Page 132 of Breaking the Ice

He’d thought when he reached this point that he would be afraid. Terrified, maybe, of feeling this way again and losing it. But all he felt was lucky. He’d felt this way once before, and now he’d gotten somehow blessed enough to feel it a second time. Gavin wasn’t sure he was special enough for that, but maybe it wasn’t about deserving it. Maybe it was more aboutacceptingit.

Making sure that every day going forward, he never took it for granted.

Gavin wanted to believe that he’d never taken his wife for granted, but he knew he’d done it more than once. Gotten busy, gotten preoccupied with his job, with hockey, because he’d known she would be there whenever he managed to get free of the ice clogging his brain.

Their marriage hadn’t been perfect, but it had been happy.

And now, he was happy again.

“You make me really happy,” Gavin told Zach. “Happier than I ever thought I’d be again.”

It was worth pushing that last little bit of guilt away to see Zach’s face light up at his words. “Yeah? You make me really happy too.”

“I was thinking . . .I want this to be serious.”

Like it was mirroring his words, Zach’s expression didn’t dim exactly, but it took on a more thoughtful flavor. “I kinda already thought it was.”

“It is. I just . . .I don’t want to hide it. Hide you.”

Zach barely blinked. “We just started dating.”

“I said it before; you were right. Wedidn’tjust start dating. We just started taking advantage of all the benefits of dating,” Gavin said. “And if you meant what you said about um . . .your feelings . . .”

“I did, obviously,” Zach said. He pressed a kiss to Gavin’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“Then I want to tell Sidney about us. And maybe the team, too, if he’s good with it.”

“And if he’s not?” Zach raised an eyebrow.

“He’s going to be,” Gavin said confidently. “And if he doesn’t want us to tell the team, well fuck him.”

Zach laughed. “Alright. Fuck him, then.”

Gavin wondered if he should tell him the rest—that he was pretty sure he loved him, too, because that was the kind of emotion that made youwantto take these big wild swings—but he wanted to give it a bit more time. He was sure, but he also wanted to do this right.

Besides, Zach had said he wasn’t going anywhere, and Gavin believed him, as much as he’d believed anything, ever.

Zach couldn’t say this game was goingbadly,but he also couldn’t say it was going particularly well either.

Ivan had opened the scoring by hitting a sweet rebound shot around the net only a few minutes into the first period, and it had been impossible, even from the bench, not to feel the sheer relief radiating off Elliott and Malcolm that the line had scored.

They’d both gotten an assist on the goal, and the crowd had cheered extra loud as the announcer’s voice had boomed across the ice, listing off their names.

“Let’s go, baby,” Elliott crowed as they settled back on the bench, smacking his gloved hand against Mal’s knee.

Mal rolled his eyes but he looked a fraction more relaxed.

The real test came near the end of the first period, when the Evergreens went on the power play for the first time.

Mal nearly got up and then sat back down, the motion clearly automatic as Elliott and Ivan rose to join Brady and Ramsey on the ice.

Zach reached over, settling a hand on Mal’s shoulder, squeezing him through his pads.

Mal didn’t say anything but he didn’t shake him off either.

It wasn’t the worst power play Zach had ever witnessed, but it did lack the finesse that the first group usually relied on. Still, it would be hard for them to bebadout there, with a man advantage and the amount of talent the Evergreens were putting on the ice.

Gavin had told him before the game he was going to play it by feel, if he’d let the first team take the whole two minute shift.