Page 133 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“You are a tough crowd.” I rub my forehead and rack my brain. All the amazing things I’ve been dreaming Nat and I would do together in a future lifehave now flown from my head as I try to squeeze out some ideas of how I can sweeten this pot.

“I’ll let you decorate the house with as many lights and bonkers Christmas ornaments as you like every year.”

She shrugs. “I’d do that anyway.”

“Oooh.” I can use a plan I’ve already partially thought through. “I’ll take you to Italy and we’ll go eat the Amoroso Gelati ice cream at the actual shop where it’s made.” She looks impressed, so I soldier on with this one. “While we’re there, we’ll go to Rome and Venice and the Romeo and Juliet balcony in Verona.” If she wasn’t with me already, surely Shakespeare will get her.

“That sounds like a truly amazing trip.” She strokes the pig from nose to tail. “But, like Wendolyn, I’m not into flashy gifts. I prefer things that are small, meaningful, and are special because only you would have thought of them.”

I lower my voice. “You’re killing me here, you know that?”

She nods. Painfully slowly.

And she’s right. I was a total fucking shit to her. She should make me work for it, make me grovel, make me prove how I appreciate every bone in her body, every hair on her head, every beat of her heart.

I put my fingers to my temples, wishing I could wring a winning idea out of my gray matter, an idea that would show how much I love and adore her.

“Okay.” My voice silences the crowd’s mutterings. “Every day we’re apart, and there’ll be plenty of those with games and stuff, but on every single one of them, I will write you a letter.”

Anawripples through the audience from what sounds like every female voice out there.

“Better than the one you left behind at the house?” she asks.

“Yes. Much better. Because every single one of them will say the opposite of goodbye.”

“You’d do that, even though writing love letters would show that you’re all squishy and vulnerable and not the big tough hockey guy?” she asks.

“I just gave you a toy pink pig in front of an audience, for fu—” Oops. “For goodness’ sake. If that hasn’t trampled my fear of vulnerability into the ground, I don’t know what would.”

I take her non-pig-holding, giant-gloved hand in mine. “Imight be the hockey tough guy on the ice, but that’s not who I really am. And I think you saw that. And that’s terrifying. But I will be squishy and vulnerable for you every day for the rest of my life if you’ll let me. I know that’s fast. It’s all been very quick. But, as sure as a pig is a pig, I’m certain I love you.”

As her eyes finally overflow, she reaches up to fling her arms around my neck. I bend down to let her, wrapping my arms around her waist as cheers erupt around us.

She buries her face in my neck, her breath warming my cold skin.

“I’m sure I love you too,” she says.

I thought she’d already unfrozen my heart, melted it and turned it to slush, but now it swells to a size I never imagined, making itself large enough to both love her and accept all the love I know she has to give.

I straighten and take her face in my hands. “I have no idea how it’ll work with you in New Orleans, but we’ll figure it out.”

“Oh,” she says as I thumb awayher tears. “I’m not going. I have nothing to prove to anyone. Not even to myself. I’m staying here. I love it here.”

What?

“Warm Springs is where my heart lies,” she adds. “And now it lies with you too.”

A giant wave of relief washes over me as I drop a kiss between her eyebrows. Jesus, that makes everything so much easier. I’ll get to see her so much more than I thought. This really could not have gone better.

Another chant is gathering steam in the crowd.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

“Shall we?” I ask. “Can I be the Sir Percival to your Wendolyn?”

She nods.

And our lips meet, creating a tiny spot of warmth in the cold Christmas Eve air of a small town with a giant heart.

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