Page 88 of Hearts on Ice
“Maybe.”
“You did that before Phoenix too,” he said. “I watched you pacing the hallway like a caged lion.”
“Worked out in the end.”
“Exactly.” His smile tilted. “So maybe next time, trust the lion. Not the cage.”
I laughed quietly. “That what you tell yourself in-net?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “Different cage.”
Miguel reached out, fingertips brushing the side of my arm—soft, familiar.
My whole body exhaled.
After a while, he asked, “What happens if we win it all?”
I huffed a breath. “You mean after the confetti and the hangovers?”
“After that.”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe I finally believe I didn’t waste the last five years.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“That even if we lose, you’ve already changed this team. You made it feel like a family.”
“That’s you talking,” I said. “You’re the heartbeat in that room.”
He shook his head. “No. You are. You keep everyone breathing the same rhythm. You just don’t see it.”
I swallowed hard, because that hit deeper than he probably meant it to.
“I see you, though,” I said.
His smile was tender. “I know.”
He reached up, fingertips brushing the line of my jaw, then tracing down to my collarbone. “I keep wondering how long we can keep this up. The sneaking, the pretending.”
“As long as we have to,” I said.
“And if we get caught?”
I met his gaze. “Then I guess we stop pretending.”
The quiet between us stretched, heavy with the kind of truth that didn’t need three words to name it.
I slid closer until our foreheads touched. “You make it easier,” I whispered. “The pressure. The noise. All of it.”
“Good,” he said. “Because you make everything else harder.”
That earned a laugh out of me, low and rough. “You trying to ruin my focus?”
“Trying to keep you human.”
He kissed me then—slow, certain…
