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But it was useless.

She had already torn through them without even trying.

Love had always felt like a goddamn liability. Something weak. Something dangerous. But standing here, staring at her—bruised and battered and still fucking standing—it didn’t feel weak. It felt like the strongest thing in the world.

I watched as she flexed her fingers, knuckles raw, wiping away the blood from every fight that came before this one. Not just the one against Team Canada, but the ones against the world. The whispers. The doubts. The expectations.

And I had the audacity to think I could ever let her go?

I stepped in, my voice dropping—low, rough, wrecked. “I tried to protect you…” I forced the words out, every syllable scraping my throat raw. “I thought if I pushed you away, you’d be free. You'd get what you've been working so hard for. What you always wanted."

It sounded weak the second it left my mouth. A flimsy excuse for all the damage I’d done. I had convinced myself that keeping my distance was the only way to save her, that shoving her into the safe little box of ‘just a player’ would shield her from the wreckage that was my life.

But the truth was brutal in its simplicity: It was never about the game.

It was her.

It was always her.

Iris stepped closer, eyes glassy but still burning. Fierce. Unshakable. Like she saw straight through every excuse, every fear, every desperate attempt I had made to convince myself that walking away had been the right choice.

“I didn’t want to be free,” she said, voice steady, each word a direct hit. A challenge. A demand. A fucking truth. “I wanted you.”

Something snapped inside me.

Every carefully laid plan, every rule I’d told myself we had to follow—obliterated.

My pulse hammered as I exhaled, letting go of every last piece of guilt that had chained me down. Letting her in.

“I love you, Evans.” The confession bled out of me like a wound torn open—unfiltered, helpless, absolute. “I tried to stop, but I can’t.” I held her gaze, refusing to let this moment slip through my fingers. “And I don’t want to.”

She took another step closer until the space between us was nothing but heat and breath and everything we had fought so damn hard against.

And then she whispered it back—soft, certain, unshakable. “I love you too.”

It wasn’t some grand declaration. No rehearsed speech, no perfect timing. It just came out, raw and unfiltered, the truth ripping free before I could stop it.

I love you.

The words hit the air like a live wire—charged, dangerous, impossible to take back.

And Iris? She didn’t flinch. She didn’t second-guess. Her lips parted, and when she spoke, it wasn’t hesitant or fragile. It was steady, unshaken, fierce.

My pulse slammed into my ribs. The weight of it—those four words—landed with the force of a body check, knocking every last ounce of doubt out of me.

This was real. Not a game. Not a mistake. Not something we could shove into the dark and pretend didn’t exist.

I grabbed her hand, tight, certain, desperate, and pulled her down the hallway without a second thought. My grip firm, my pace relentless. The world blurred around us—empty offices, flickering lights, the faint hum of the rink outside—but none of it mattered.

The door to my office slammed shut behind us, the sound sharp, final.

I turned to her, breath short, adrenaline spiking hard. The space between us shrank to nothing.

No more running. No more hiding. No more pretending.

I reached for her, cupping her face between my hands like she was the only thing tethering me to this earth. And maybe she was.

“I don’t want to pretend anymore,” I murmured, voice rough, laced with something close to desperation. “Not about this.”