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“You had a bad game. It happens.”

“Not to me.”

I almost laughed. “Everyone has bad games.”

“Not when someone I—” He snapped his tusks. “Not when you’re watching.”

The words settled between us, loaded with all the things we weren’t saying.

“Is that why you played badly?” I asked quietly. “Because I was there?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his face. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you in the stands. You’re wearing my hoodie, looking like⁠—”

He didn’t finish.

“And then I couldn’t focus on the puck because I kept wondering if you were still watching. If you were disappointed after each bad play. If you regretted fixing me.” His gaze met mine. “Coming to the game. The pool.”

He thought I regretted being with him?

“I don’t regret what happened in the pool,” I said, then took a breath. “Or you spending the night. I regret nothing.”

His entire body went still.

My heartbeat throbbed in my throat. Part of me wanted to take the words back. To make a joke, deflect, protect myself the way I always had. But I’d spent ten months protecting myself from him, and where had it gotten me?

“That night, you made me feel like I mattered. Not as your therapist or Crim’s sister. Just as me.”

His hands flexed at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for me.

“And tonight scared me,” I said. “I watched you struggle, believing I’d caused it. But Crim said something that made me think.” I wrapped my arms around myself, the hoodie feeling like armor and exposure at the same time. “He said this isn’t about me being a distraction. It’s about you figuring out how to play while knowing someone you care about is watching.”

“He’s right. I’ve played hockey my whole life. I know how to be brutal in the net. I don’t know how to be…this.” He gestured between us. “Not with you there, seeing all my flaws.”

I stepped closer. “You think one bad game makes me see you differently? I’ve already seen you at your most vulnerable, and I’m still here.”

His throat worked, his eyes searching mine in the low light. “You are.”

“I’m here when you’re brilliant and when you’re scared. Even when you’re the brutal goalie everyone talks about.”

His voice cracked. “I didn’t know you could want both.”

“I’m still figuring it out too.” The honesty felt like stepping off a cliff. “I’m scared, Brashe. Of being wrong about you again or making you into someone you’re not because I want this so badly.”

His jaw worked. “And if you’re not wrong?”

“I’m scared of that too.” My laugh bubbled up, slightly hysterical. “I’m scared of everything right now except the part where I keep choosing to stand here instead of getting in my car.”

He stared at me like he was trying to believe it. “I don’t know how to want something that isn’t hockey. Be something that isn’t a weapon in the net.”

I wanted to grab him by his team jacket and shake him until he understood he was more than what he could do on the ice.

“You don’t have to know how,” I said. “You just have to try.”

The air between us buzzed.

“Can I text you later?” he asked.

“You text me every night at 9:41.”