostholm Blizzards' sports medical department.

A real job. A dream job!

Not another rotation. Not another temporary assignment.

Home.

It's funny. For years my entire life has been measured in semesters and rotations. Every few months there was another city, another apartment, another beginning.

I became very good at living out of suitcases and very good at telling myself not to get attached.