Jordy could only imagine he looked like an idiot for the rest of warmups. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Rowan. Every time he glanced over, he found Rowan’s gaze on him. He was really here. He hadn’t left.
“Oh my God, you’ve forgotten where the net is,” said his D-partner. He gave Jordy an admittedly deserved facewash.
He didn’t seem particularly upset about it.
Finally they were called off the ice. Jordy practically tossed his stick into the rack and sprinted down the tunnel toward the locker room.
For a second, he was convinced he’d imagined the whole thing. And then Rowan stepped out of the hallway past the dressing room and suddenly it was the rest of the world that wasn’t quite real.
“Hi,” Rowan said shyly. The sign had disappeared, along with most of Jordy’s sense.
“Hi,” he said back, feeling stupid. “What, uh. What are you doing here?”
Rowan tugged at his earlobe and cleared his throat. “Well, you know, I thought—I’ve heard rent in Vancouver is very expensive—”
Jordy stared at him.
Rowan snapped his mouth shut and changed tack. “I have spent my entire adult life trying to build myself a home.” He took a step forward. Jordy’s hands itched to take his, but he couldn’t move. “I saved and I sacrificed and I finally got a job that I love and an apartment that I still haven’t slept in, and it was supposed to make me happy.”
Surely he didn’t miss his flight to tell Jordy he was still leaving? He wouldn’t be so cruel.
“And it did,” Rowan said. He was smiling a little now. His hands found Jordy’s. “When I quit it.”
Jordy’s mouth went dry.
“I spent so much time and energy trying to build a home. But home’s not a place, it’s people. It’s you and Kaira and—and me, if you’ll have me.”
Jordy dropped his hands and pulled him into a kiss by his face.
It didn’t go further than that, not with the game in twenty minutes and Jordy’s teammates just around the corner. But it felt good, right, to kiss Rowan like this here and finally make a public statement of what he’d been feeling for months. As indulgent as his teammates were, Jordy knew his coach would give him only so much leeway.
“So,” Rowan panted when the kiss broke, “that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes,” Jordy confirmed.
“Oh good,” Rowan said breathlessly. “’Cause once I break my lease, I am going to be super broke.”
IF POSSIBLE,Rowan took in even less of this hockey game than he had any of the previous ones. He also enjoyed it the most. Quite possibly every other fan in the building thought he was deranged because he couldn’t stop smiling, even when the Orcas allowed a goal against, but he consoled himself that they would’ve been grinning like a fool too if the love of their life had just snogged the daylights out of them in the bowels of a hockey arena.
When the game ended, a team employee fetched Rowan from the stands and led him back down to the dressing room, and Jordy drove them home.
Home. Where their room was, and the throw blanket Jordy had bought for Rowan in New York City, and Kaira.
His family.
But when they turned onto Jordy’s street, Rowan’s stomach twisted into knots. “What if she’s still upset? What if she thinks I’m going to leave again?”
Jordy’s hand covered his on the center console. “Then we’ll prove you aren’t.”
Sure. No problem.
Jordy squeezed his fingers. “Rowan, she loves you. It’s going to be okay. Remember how upset she was you were leaving? She’ll be just as excited knowing you’re going to stay.”
Rowan tried to believe him, but his nervous heart wouldn’t be convinced—not until Jordy opened the door to the house and said, “Kaira? There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?” Kaira demanded from out of sight.
“Come see,” Jordy laughed, though Kaira’s dramatic sigh was still loud enough to be heard.
