Page 132 of Cold Feet
"God, this smells amazing," Cam said, already reaching for a mozzarella stick. He bit into it and moaned in a way that was borderline indecent and reminded me – vividly – of the last time I'd heard him make that sound.
"When's the last time you ate a real meal?" I asked, twirling pasta on my fork and trying really, really hard not to think about the sounds he was making. And how much I was looking forward to hearing them again in the extremely near future.
He thought about it while demolishing half his burger in three bites. "Breakfast on Thursday? Maybe? Everything's kind of a blur. I know Coco made dinner at some point, but..."
"Cam." I reached across the table to touch his hand. "You can't not eat. You need fuel, especially when you're playing."
"I know. I just...couldn't." He turned his hand palm up to lace our fingers together. "Everything felt wrong. Like the whole world was tilted off its axis. Logan threatened to force-feed me at one point."
"Good," I said. "Someone needs to take care of you when I'm not there."
"I'd rather you just always be there," he said simply, and my heart skipped.
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but we couldn't seem to stop touching – his foot hooked around my ankle under the table, fingers brushing as we shared truffle fries, his hand finding mine between bites. It was like we both needed constant reassurance that this was real, that the other person wasn't going to vanish.
"The team knows," Cam said eventually, dragging a fry through ketchup. "About us being real. They figured it out when I showed up to practice looking like death about the time ."
"What did they say?"
"Pietro started a betting pool on how long before we got married. Hendricks tried to give me relationship advice, which was alarming. Miller just said 'about damn time.'"
I laughed. "The publicist and the power forward. We're like a bad romance novel."
"No...thebestromance novel," he corrected. "Though I'm still waiting for my shirtless cover shoot."
"I'll see what I can arrange," I said dryly. "Though after tonight's game, we might want to wait for the bruises to fade."
"Zayne cornered me in the locker room after the game," Cam said, sobering. "Wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me."
I tensed. "What did you tell him?"
"The truth. That I've been an idiot and nearly lost the best thing in my life because I was too scared to fight for it." He pushed the remains of his burger away. "He said I looked like shit and that I better fix things with you or he'd make the Boston player look like he got off easy."
"Zayne strikes again," I said with a small smile. "Though I appreciate him having my back. Both of you."
"He loves you," Cam said simply. "And despite his grumpy exterior, he wants you happy. Think he figured out how I felt about you at the beach house. He told me last night that he was tired of watching us dance around each other."
"Really?"
"Right after he threatened to end my career if I hurt you." Cam's smile was rueful. "But then he said something else. Said he'd never seen me as happy as I was during our little fake engagement. He said you guys had a long talk over pizza on Thursday night, and that maybe it was time he stopped trying to protect us both from something we clearly wanted."
My eyes burned with sudden tears. "He told my parents the same thing. So no need to freak out when we show up to Frank and Diana's for Thanksgiving, Zayne let the cat out of the bag last Sunday when we were still there."
"Your brother sees more than he lets on." Cam stood, moving to the window that overlooked the Boston skyline. The city lights painted his profile in gold and shadow. "Ten years, Lana. Ten years of watching you date other guys and pretending I didn't care. Ten years of letting you paint me as this player who couldn't commit, when the truth was I didn't want to commit because no one else was you."
I stood too, moving to wrap my arms around him from behind, pressing my cheek against his bare back. I could feel the tension in his muscles, the careful way he held himself. "We both made mistakes. We both let fear keep us apart. But we're here now. That's what matters."
He turned in my arms, cupping my face in his hands with devastating tenderness. "I love you," he said, the words hanging between us like a confession. "I've loved you since you told me at that house party my slap shot needed work.. I've loved you through distance and misunderstandings and a fake engagement that felt better than real. I love you in a way that terrifies me because I don't know how to exist anymore without it."
"Cam," I whispered, tears spilling over.
"You don't have to say it back," he said quickly. "I just needed you to know. Needed you to understand that whatever happens with Montreal, with the team, with anything – you're it for me. You're my person. My only person."
"I love you too," I said, the words coming easier than I'd expected, like they'd been waiting all this time to break free. "I've been fighting it for so long, telling myself it was just attraction or nostalgia or proximity. But I love you. Completely. Desperately. Against all my better judgment and professional ethics.”
He laughed, the sound rough with emotion. "Against your better judgment?"
"Well, you are still a pain in my ass. Do you know how many carefully worded statements I've had to write about your penalty minutes?"
