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She shakes her head. “Can’t.”
A soft laugh leaves me. “Well, I’ve fireman carried you before. I can do it again.”
“Mm-kay.”
I push open my door, then round the car before opening her door and easing her out. Ziggy flops over my shoulder as I set her duffel bag on the other. I kick the car door shut behind me, then hit the lock button on my keys.
“I’m upside down,” she mumbles, sounding a little delighted by this.
I smile and squeeze her thigh. “No you’re not. The world is.”
I feel her head lift a little, like she’s looking around. She drops her head, then swats me on the butt. “Liar.”
“Have to stay in character.”
She sighs. “You dressed up as Lord Ansgar.”
“He’s a total badass. I couldn’t not dress as Rainer, Lord Ansgar.”
I riffle through her duffel bag and find her keys, then let us into her building. A month of dedicated training and hockey has already made my body build back the muscle I lost this summer—I walk up the stairs steadily with her on my shoulder, open her apartment door, then let myself in with her keys again.
Nudging the door shut, I lock the bolt with my elbow, then walk toward her bed and lower her onto it.
Ziggy sighs as she flops back, arms above her, red hair fanned out across the bed. “So tired,” she mumbles.
Gently, I tug off her boots, then loosen the corset-style laces at her stomach, up to the curves of her breasts, stopping myself before I touch them. She draws in a deep satisfied breath. “Thank you, Sebastian,” she sighs.
It feels so intimate, so…right, tugging off her shoes, loosening her dress. In that moment, I know if I could do this every night for the rest of my life, if I could ever be worthy of that, I would.
My throat feels thick. My heart thunders in my chest. “Sleep tight, Sigrid.”
She licks her lips, then drowsily lolls her head my way. Her eyes open to sleepy slits as she peers up at me. “I miss you.”
I swallow roughly. “I miss you, too.”
Sighing, she shuts her eyes. “And I’m just gonna miss you more and more.”
I clasp her hand, gently tracing her fingers, long and lovely, the soft curves of her nails. “I miss you more and more, too.”
“Too much,” she whispers.
I peer up at her, searching her face. “Too much?”
She nods.
“Ziggy—”
Her snore is soft and sweet. It makes me smile, torn. What does she mean, she misses me too much? That it’s too much to ask, this friendship, this…dynamic, while I’m busy with the season? I want to shake her awake and ask her, but to what end? So she can tell me something that will crush me? So I can ask her for something I’m not prepared to give?
Slowly, I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss her palm, featherlight. Then I set it down on the bed and clasp it, stroking her warm satin skin.
“I’m too selfish to ask you to stop missing me, Ziggy,” I tell her quietly. “So…please don’t stop. Please hang tight. Just hang in there for me. I promise, I’m trying. Okay?”
She sighs, a soft smile lifting her mouth. “Kay.”
Breathing heavily, I’m bent low as I glide across the ice, not because I’m winded, but because I’m pissed and trying not to lose it. I’m pissed because we’re losing. I’m pissed that my asshole absent father decided, now that I’ve cleaned up my act and I’m having the best season of my career, that he’s interested in being in my life, despite my telling him he can fuck right off until further notice, and he’s at my game tonight, like he has been a handful of other times the past few months, watching me up in that fancy box with the owners, laughing and schmoozing them, acting like they’re best fucking buddies, all so proud of me; like he’s had anything to do with me getting where I am, except for dumping half his hockey-inclined DNA into my makeup, then splitting when he got bored.
I’m pissed because it’s been six months since that night I tucked in Ziggy after my birthday party and begged her to wait for me while I got my shit together, and it’s felt like six years, for how hard I’ve worked to make myself good enough.
