Page 128 of The Wrong Game

“I’m touching your wiener,” I said, waggling my brows.

Zach groaned, running his hand under my jacket to squeeze my ass. “Does that mean I get to touch your buns later, just to make things fair?”

“Hmmm…” I ran my hands up over his shoulders again, letting my wrists hang behind his neck. “Well, guess it depends on what happens during this game. We might have some celebrating to do.”

I leaned in to kiss him again as a playful growl left his throat, but before I could deepen the kiss, Janet tapped me on the shoulder.

“You two are on the jumbotron again!” she said.

Zach and I looked up at the screen, and sure enough, there we were — in all our hot dog glory. We both laughed as the crowd started cheering, and Zach pulled me into him, dipping me in a dramatic fashion as everyone cheered louder. When the screen changed back to the players on the field, Zach lifted my arm in his like he’d just won me in a championship fight, and our whole section roared one more time.

“Alright,” he said, pulling me down until we were both sitting and out of everyone’s way. “Now that this hot dog has his girl back, let’s see if we can land this W.”

I threw my hands up. “Let’s do it!” Then, with less than five minutes of playing time left, I stood again, starting theBear Downfight song.

Zach joined in first, then Janet and Roy, and before long, the entire stadium was singing together.

The snow fell harder, but we all stayed and cheered on our Bears in spite of the cold biting at our noses. You could see the quarterback’s breath as he called out each play, and every time a player took a hit, he took it hard, with the cold working against them in every way.

But still, they played.

Still, they fought.

Thiswas what I loved about football — not just the sport, but the players, the fandom. Nothing stopped us. It didn’t matter what the score was, or how impossible the odds were. Until that last whistle blew, we would be there, on our feet, fighting for the win.

I grabbed Zach’s hand, squeezing it as our eyes met. And that’s when I realized that it was the same for us. We were in it together, no matter what was to come, and we would fight for the win. For each other.

Until the last whistle blew.

We won.

The Bears clenched their spot in the playoff to the tune of the Packers missing a field goal in the last few seconds of the game, sealing our win and our guaranteed spot. It’d been a night for the record books — both with the snow and the score — and for me, personally, it’d been a night I’d never forget.

“Playoff-bound,” Zach murmured into my ear as we made our way out of Soldier Field. His arm was around me, and he pulled me to a stop every few feet to take photos with fans holding out their phones. We were like local celebrities, Hot Dog and His Girl.

“How do you suggest we start the celebrations?” he asked after we’d completed a giant group selfie with a family of seven.

“Oh, I don’t know…” I said, pulling him to a stop off to the side. The crowd still weaved around us, cheering, music blasting from every direction as the celebrations continued. But in that moment, I only saw Zach, and I leaned up to kiss his lips. “Maybe we should consult that list you started.”

Zach swept his tongue over mine, holding me as much as he could with the giant hot dog suit restricting his arms. “I only added one thing to that list, and we already checked that off.”

“Youonly added one thing…”

His brows rose with recognition. “Are you saying… are there more items on the list now?”

I nodded, biting my lip.

“Things we haven’t done yet?”

I nodded again.

“Like…”

I kissed him again, this time slowing the pace, pulling his bottom lip between my teeth in a sensual bite that we both felt reverberate through us.

“Guess you’ll have to take me home to find out.”

Zach growled, kissing me hard before he dipped, hands finding my back and the crook of my knees. He lifted me, cradling me in his arms as he wobbled through the still-celebrating crowd. I handed out high-fives as we passed fans on our way to the cab line, the energy finally finding me — because the Bears weren’t the only ones victorious that night.