Page 100 of Zero Pucks

“I will do anything you want.”

His eyes opened at that. “Seems like a dangerous promise.”

I brushed a few locks of his wild bed head out of his eyes and touched my nose to his. “Yeah, that sounds about right. But I don’t care. I’m…” I hesitated, then thought fuck it. If I couldn’t say it now when I felt it, then there was no point in saying it later. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

I heard his heavy swallow. “How—how do you know?”

“Right here.” I took his hand from under his body and pressed it to the center of my chest. “There aren’t words for the way it feels. It’s just…there. Every time I see you, you make me happy.”

“You don’t think it’ll wear off when you realize that I’m, you know, a lot.”

“You’rea lot?” I laughed and pressed his hand harder over my heartbeat. “Baby, have youmetme?”

He sat up, and I could see the curve of his smile. “Yeah. I have. And I…yeah. I love you too. I, um…I have a lot to deal with so I can be a good boyfriend for you?—”

“Husband,” I corrected.

He scoffed and shoved me back, and I took him with me, rolling him onto my front, mess and all. Laughing, he caught my chin in his hand, then kissed me with his sour morning breath. “Maybe one day. I’ve gotten a glimpse into that life, and I want it, Tucker. But I need to heal first.”

“I can be patient,” I told him. “As long as you don’t let me go. And as long as you let me help.”

He dropped his head down to my chest and wrapped around me, laughing when I brought my short limbs to squeeze around his hips. “As long as you promise to tell me if it’s ever too much.”

It wouldn’t be, but if me telling him would make him feel better, it was no skin off my back. “You’ll be the first to know.”

He breathed out a soft sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

If I’d known love could be this easy, maybe I would have searched for him years ago. But what the fuck did that matter when I had him now?

“Give me five minutes,” he mumbled, sounding sleepy all over again.

I squeezed him tighter. “As long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

Not now. Not ever.

He was mine.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

TUCKER

“You were right.”

I spun my sled so fast I knocked sideways and hit the ice with my shoulder. Heaving a sigh, Boden grabbed me by the front of my jersey and hauled me upright, pressing my sticks back into my hands.

“Can you repeat that, please? I need to get my phone out to record this moment.”

“No. And if you ask me to again, I will put your dick in a pencil sharpener,” Boden said.

I rolled my eyes and used my body to twist my sled sideways, knocking into him. “Fine. Doesn’t matter. I heard it, and I’m going to remember this day forever. I was right!” Then I paused and glanced around the ice. Was this a prank? Was Jonah standing around somewhere trying to point his phone camera in the right direction? I spied Ford and Shea taking shots on the goal, and neither one of them seemed to give a shit that Boden was with me. “Uh. Right about what though?”

“Hugo.”

For a moment, I felt like I was going to pass out with relief. Boden had been walking around with both of his sticks shoved up his ass since the night Ford and I had confronted him. He was giving me one- and two-word answers at home, and the only person he was holding any kind of conversation with was Amedeo.

And I was pretty surethatwas only out of a sense of his good Canadian manners.

But it had been nearly a week of him and his tantrum, and I was starting to worry he was never going to come out of it.

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