Page 108 of Cold Front
He was on his feet, fists in the air, cheering louder than anyone in the damn arena. His face was flushed with excitement, eyes bright, and he wore that stupidly adorable grin that did things to my insides.
Something snapped.
I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t.
Helmet off. Stick abandoned. I vaulted the boards before security could react and shoved past stunned onlookers. The noise around me was deafening, but I didn’t hear any of it.
Eli’s cheering faded, his grin slipped as his eyes locked onto mine. Confusion flickered across his face. His mouth moved—maybe my name—but I didn’t slow down.
And then I was there.
I grabbed him, fisting my hands in his jacket—myjacket, the one he never gave back—and crashed my mouth against his. I felt his surprise at first, but then he kissed me back, hard, almost like he’d been waiting for me to do this for years.
The kiss wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t careful. It waseverything. Desperate. Raw. A declaration.
I couldn’t even hear the crowd anymore. It was just us. Him and me. I poured everything into the kiss. All the things I’d never said. All the things I’d been too afraid to show.
God, I never thought I’d be there. Not after everything that’d happened. I never got close to anyone, convinced that if I let myself care, it’d hurt too much if they left on their own or were stolen from me. It’s hard to live on the edge of your seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop.Having had to face life alone, with no one left, keeping people at arm’s length was all I knew how to do.
But then Eli came into my life, and I couldn’t shut him out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the pull he had on me. The way he made me feel alive again, the way he wasn’t afraid to be himself—bi, open, honest. He was everything I wasn’t.
I didn’t have a label for what I was. Maybe I didn’t need one. What I did know—what I felt down to the bone—was that I wanted him. The way he touched me, the way he looked at me like he saw through all my defenses and still wanted me. Turned me inside out.
But more than anything, I wanted to love Eli the way he deserved to be loved—fully, openly, with everything I had. No rules, no second-guessing, no trying to make what we had fit into a box.
Justus.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. His lips were red, kiss-swollen, and he stared at me like he was trying to figure out what had just happened.
“You look good in my jacket,” I murmured, my voice rough, my thumb brushing the soft fabric.
Eli laughed, that goddamn sunshiny smile lighting up his face, and it made my heart skip a beat. “Yeah? I’ve been meaning to give it back to you.” His fingers trailed along my jaw, the playful glint in his eyes never leaving. “But I kind of like using it as an excuse to stay close to you. You planning to steal it back?”
“No.” My voice dropped lower, steady and sure. “I’m planning to keep you.”
His breath caught.
I drew in a shaky breath, my heart thudded like it knew the weight of what I was about to say.
“I love you.”
Oh God. I finally let the words out. The ones I didn’t think I’d ever be brave enough to say.
Eli’s eyes shone, and his lips parted. He leaned in, pressing another kiss to my lips, softer this time, lingering.
“I love you too, Captain.”
And just like that, everything I’d been so damn afraid of didn’t seem so scary anymore. That was the moment when I let go of the past. When I stopped being afraid to love.
And no matter what happened from there on out, Eli was there. And I wasn’t letting him go.
CHAPTER42
NIALL
The locker room was chaos in the best way. Gear clattered against the floor, the air thick with sweat, victory, and the high-pitched hiss of a celebratory spray of Gatorade being launched in someone’s direction. Music blasted from the speakers, our victory still thrumming through the air like an electric charge. Guys were shouting, clapping each other on the back, and grinning like idiots. The energy was contagious.
Hunter was still half out of his gear, chirping Micah about his fight. “I swear, you landed, like, one clean punch. Just one.”
