Page 17

He didn't say worth mourning or worth regretting. Worth remembering. Like my dreams had value independent of whether they'd been realized.

"After they pulled my scholarship, I wrote a letter to the coach. I never sent it. Still have it somewhere. I told myself I'd earn my way back. That they'd see I wasn't a screw-up, but I never even mailed the damn thing."

I turned my head to look at Eric, seeing the starlight reflected in his eyes. "Most people want to know about the crash and how everything went wrong."

"I don't care about the crash. I care about the person who loved something enough to build his whole future around it. That person's still here. Maybe he doesn't play hockey anymore, but he's still here."

A meteor streaked overhead, brighter than the others, casting enough light to illuminate Eric's face for a few seconds. It faded, returning us to star-lit darkness, but something had changed. A door I'd thought was permanently sealed had cracked open just enough to let in a breath of possibility.

I shifted onto my side, propping myself on one elbow to see him properly.

The movement sent a familiar stab of complaint through my knee, but I ignored it.

Somewhere in the past few weeks, gazing at Eric Callahan had become as natural as checking weather patterns or testing the generator fuel levels.

"You don't look at me like I'm a broken thing."

He turned to meet my gaze. "Because you're not."

"Eric—"

"You're not. You're someone who survived something terrible and built a life that matters. You're—"

I kissed him before he could finish the sentence.

Eric's mouth was warm and tasted like chocolate and bourbon. When his lips parted slightly, I felt him exhale against my mouth—not a sigh of resignation, but something that sounded remarkably like relief.

I touched the side of his face before threading my fingers through the soft hair behind his ear. His skin was warmer than expected, and his stubble lightly scratched my palm as he leaned into the contact.

It was different from the kiss we'd shared in the rink. It was conscious and mutual, with us both fully aware of what was happening. Eric's hand settled against my chest, directly over my heart.

When we separated, I kept my hand curved against his face. "Okay?"

"Kind of perfect. I've been thinking about doing that again."

"Have you?"

"Ever since the rink." His hand pressed more firmly against my chest, fingers spreading to cover more territory. "Actually, since before that, if I'm being honest. Since you showed me how to splice rope, maybe. Or since you made me coffee that first night."

The timeline surprised me. The logical conclusion was he'd wanted to kiss me since we met.

"I know this is complicated. I know you're not looking for anything serious, and I'm only here for another two weeks, and there's the whole thing with your past and my dad and—"

I silenced him with another kiss. When I pulled back, he looked at me with a startled expression that suggested I'd interrupted a speech he'd been rehearsing.

"You think too much."

Eric grinned. "Occupational hazard of being a researcher."

"Maybe. Or maybe you're just nervous."

"Maybe I am. This isn't exactly familiar territory for me."

"Me either."

The admission surprised us both, I think. Eric's eyebrows rose slightly, and I realized I'd revealed more about my romantic history—or lack thereof—than I'd intended. There was something liberating about acknowledging that neither of us was operating from a position of expertise.

Above us, the meteor shower continued its performance, streaks of light appearing and disappearing with the kind of cosmic indifference that made human concerns seem trivial.

Eric broke the silence. "So what do we do now?"

I considered the question, weighing it against everything I knew about my capacity for disappointment and his inevitable departure in two weeks. The smart answer would have been to pull back and treat this as a moment of temporary insanity brought on by starlight and bourbon-laced hot chocolate.

Instead, I gave an answer that implied a future for our connection. "We figure it out as we go."

Eric offered a peek into his history. "I've dated a couple of college girls. Nothing serious. Nice enough, but it's always felt like I was performing a role someone else wrote for me. No solid connection."

The pressure to follow expected scripts was familiar.

He continued to share. "There was one guy.

He was an online coding partner. We talked for hours about everything except programming.

There was this moment when we finally met in person at a coffee shop, and I thought maybe something might happen, but I got scared.

Didn't feel safe enough to find out what he might want. "

I wondered what might have been different for him if he'd felt secure enough to take the risk and discover whether the connection he'd sensed was real or imagined.

He took a deep breath. "What about you?"

I considered whether or not to respond. When our eyes met again, I couldn't back out. "There was a teammate. Senior year of high school. Derek's friend, actually. A kid named Dale Hutchins who played left wing and had hands that could make a puck do impossible things."

Eric was perfectly still, and his attention encouraged me to continue.

"It happened after practice one night when everyone else cleared out. Started as just fooling around, you know? Testing boundaries." I stared up at the stars. "It was all wrong. Secretive and shameful and desperate. Like we were committing a crime instead of discovering something about ourselves."

Eric reached for my hand in the darkness, fingers intertwining with a gentleness that suggested he understood the difference between that fumbling encounter and what was happening between us now.

"That was seventeen years ago," I said quietly. "You were barely in kindergarten."

Eric's grip on my hand tightened. "So?"

"So, maybe you should be with someone who hasn't measured his romantic experience in decades. Someone who didn't already have his shot at happiness and blow it."

He was quiet momentarily, then let out a soft, affectionate laugh. "You know what I was doing in kindergarten seventeen years ago?"

"Eric—"

"Learning to tie my shoes and probably eating paste. Real quality romantic experience there." He shifted onto his side to face me fully. "And you want to know what I think about your blown shot at happiness?"

I waited.

"I think happiness isn't some limited-time offer that expires when you hit thirty. Maybe—and this is just a wild theory from someone who wasn't even in kindergarten yet—maybe your first shot wasn't supposed to work out because it wasn't actually your shot."

He rubbed my knuckles with his thumb. "Maybe seventeen years ago, some scared kid had a fumbling encounter that taught him something important about what he didn't want.

And maybe tonight, a grumpy thirty-five-year-old hermit is lying under the stars with someone who sees exactly who he is and likes him anyway. "

He grinned, and in the starlight, I saw an expression that made him look like he was sharing secrets with the universe.

"Besides, if you think I'm going to let thirteen years and some spectacularly bad timing scare me off, you haven't been paying attention.

I'm the guy who showed up on your island, threw coffee on your boots, and refused to leave you alone, remember? I'm relentless."

He took my hand and guided it to his chest, pressing my palm flat against his thermal shirt directly over his heart.

The surprise must have shown on my face because Eric's mouth curved into a soft smile. "What?"

My hand began to move of its own accord, fingers spreading to explore the territory he'd offered. Even through the thermal fabric, his skin was warm. His breathing quickened as I traced the line of his collarbone. When my thumb brushed across a nipple, Eric gasped, making my pulse race.

We kissed again, and Eric reached for the front of my jacket, working his fingers inside to explore my chest.

We leaned into each other, slow and unsure but wanting more. Eric's fingers traced the line of my ribs, and I discovered that the soft sound he made when I kissed the corner of his mouth was something I wanted to hear again.

When Eric's hand slipped beneath the hem of my thermal shirt, I realized I wasn't merely kissed or touched—he wanted me.

I lay there in the quiet, my hand pinning his against my bare skin, and wondered how long I could hold on to a moment like this before it slipped through my fingers.

I'd built my life to survive without wanting too much.

Now, under a sky full of stars, I wasn't sure how to go back to pretending I didn't want more.