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What I needed from him more than I could ever ask for—more than he could ever give me.

But there was one thing I could ask for, something that would probably ruin me later, but right now would help ease the ache behind my ribs.

“Can you …would you sleep in here tonight? Stay with me?”

Mikey’s eyes moving over my face for so long that I started to worry I’d overstepped, that he was trying to come up with a way to say that wasn’t what this was, this wasn’t what we did, that⁠—

He dipped forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Of course.”

Then he moved onto his back, opening his arm to me. The relief that went through me as I slotted myself against him was so goddamn embarrassing.

Without a word, Mikey’s arm banded around me, and he buried his face in my hair to press another soft kiss to the top of my head. “Don’t shut me out anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, closing my eyes and curling my fingers into the soft cotton of his shirt.

He nuzzled into me again. “I missed you, Cal. So fucking much.”

My heart stuttered, and beneath my cheek, the steady thud of his heartbeat kicked up.

This … tenderness … wasn’t what we were. This wasn’t what we did.

Except, he kissed me again, his lips lingering at my temple, and I wondered if maybe it was what we did now. Or maybe this was a just-for-tonight thing because of my nightmare. Either way, I’d take it.

I’d take anything he was willing to give me.

I burrowed closer.

“Go to sleep. I got you.”

“I know you do,” I whispered, wishing with all my heart it could be the way I desperately wanted.

TWENTY-THREE

CALLY

The puck deflected out to the neutral zone long enough for our exhausted forwards to scramble to the bench, and Mikey vaulted over the boards, hitting the ice just as Seattle regrouped and fired the puck right back into our end, dumping it deep into the corner.

Koffee and Stevens had to pivot and scramble back to retrieve it, with Stevens somehow managing to reach the puck before the two Seattle forwards barreling down his back. Operating on dead legs and pure panic, he didn’t even look for a pass; he just hammered it down the length of the rink.

The whistle blew, the linesman’s arm shooting into the air for an icing call, trapping Koffee and Stevens out there.

Mikey skated toward the dot, settling in at the hash marks while I took a pull from my water bottle, my eyes trained on him.

Their center, a hulking veteran named Ivan Rustova who had thirty pounds and three inches on Mikey, was smirking down at him, his body language reeking of confidence despite the fact that Seattle was down by one with only a few minutes left in the third period.

Mikey dropped into his stance, and the linesman dropped the puck. Rustova tried to muscle through, but Mikey shifted his weight and tied up Rustova’s stick long enough to cleanly kick the puck back to Stevens.

“Fuck yeah!” Bell whooped, knocking my shoulder with his. “Your boy’s on fire tonight.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, unable to look away as Mikey pivoted to block Rustova out of the play. “He is.”

Stevens pushed the puck over to Koffee, who tried to wrap it around the boards to clear the zone, but his pass was weak. A Seattle winger pinched down easily, intercepting the puck at the half-wall, and suddenly, the threat was back.

My grip tightened on my stick. This was exactly the kind of fuckery that usually resulted in a red light flashing.

The Seattle winger reversed the puck behind the net, trying to feed it to Rustova, but Mikey read it early and was already there. Their bodies slammed into the glass, but Mikey absorbed the hit, refusing to yield even an inch to Rustova.

Through sheer force of will, he used his hips to box him out, getting his stick underneath the veteran’s. Smooth as fuck, he dug the puck out of the skates, kicking it up to his own blade. He took a heavy cross-check to the lower back for his trouble, stumbling slightly, but unlike the game against Raleigh, he didn’t go down.