Page 176 of Face Off
“I love you, too, and you’re going first with the question tonight.”
“Easiest one ever.” He beams. “How do you feel about letting me bug you forever, Red?”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but grin from ear to ear. “I can’t wait.”
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Emmy
The Civic Centeris exactly the same as the last time I saw it.
The carpet in the players’ hallway is the same.
I can smell the same popcorn and roasted almonds that used to make my mouth water during games.
The security team is the same, and even the music blaring from the speakers is on a loop I know by heart.
I guess the only thing that’s changed around here is me.
There’s familiarity to it, and even though it is brief, it’s good to be home.
“There she is.” I look over my shoulder and see Hudson charging toward me in his pads and jersey. I laugh when he scoops me in his arms and spins me around. “I’ve missed you, my sweet Emmy.”
“I saw you last week,” I say. “You slept in our guest room. I brought you an extra blanket because the apartment was too damn cold. You were suffering from a food coma, remember?”
He sighs into my hair, and I don’t know if it’s because of me, or the memory of the food he inhaled that night.
The food, probably.
“Like I could forget. Piper’s brownies were delicious. They even got Liam to smile, and that asshole hasn’t laughed since 1997.” Hudson sets me down carefully and squeezes my shoulder. “I mean I’ve missed you around here. Are you sure you don’t want to come back and play for the Stars again?”
“It’s not you, it’s me, Hud. I could never turn down the chance to be the franchise player for the NHL’s newest expansion team, even if they are called the Baltimore Sea Crabs.” I shudder, not used to a mascot that has claws. “I’m still waiting for them to come into the locker room, take my jersey away and say,Surprise! You fell for our silly little joke.”
“If they did, someone else would come knocking. There’s a line, in fact, and we’re number one. Your boyfriend is a determined man, and he wasn’t happy when we lost the bidding war for you.”
“He’s a big boy. I see him enough at home, and some space to live our separate lives is nice. It makes his jokes funnier when I don’t hear them three times a day.” I look around, surprised by how quiet the tunnel is. On game day, it’s normally buzzing with people, but it’s eerily silent right now. “Where is he, by the way?”
“No idea,” Hudson says. “Last I saw, he was using the shower head in the locker room as a karaoke microphone.”
“God.” I can’t help but smile at the image of Maverick with shampoo in his hair, crooning some dreadful song and annoying the hell out of his teammates. “I love that man.”
I’m as head over heels for him as I was when I told him I loved him for the very first time. We’ve had our ups and downs like any couple, and now ours also involve playing for different professional sports teams.
After the trade went through with Toronto, I finished out the season with the Stingrays. I even got to face off against Maverick and the Stars in the first round of the playoffs, but we got swept, 4-0.
He likes to hold it over my head.
Last offseason, my agent got a call about the expansion team that had just been approved for Baltimore. They were interested in building their roster with lottery picks and more seasoned veterans from around the league. When they offered me a four-year, twenty-million-dollar contract, there was no way in hell I was saying no.
The money is nice—it would be ignorant of me to disregard how lucky I am financially—but signing with the Sea Crabs also meant coming home to the place Maverick and I created together. An apartment big enough for all our friends, just outside DC. It’s a forty-five minute drive to the arena, and only twenty minutes from the Civic Center.
There are big windows with lots of sunlight for my plants. A bedroom for when my dad comes and visits and a room we painted bright pink that’s reserved for June.
Maverick built a bookshelf for all my books, and every night we’re under the same roof, he lies next to me and reads over my shoulder, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
He’s the best thing to ever happen to me, and I’ve never been so happy in my entire life.
