“I will,” she says softly.
“Then we are good, beautiful.”
“What about you?”
I frown. “What about me?”
“Well, if we’re making plans for me, what are yours?”
“You mean with school or hockey?”
She shrugs. “Both.”
I blow out a breath. “If you would have asked me this question last year, I would have told you I would be entering the draft at the end of the season.”
“But now?”
“I want to stay. Shit, Cora, I’ve learned so much about myself this year it isn’t even funny. I feel like I’m a better hockey player than I was last year, and I know if I stay and with the help of Coach, I’ll only get better. Is there a risk of injury? Of course, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“So you want to enter the draft at the end of your senior year? Like Clay is doing?”
“I do.”
“I won’t lie. I like the idea of having you to myself for two more years,” she says with a little smile.
“I like that too, beautiful.”
“You know, if you would have entered this year, you could have gone with Clay.”
“I could have, but it’s not the right call. I want to see what I can do here first. Besides, after last year, I want to prove to myself that I’m not in his shadow. That I’m doing all of this for the right reasons and not because I’m trying to compete with him.”
“I get not wanting to live in his shadow,” she says softly.
“Beautiful, you can’t be in his shadow when all you do is light up any room you walk into.”
Cora rolls her eyes and giggles. “That was cheesy.”
I squeeze her tight. “You like it.”
“I do.”
“So are we good? Do we have a game plan?”
“We’re good. You and me, together and living here for the next two years. Once you enter the draft, we can make a new plan.”
“Fuck, beautiful, I like hearing you talk about our future that far down the road.”
“It’s going to be a wild ride, I’m sure.”
A wild ride that hopefully ends up with me wearing a ring that she puts on my finger and her with my last name.
Fuck, I hope this all works out. I need it to, because I don’t know what I would do without her next to me.
twenty-three
“Dude, is this real life right now?” Peyton asks as she scans the hotel room.
“It’s something that’s for sure,” I murmur, shaking my head.
