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“Shh.” He sets a finger to his mouth. “Word might get out that I’m capable of such things, then what would I do?”
I smile. “You’d be exposed. Brutally. For the good person that you are.”
“Ah, don’t push it.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t a big favor to ask. That’s one of the brand partnerships that I managed not to fuck up. They were all too happy to bring back that style for me. Just took them a couple weeks to get it together.”
My eyes narrow. That means he’s had this in the works for a while. Since…well, since I really didn’t think he cared about me at all. It makes those butterflies in my stomach flutter dangerously.
“It was really sweet of you, Sebastian. Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” he says.
“Hey.” I tug at his hand. “You just gave me hell for downplaying what I did when you thanked me. Don’t turn around and do the same thing. You thoughtfully, singlehandedly made it possible for me to have these jeans, the only ones I’ve ever found that work for me, and it was sweet and you deserve to be thanked for it.”
“They’re just jeans. You stood up to my awful family.”
“Because you deserve to be stuck up for, to be protected from that, that, that fuckery.”
“Sigrid!” he gasps.
I poke his side. “Be serious.”
He sighs. “Must I?”
Giving him a look, I glide my fingertips along his. “For a moment, yes. Let’s agree we won’t downplay what we are or do for each other anymore, okay? I just want us to be us. I want us to be honest. You saw how busy we’ve been the past few weeks, how much less we’ve seen of each other. I don’t want anything else like half-truths and omissions keeping us even further apart. Okay?”
A smile lifts his mouth. “Yeah, Sigrid. Okay.” Pocketing his keys, Sebastian steps closer and threads his fingers tight through mine. His gaze drifts up to my hair, which he smooths gently away from my face before he meets my eyes. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“Miss me?”
“Sigrid.” He lifts his eyebrows. “You just said yourself how busy we’ve been. That’s nothing to what’s coming. Have you looked at our Google calendar for the foreseeable future?”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “I might have been avoiding it.”
Because I know what’s coming. Angel City’s regular season is winding down, but the National Team has international friendlies lined up throughout the month, and my schedule’s packed with a slew of new and prospective brand sponsorship meetings, interviews, and photo shoots. The irony that these opportunities, in part made possible because I put myself out there in the public eye with Sebastian and got myself noticed, are the very things that are going to keep me away from him.
“Well, when you give up that avoidance tactic, you’ll see what I mean.” He sighs heavily, tugging me toward him. “C’mon. Hug me goodbye.”
My chin bumps into his shoulder as I tumble into him, as he wraps his arms around me hard and buries his face in my neck. I feel him take a deep breath in, then hold it, before slowly exhaling. Slipping my arms around his waist, I rest my cheek against his shoulder. He already feels more solid, stronger, healthier. Tears prick my ears. “I’m gonna miss you, too.”
“Bullshit,” he mutters into my hair, “that’s what professional hockey schedules are.”
I nod against his shoulder. “Total bullshit.”
“Two swears in one night.” He tsks. “You really have turned into a bad girl.”
I laugh, blinking away tears.
His hand comes to my back, circling gently. “We’ll have some overlap,” he says. “We’ll still see each other. And there are these fancy newfangled contraptions called phones that we can use to stay in touch. You can text and call on them. It’s incredible.”
I snort a laugh, pulling away. I can’t help but smile. “Like you’d call me.”
His eyes hold mine. “I’d call you every day if you wanted me to, Sigrid.”
My smile falters. “You would?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip. “Well, then…consider yourself…wanted.”
