Page 90 of Dirty Groom (Slayers Hockey 7)

“Holy shit,” I gasp, feeling a weight lift I never thought I’d be free from.

“I know.” Those soft blue eyes search mine. “It’s good news, right?”

“Yeah. I just can’t believe he came.” That he wasn’t holding a press conference outside the arena to spill the story on his own.

“He remembered what he said to you that day. And he’s sorry. He said you deserved better than how he treated you… and that he deserved what he got.” She sighs. “I don’t know him. I can’t tell you if he was sincere. But I hope he was.”

My father has never apologized to me in his life. I’ve never heard him apologize to anyone. So yeah, I want to believe.

And I want to finally put this all behind me and focus on what matters most. Stormy. Our future.

I meet her eyes.

“I was coming to you. I mean, before I saw you were here. I planned on driving out to your apartment after the game. I couldn’t make it through another night without telling you the truth.”

She blinks as her eyes mist over. “You were?”

I brush her cheek with my thumb. “Yeah. I was going to beg.”

“What changed your mind?” That hopeful, tentative voice.

I’ll never make her doubt me again.

“I was dying without you. More miserable every day, but I convinced myself I was doing the right thing.” With her in my arms, I don’t know how I could have been so stupid. “And then… I thought you were pregnant.”

She pulls away, but I shake my head, drawing her back in. “I know you’re not. But for about a minute, I went a little nuts with how bad I wanted it to be true. I lost it. Noel talked me down and helped me see what a total jackass I was. And then I started trying to work out how to get you to take me back.”

I’ve got the cactus and Chapstick in my car to prove it.

“I love you like I didn’t know was possible,” I tell her. “You make me laugh. You inspire me. And if you give me another chance, I swear to you, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making sure you don’t have a single minute of regret.”

“The rest of our lives, huh?”

I rub my thumb over the ring she flipped me off with on the day we began living as man and wife. “Mine is in my locker for the game. But I haven’t stopped wearing it, either.”

There’s a hint of a smile on her face as she raises a brow. “So where does this leave us now?”

“Same page?”

She blinks, and I swoop in to kiss her fast and hard. “And, gorgeous, so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m talking about the one where we live happily ever after.”

That smile.“Same page.”

EPILOGUE

Liam

We dominate in the first round of the playoffs. The Slayers look like we’re the team to beat. We’ve found our rhythm, we’re gelling. Hell, the commentators start joking that we’re reading each other’s minds.

There are times it feels that way. Where the next pass comes as naturally as breathing. It looks like we can’t lose, and whatever anonymity I had before is completely obliterated as Chicago gets Slayers fever.

I check my seats every game now. And Noel’s too, since they’re both filled with our girls, in-laws, or friends of the girls that have become like family too. Once in the second round, Mary came, but Boomer says we’re only allowed to give her tickets again if she switches seats, because we got slammed with a loss so close to a shutout, it shook us bad.

We came back. Fought it out for five more games before tonight when we get knocked out in the sixth. Which sucks. No two ways about it. But it sucks a hell of a lot less when I clear the locker room and find my wife waiting for me.

She comes into my arms, and everything else falls away.

“You played so hard,” she says. Her lashes are wet, and her cheeks are blotchy like she’s been crying some.

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