Page 89 of The Spice Play

“What do you mean? Why does that matter?”

“They’re a good luck treat!” he chirped, and I furrowed my brow, turning my attention from him and leaning over the counter. “Any chance I can check the allergens on the box?”

“Sure,” the man said, shrugging his lanky shoulder beneath the oversized Atlanta Fire jersey. He reached under the counter and pulled out a box, turning it over to the back before passing it to me.

I skimmed it, making absolutely sure that there weren’t peanuts in the ingredients, but I felt the stares from the people waiting behind me like daggers in my back. “All right, two packs of those, a juice box, and a Diet Coke.”

“Get another one for Daddy,” Matty added, pulling at my jersey insistently. “For after the game.”

“All right, all right,” I chuckled. “Sorry,threepacks of Whoppers.”

“Anything else?” he asked, eying me warily as his hand hovered over the touch screen.

“No, that’s it.”

He didn’t say a word, but the total flashed up on the card reader in front of me, and I tapped Seb’s card before shoving it back into my wallet. I grabbed our snacks and our drinks, throwing them into the fabric backpack I’d brought with us, and hoisted Matty up onto my hip so I wouldn’t lose him in the crowd of people.

Intermission still had another ten minutes at least, and I was tempted to stay out of the inner area of the arena, my rear sore from sitting on the hard seats. I found a calmer spot a little away from the main doors and set Matty down, squatting down beside him as I fished out his juice box.

“Your Daddy said that tonight was important,” I said, watching as Matty fumbled a little with the straw before he managed to push it through the top. “But that they won’t be eliminated if they lose. I’m not quite sure how it?—”

“Nell.”

The word interrupted the string of chatter coming through the speakers above, and my ears perked up for half a second.

“Daddy?” Matty said, his head tipping back as he looked at the ceiling, his eyes locking on the speaker.

“I don’t think that was Daddy,” I chuckled. “They probably said something that sounds like my name. It meansnothing?—”

“Nelly Moreno?”

Okay, nope, that was Seb, and he had absolutely said myname.Why the hell is he calling on me over the loudspeaker? Doesn’t he have his phone?

“I don’t… I don’t know where you’re sitting, baby, can you stand up?”

My eyes went wide as the realization set in that he was looking for me — and I wasn’t in there. Something must have happened. Adrenaline dumped into my system immediately, propelling me, forcing me to act. “Shit,” I breathed, wrapping an arm around Matty and hoisting him back up onto me.

“You’re not supposed to say that,” Matty giggled.

“Our little secret,” I shot back.

I pushed into the crowd again, aiming for the open doors, fighting for leverage in the slow-moving sea of people who didn’t seem to have a care in the world. But none of them were having their names called over the loudspeaker by the father of the child they were looking after, and none of them were wrapped up in complex feelings with said father.

“Goddammit, I can’t… I can’t see you.”

I managed to push through, and the moment I was through the bottleneck of the door, the space widened out and I was able to move quicker, easier, freer. Seb stood in the center of the ice, a couple of feet in front of the guys who had been chatting away about hockey facts. He clutched their microphone in his hand, his gaze scanning the crowd above.

“Daddy!” Matty squealed, his feet kicking on either side of my body as he sat heavily on my hip. But it was too loud, and we were too far, and there wasn’t a chance he’d hear Matty.

I pushed forward further, security blocking the front rows along the boards. “Seb!” I shouted.

His head whipped to his right, tome, his eyes wide as he took me in. He was still in his gear, but his helmet was off, his mouth guard out, andfuck, even covered neck to toe in padding and guards, even with his hair slick with sweat and his black eye, he looked like a dream.

“Hi,” I said, confusion setting in from his lack of panic.Why… why was he looking for me? Is this not an emergency?

“Hi,” he said, the mic a little too close to his mouth. The word boomed over the speakers. “I needed to say something to you, and you might think I’m insane or that this is cringe, but I don’t care.”

I readjusted Matty on my hip, my stomach sinking and twisting. There were two obvious ways this could go — either he was batshit crazy and about to profess that he was in love with me, or he was going to break it off with me in the most spectacular, history-book-making way possible. My hands trembled at the idea of either of those options, and I tried to hide them by holding Matty.

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