Game over.
Miami Blazers win.
The crowd erupts like the roof’s about to cave in. The jumbotron flashes the final score in massive red letters, and the team collapses into a tangle of arms and jerseys and gear. We’re grabbing each other, cussing, screaming, pounding each other’s backs. The crowd is shaking the damn arena.
The jumbotron flips to camera footage of us celebrating—to Dom’s crooked smile, Zed’s cold-blooded nod, Tanner flexing for no reason, me…
Melody.
My eyes snap to the screen and then to the boards, scanning. Heart hammering harder now than it did during the final shift.
She’s jumping up and down, hands in the air, hair bouncing, cheering for us. She looks at me and starts shouting something I can only try to lip-read, but it’s not fucking working.
The noise around me fades, the colors blur. The team’s still celebrating, but I’m already turning.
I skate past the bench, past the refs, and straight toward the section of glass where I saw her during the game.
Melody freezes when she sees me coming—hands still mid-air, mouth still open. Then her smile breaks across her face like light on water, and I’m fucking done.
I take my helmet off and toss it, skates slicing through the ice. I stop right in front of her, the glass separating us. Her palms press against it, and I lay my gloved hands over hers.
She stares at me, beaming, and then she does the one thing that shatters all self-control I have left.
“I love you,” she mouths.
The second I read her lips, I’m gone. I don’t hear the crowd. I don’t hear the announcer. I just drop my stick, spin toward the bench, and skate hard.
“Brooks?” Tanner shouts, confused.
I duck under the barrier, head straight down the tunnel, and take the side hallway toward the VIP stands. Arena security barely flinches—they know my face. They part like smoke.
“Need five seconds,” I snap as I pass.
One of them nods tightly, and I’m moving again. Blades clatter against concrete, gear creaking with each step, sweat dripping from every inch of me—but none of it matters.
Because now I see her. No glass between us.
I grab the rail, vault over it in full gear, and land on the carpet behind her.
She gasps, stumbling back. Even on her tiptoes, she can’t quite reach me—not with my skates on, not with my height.
So I make it easy.
I grab her waist and lift her clean off the ground.
Her hands fly up, curling into my jersey, and I pull her into me. Her legs lock around my hips as I haul her higher and bring her mouth down on mine.
“Fuck, I love you too.” My hands tighten on her hips, holding her like I’m never letting go.
“I’ve missed you,” she says, her voice breaking into a grin that wrecks me.
For a second, it’s just us—her breath in my ear, my heart still hammering from the game, the taste of her cutting through every minute we’ve been apart. The noise of the arena fades to a hum, the kind you feel in your chest more than you hear. I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in, letting her know without words that I’m not letting another ten days go by without this.
But then the air shifts. A weight settles in, heavy enough to pull me out of it. I glance to the side.
Dom.
Slowly, I set Melody back down, but my hands stay locked on her waist. My gaze stays on him the entire time—because he needs to see this. He can fight it, he can hate it, but he’s going to have to fucking live with it.
