Page 208 of Falling Offsides

God help me, she’s going to be the welcomed death of me.

I spin her into my chest, and the second her body brushes mine, the rest of the world stops existing.

“You ready, Mrs. Broussard?” I murmur, low enough that only she hears it.

The way her mouth curves at the edges, the way her lashes flicker—it guts me. I see the moment it hits her. The name. The reality.

She’s mine now.

She’s always been mine.

But now it’s sealed in every way the world recognizes.

“Been ready since you knocked me off my feet, baby,” she says, and the way she says it? It could bring me to my knees.

She’s looking at me like I’m everything. And I still don’t get how I got this lucky.

The music starts—soft, familiar, crooning. The same damn song we danced to the first night she met my family. And now here we are. Full circle. With them watching us lose ourselves to each other again

I pull Court into me, her cheek pressing to my chest. Her fingers restjust above my heart. The thrum of it syncing with hers, like it always does.

She smells like orchids and vanilla, and the kind of happiness that makes you believe in fate.

“You’re unreal,” I whisper, turning her in a slow, deliberate twirl, just to admire her all over again. “I’m never going to recover from this sight.”

She leans into me, teasing, “You’ll be fine. You’re tough.”

I grin. “I’m a puddle. You turned me into absolute mush.”

She laughs, and it’s the sound of everything right in this world.

I run my hands along her waist, the satin warm from her skin. Her body fits into mine like she was carved just for me. We sway, lost in the music, in each other.

Then I kiss her.

Soft at first. Just lips brushing lips. But then she sighs into it, and I lose my damn mind.

Somewhere in the background, our friends cheer. There’s laughter. Toasts. Clinking glasses. But none of it matters because…

Rain.

The lightest drizzle. Barely more than a mist, but it brushes her shoulders, settles in her tamed curls, turns her into something divine.

Court tilts her face to the sky and laughs again, teary and radiant.

“You remember what she said?” she whispers.

My arms tighten as I look upward too. “The fortune teller.”

“The sky will cry just a little.”

When I kiss her forehead, she giggles, and I continue to her cheeks, her lips.

“For joy. For fortune,” she murmurs into my mouth.

“This is both, Princess. And more.”

She smiles into my kiss, and I swear I see every version of our life ahead in her eyes.