I nod.
I wish I had been sending him messages all those years. He always seemed so lofty, so perfect, but maybe he would have answered. Maybe we could have become friends.
“You’re a hockey player,” Finn says. “You understand me better than anyone else.”
I smile, but it’s not what draws us close together that I’m thinking about. It’s all those things that make us different.
“My background is different,” I say. “My dad ran the gas station in our tiny, tiny New Hampshire town.”
“My dad would be the first person to say that he is extraordinary. Not in a bad way... Just in that there aren’t many people who have what we have.” He frowns. “I’m saying it wrong.”
“I get it. My experience is more normal. But it’s still super different, Finn. I don’t think your family would approve. I think all your fans would be shocked. And I don’t know what your sponsors would think. It’s okay to tell me you changed your mind. Maybe we should come clean to Coach and the team.”
“And the world?” He grits his jaw. I don’t like the tension in it, and I want to smooth away the pebbled texture that has formed.
I nod. “And the world. If the world wants to know.”
He narrows his gaze.
“I didn’t play well the first night. I played terribly—”
“That was because—”
I touch his chest, wanting to calm him. “I know. But it’s still a fact. Maybe I’m not meant to be here. I don’t want you to risk your career for me.”
He smiles at me now, his eyes crinkling with fondness.
“They would try to trade me, Noah. This is good for both of us. I like Boston. I like my team. And I like you.” He frowns. “Not in that way, of course.”
“I know,” I say hastily, and I wonder if I should tell him that maybe I like him in exactly that way.
But I don’t want to make things even stranger between us, especially if I’m going to be moving into his place.
“In a year we can get a divorce.”
“Divorces happen,” I say, and something hurts my chest.
I guess contemplating divorces makes anyone sad.
Footsteps sound, and Finn’s eyes widen.
“Finn! Noah!” Coach’s voice barrels through the air. “Where are you?”
“We have to sell this,” Finn says, his voice desperate.
And so I kiss him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Finn
Noah flings himself into my arms, and I wrap my arms around him instinctively, inhaling his clean scent. His back is muscular, and I trail my hand from muscular plane to muscular plane, and I raise my chin slightly so that he can have the best angle as he explores me with his mouth.
The kiss is hot.
The kiss isn’t supposed to be hot.
Maybe we’re both excellent actors. Maybe waving to the audience during hockey games trained us for more than we thought.
