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Cross captured Rusty’s gaze. “I don’t want my money to come between us, but I don’t know how to stop it. Even if I gave away everything, I’d still be one of Dad’s heirs. I’d still need security. I might not use our private jet, but it would be there.”

Rusty picked a handful of gravel out of the pine needles and began tossing them at a tall milkweed on the slope below.

Kept missing, though. Good thing he wasn’t a baseball player.

“I don’t know either. I don’t want you to give away everything, give up your house or your cars or the indoor rink. If I ever sign an NHL contract—”

“When,” Cross corrected.

“Okay, when.” He’d promised his siblings he’d get there, hadn’t he?

“Then I’ll have a right to talk about how much to keep or give to charity.

This is more about… about me being a partner in your life.

I need to contribute, but if I ask you to share housing I can go halves on, we’d be living in a dump.

” He tugged at his hair, trying to gather his thoughts.

“The AHL is a little better, but not much. How do I manage to feel like I’m pulling my weight?

And don’t tell me that I contribute in other ways and money doesn’t matter.

” He’d seen how much money did matter in a small farming community where it was sometimes life and death.

“We’ll work on it together, okay?” Cross reached for his hand. “You have to tell me what doesn’t feel right.”

Rusty wove his fingers through Cross’s and hung on. “Like, expensive gifts. Can we set a fifty-dollar limit on gifts? Or maybe twenty-five, if I’m in the ECHL?”

“Sure.” Cross grimaced. “I won’t love it, but I can stick to that.”

“And no buying something for me and pretending it’s for yourself?”

Cross choked, but then grinned, other hand on his heart. “I would never.”

“Uh huh.” Rusty squeezed Cross’s fingers. “And I guess if we move, you’ll buy a house, and I’m not going to argue. That’s part of your security. But maybe food? Or utilities? I can pay half.”

“We can try. I’m used to buying a lot of high-end prepared meals. One of us might have to learn to cook.”

Rusty managed a smile. “A project for you, while you’re rehabbing.”

“You’ll be the one eating my cooking. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hope rose inside Rusty, warm and sweet and strong. Cross wasn’t laughing at him, wasn’t telling him all he needed to bring was himself. He was taking this seriously, trying to meet Rusty halfway. “Thank you.”

“Hey, whatever you need. Just tell me.” Cross reached for him and pulled him into a kiss.

God, that was better, that was good. Rusty was all tangled up in words but when he and Cross kissed, everything was simple.

He gave himself to the pleasure of Cross’s mouth on his, strong arms around his shoulders, the rasp of stubble against his cheek as Cross pressed a kiss under his ear.

He pulled his man closer and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Cross’s sun-warmed skin.

“I love you, mon chou,” Cross murmured. “We’ll figure the rest out. Where we live. How much money is enough to be safe. What security we can live with. What to name our six cats.”

“Huh?” He leaned back to find Cross laughing up at him.

“You were listening.”

“I always listen.”

“Yeah.” Cross raised a hand and traced Rusty’s lips. “You do. It’s one of the things I love about you. Along with the way you stand up to my father.”

“Should I say sorry?”

“Never. It does him good.” Cross turned and leaned his back against Rusty’s chest.

Rusty braced him easily and gathered Cross into the circle of his arms. For a while they sat in silence, looking out across the city to the silhouetted mountain beyond.

“You do me good too,” Cross said eventually.

“You make me better, more real, more rounded. You make me laugh, you make me want to step out of my narrow comfort zone, as long as you’re there with me.

You make me eager and unafraid to kiss you, because I can choose how far we go and you won’t be disappointed. ”

“Not till you run down the batteries in the remote control, anyhow,” Rusty joked. But the moment felt too important for jokes. “You make me better too. I want to stretch myself to match you, to help you. I was this stupid, hick kid—”

“Never stupid.”

“Limited, maybe. I had hockey and that was all that mattered, but now I have you. Like, a whole wide world, with you at the center of it. Me of last fall would not believe where I am now, and I wouldn’t go back there for anything, not even a Stanley Cup ring.”

“I’m flattered.”

“It’s true.” Rusty kissed the top of Cross’s head.

Cross twisted around to look up at him. “We’re going to be good together.”

“We already are.”

“Yeah, we are.” Cross kissed him, the angle awkward, his lips a little chapped, and yet perfect. “We’re going places, you and me, and I can’t wait to see what that looks like.”

Me too. Rusty kissed him back.

“But I do want a cat,” Cross said. “Maybe two.”

“Seriously? The most romantic moment of my life, and you’re talking about cats?”

“Pets, yours and mine. A home. Fur babies.” Cross made wide eyes at Rusty and fake-pouted.

A laugh rose up from inside Rusty, as warm and free and sweet as that moment. “Sure,” he said. “Cats. Take three. They’re small.”

“We can name them after famous hockey players. Gordie Meow and Mark Andre Furry.”

“And Sidney Clawsby,” Rusty suggested.

Cross turned and tackled him right off the log.

Rusty made sure he landed underneath because better his off-the-rack suit crashing into the sticky pine needles than Cross’s Tom Ford.

Then he was weighed down with compact but solid hockey player, and being kissed within an inch of his life.

The scent of dried evergreens filled his nose, the taste of Cross made him dizzy, and Rusty knew, going forward, he’d divide his life into before and after this perfect moment, flat on his back in the Oregon sunshine with the man he loved in his arms.