“Even if you win six Stanley Cups like you’ve vowed to do?”
I paused and said, “Yeah, even if I win six Stanley Cups.”
When Erik turned his head, I knew I hadn’t convinced him.
“Like I said, it isn’t an absolute guarantee. Leon Purvis told me that the championship pushed me as close to a guarantee for being drafted as I would possibly get. But you know, there are always complications.”
“And the entire sports world finding out that we’ve been a couple almost the entire season hasn’t changed their minds?”
I shook my head. We couldn’t have done this ten years ago let alone fifteen or twenty. But I didn’t know if saying that would do much to help Erik’s peace of mind.
“Look,” I said, “you know that I would never look down on you if I get drafted and you don’t. Besides, not getting picked up by an NHL team the first time around isn’t the end of the world. You know that.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Kayden.”
We paused again, and I knew my boyfriend was seriously concerned. Maybe I should’ve known this topic wouldn’t go away.
“You think it can never work?” I asked. Erik didn’t nod, but he didn’t have to. I knew that he was still hanging on to this idea that the arrangement would make it impossible for us to have a normal relationship.
“I want us to take the next step,” Erik said.
“What do you think the next step is?”
He didn’t give another tiny shrug like he had earlier. “You want us to get married.” I said it as a fact, not a question.
“I do, Kayden. I really do.”
I paused, wanting the same, but not knowing when that should happen.
“We don’t have to do it right away or anything,” Erik said. “If I don’t get drafted, I’ll have to finish school. And then you’ll be gone all the time. If I never see you then?—”
I put a finger over his lips and shushed him.
“Listen, we don’t have to worry about any of that stuff,” I said.
“How do we not have to worry about it? It’s going to be a nonstop problem.”
“But it’s a manageable problem when you look at everything we’ve already been through—and survived.”
He paused like I already had him on the ropes. Now I needed to land the knockout blow.
“We wouldn’t have made it nearly as far as we have if we hadn’t persevered,” I said. “Think about it. How many times could we have just called it quits and walked away?”
“Well, we did call it quits once.”
He half-smiled, like he knew he’d only said it to be a pain in the ass. I could take it. I would have to. After all, I would have a lifetime of that cheekiness ahead of me.
“You know what I’m saying, don’t you?” I asked.
“I think I do.”
“We won the championship, despite everything that happened, because we persevered. We got all this media attention because we persevered. I’m telling you to just stick with it. We can take anything the world throws at us if we just persevere.”
Finally, Erik nodded.
“We can take the next steps as fast or slow as you want,” I said, “but I do know that if I really am drafted, I’m going to buy us the biggest house in Buffalo.”
“Or Toronto.”
