Page 101 of Phantom Faceoff
The words are barely out of my mouth before Malachi ropes me into him and covers my mouth with his own.
“Happy anniversary,” I squeak as soon as I can catch a breath.
“I’d give you a reward,” he mutters against my lips, “but that’s not appropriate for prying eyes.”
I don’t get a chance to give him one of my ultra-creative solutions, because he kisses me again.
“Lucky for you, I just picked your gift up,” he says.
“That’s last minute of you,” I tease, flicking his mouth with my tongue. “I can think of a couple gifts you could give me later.”
“Mhm.” The sound rumbles out of his throat and goes straight to my cock. “You’ll like what I got you, Wildfire.”
It takes all of my willpower not to have him drag me out now and explain himself, but his gift isn’t finished yet. It’ll have to wait.
I take a step out of his arms, because that’s the only way we’ll stop roaming our hands all over each other, and that’s when his eyes slide back to the performance area and widen.
I couldn’t grin wider if I tried.
“What did you do?” He asks, barely above a whisper, and I know I’m dealing with full blown dorky, Malachi Blanchard. Daddy has been shelved.
“I may or may not have found a clusterfuck of ramblings you made about some indie artist you like. I also may have seen the sheer amount of playlists you have his music on. And I may—okay, Idefinitely—asked Tessa if she could work some of her newly acquired band manager magic to see if she could bring him here?”
Anytime I get to see Malachi’s eyes light with excitement, whenever he gets to behappywithout the pressure of looking after someone else, my heart feels impossibly full.
“I love you,” he says, and gives me another quick kiss before pulling me out the door.
“What are we doing?” I ask. I kinda figured he’d abandon me for the musician. And I wouldn’t have been mad, because I’m the one who gave this to him.
But I won’t say no to whatever else he has in mind.
He takes me to the truck, pulling a box out of the bed and handing it to me.
“Oh, I get my present now?”
Malachi raises his brow and rests a hand on the back of my neck.
“Drop the attitude or I’ll let you walk in there with a handprint on your ass.”
I shiver and lift the lid of the box, revealing green and red parchment paper that I easily push aside—not rip out because littering will also get me spanked.
Beneath the paper is a green, white, and maroon jersey with the number “16” displayed in large numbers on the back. It’s not the team’s colors, and instead of my name above the numbers it says “Wildfire.”
I run my fingers over the letters, smiling softly as emotion bubbles rapidly in my chest.
“Malachi…”
He squeezes my nape, whispers in my ear, “look at the front.”
I turn it over, and the laugh I choke out is wet and wobbly. “Goddammit.”
In the spot that would normally have the team logo, Malachi has replaced with the words, “Malachi’s Boy.”
“I figure,” he says, lips brushing my temple, “that sounds innocently enough like boyfriend behavior.”
He’s not wrong. Most people won’t bat an eye at it. The team will chirp and rib me if they see it—and of course I’ll wear it around them just to show off anyway—but Malachi and I, we both know what it means.
“I love you,” I tell him, winding my arms around his neck. The box drops unceremoniously to the ground, but the jersey is clenched right in my fists.
