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Axel grinned. “Yeah, we did.”
“How’s it feel?”
Axel sighed, settled back against the bleachers, and seemed to consider that. “It feels…” He shoved a chunk of the muffin into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “I guess it still feels surreal and strange and not real, you know?”
I didn’t really know, considering I hadn’t won a Cup myself, but I nodded like I got it before my gaze drifted out onto the floor again, toward a certain pair of women, one sitting with her casted leg propped up, the other—the one with blond curls—sprawled out on the cot next to her.
Still out. Thank God.
“You had quite a span of experiences this year.”
Billie rolled, dragging the blanket with her and I held my breath, expecting her to wake up, knowing it was too soon, that she hadn’t rested enough.
“Maybe it’ll sink in at some point,” Axel said, and I blinked, tore my gaze away. Again. “But right now—especially with all of this”—he waved a hand at the gym, at the people, the cots, at the fact that we were in this shelter in the first place—“it hasn’t quite settled that deep.”
Meanwhile, I’d fucked the mayor.
Cool.
I took a bite of the muffin, spoke through the chocolate deliciousness. “I feel that.”
And then Axel got sappy on me.
But, for once, I couldn’t give him shit.
Not when his words struck deep.
“I almost lost her,” he whispered. “And I would have losteverything. None of it would have meant anything. The win. The goal. The Cup. It would have all been just…nothing.”
Fuck.
I didn’t want to feel that. Didn’t want to acknowledge how that settled in my belly, especially with blond curls in my periphery. But I wasn’t kidding when I said Axel had gone through a breadth of experiences.
Town fuck-up to NHLer. Finding the woman he loved and almost losing her. Dealing with his crazy ex and hers and then figuring it all out. Beginning to live his dream and then almost losing it.
Losingher.
But his life wasn’tmylife.
And just because Billie Rose and I had found a half-second of peace between us (mainly by fucking each other senseless—because orgasms were definitely the way to get her to chill the fuck out), that didn’t mean I was on the same path as him. I was just feeling sappy and nostalgic because of all my friend had been through.
It was my friend who I should be focusing on, considering he’d been through that fucking whirlwind.
I dropped my hand onto his knee, squeezed tightly. “She’s your person.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
The quiet fell between us again.
Axel slanted a knowing glance toward me. “And I’m starting to think that Billie Rose is—”
For fuck’s sake.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
“She’s smart, driven,andlocal.”
For fuck’s sake.
