The Cozy Bookworm

He shepherds you out the door with a hand hovered near you, wearing a smile you know is only yours. You don’t think he’s aware of how transparently fond he is of you.

The sky is beautiful, dark and starry, the sun having set a few hours before you finished work. You fuss with the air controls as the truck pulls out of the parking lot before sinking into your seat. You pass under streetlights, intermittent beams cutting across the dashboard.

“I had my appointment today.” Andrew speaks without looking away from the road. You told him once, how as a teenager you used to start difficult conversations with your mother in the car. Talking about things like birth control was easier if you didn’t have to look at each other. 

You wait for him, like you always do. It’s overwhelming sometimes, the space you give him to think and feel. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to you. He does, desperately. He knows there’s not an objectively correct way to conduct emotional intimacy but he wants to get it right so badly. He’s been trying this more, the talking in the car thing. This way he can feel you beside him, and you won’t be able to watch him make the wrong expression or catch something in his eyes if he’s not quick enough to hide it.

“How was it?”

“Fine.” You know this means it went well. “She gave me homework.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m supposed to practice my ‘I want’ statements.”

Andrew likes to think he’s been doing well in therapy. There are a lot of things he knows he’s a long way off from even beginning to unpack, but he’s trying to be good. To be some kind of normal. Emotions and thought patterns are difficult to name and even harder to deal with, so it’s nice to feel like there are goals; skills he can get good at, habits he can start building.

“Give me one.” You challenge. “What’s something you want tonight?”

He thinks. “I want to get you home and make sure you eat.”

“Nice try, Andrew. That’s about me, not about you.”

“I said something I wanted, didn't I?”

“It was a cop out, you owe me a good one before the end of the day.”

He gives you a look he intends to be withering but he knows he’s missed the mark when your smile only widens.

Andrew likes your apartment. It’s airy and it’s open and it smells like you. He likes how lived in it feels, how much he’s learned about you from looking at your photos and framed prints, at the books and trinkets littering your shelves.

“Do you want to shower?” You ask, tossing your bag on the couch before toeing off your shoes.

“You go first. You smell like fryer oil.”

You head down the hall because he’s right.

Andrew starts moving around your apartment as soon as he hears the water running. He tucks your shoes by his near the door, he hangs your bag in the place you like it, he wipes down your counter because it’s covered in crumbs. He makes the call to the pizza place you both like and folds the throw blanket back over your couch. When you come out, clean and in your comfies, he fills your favourite cup with water before he takes his turn.

The doorbell rings not long after Andrew steps out of the shower. Hair still wet, he pulls on the sweats and shirt you washed for him and heads towards your door.

“Sit down.” He says from behind you, just as you’re getting up from the couch.

“It’s my turn to get it.” You follow him, slipping your feet in some slippers before he can get his shoes on.

“It’s never your turn.” He says. He moves you away from the door, grasping your arms with both hands and nudging you firmly but kindly back towards the couch. 

“That’s the point.” You grumble as you sit back down.

Andrew looks almost smug when he comes back in, moving through your kitchen. You make a note to slip a couple twenties into his wallet when he’s not looking. 

“Are we watching something?” He asks, pulling plates down from their places.

“I don’t know, are we?” 

He looks at you sideways, the way he always does when you start things.

“Pick something.” 

You’re flicking through a streaming service as he sets your plate and a can of something cold on the coffee table in front of you. Always yours first. He makes a second trip with his, settling beside you, tugging the throw blanket down over your lap so it covers both of you.

You sigh exaggeratedly and Andrew braces for whatever nonsense is about to come out of your mouth.

“Andrew, I really just don’t know. I feel so undecided. If only there were someone who could make a statement about what they wanted.” You’re being melodramatic.

“You’re insufferable.” His voice is flat but his eyes betray him.

“I guess we’ll just sit here,” You tilt your head, faux morose. “Until someone decides they want something.”

“You know what I like.”

“Sure,” you drawl. “But I don’t know what you want.”

He looks at you for another minute, expects you to back down but you don’t.

“Fine.” He’s wary, half expecting a trick or a joke. “I want to watch Modern Family.”

“Excellent idea.” You affirm, nodding your head sagely.

Something about the moment, the ease of it, feels almost strange to him. He knows you asked, but it still feels too simple.

“What, you’re not gonna make fun of me for picking a sitcom?”

“Of course not. It’s what you wanted.” You find the show quickly, trading the remote for your plate.

Andrew doesn’t move right away. He’s happy here. He’s always happy to sit beside you and watch television until you fall asleep against him. He’d watch anything with you and still be happy, but he admits to himself that something warms in his chest seeing you just as happy watching something he picked. 

He wants things. Of course he wants things, everyone does. But getting to have them is a completely different issue. Getting to have you is something else entirely.

-

Deran calls Andrew while you’re in the truck, asking him to stop by the bar. Andrew looks to you before he answers and you nod, not bothered in the slightest.

“This’ll be quick, I promise.” Andrew tells you while turning around on the road. 

You had been on the way to get lunch at a spot you saw online, it was some semi-celebrity chef’s new endeavour. Not that you cared very deeply. It just looked like a place Andrew might like. Understated comfort food, unpretentious local beers.

“It’s only noon, we have the whole day ahead of us.” You smile and something flutters in Andrew’s stomach.

He hasn’t asked you to meet his brothers yet. He doesn’t know if that’s something you’d like. It’s still unclear to Andrew exactly how you want him. The line between friendship and something else with you is blurred in his head, boundaries bending constantly. But he doesn’t mind it so much. As long as you keep calling him, keep asking him to spend time with you. 

He tells you you don’t have to come inside with him but you don’t mind. Privately, you have to admit that you’re curious. You’ve known Andrew long enough to know a few things about his family. That his mother was cruel and that his brothers are a lifeline. You get the sense Andrew is still navigating things, that his current family dynamic is somewhat new. 

It’s nice to meet Deran and Craig. The three men look like brothers in the way they stand, the way they carry their shoulders. It’s a little thing but they all speak similarly too, softening the same consonants, sharpening the same vowels.

They don’t offer to shake hands but that suits you fine. They each ask a question or two about you, wondering what you do and if you surf. You mention the place you’re going for lunch and Deran says you’ve made a good choice, tells Andrew that he hopes your taste will rub off on him. You chat a little more before the conversation turns. They start talking about business and finances so you wander away, giving them space. You find the bar’s chipping murals and broken surfboards charming. You can imagine how nice the ambience must be in here when it’s dark out and the string lights are on. 

It’s not long before Deran heads back into his office space to grab whatever it is that he has for Andrew and Craig declares he’s heading out. You return to Andrew’s side and he welcomes it, letting you press your arm against his as you stand together. You say goodbye to Craig and he salutes you both with a smile.

“You and your brothers seem really close.” You say when the air has settled in the newly empty room.

“We are.”

It makes you glad to hear that. Andrew feels glad to say it.

“You all seem to like your space, though.”

“What do you mean?” He looks at you, curious.

“You all stood a solid six feet away from each other the whole time. Usually siblings hug and stuff.” You shrug a shoulder. 

Andrew considers this. His relationships with his family members haven’t always been positive, much less healthy. What he has now with Deran, with Craig, is better than anything that came before. They’re all damaged, each by a specific brand of traumatization, but he doesn’t want to tell you that. He probably wouldn’t need to, you’re a smart girl. He’s fine with the way he interacts with his brothers now, and they are too as far as he can tell.

“I know I can be touchy, is all.” You say before he finishes parsing his thoughts. “If you want me to back off you can let me know, I won’t take it personally or anything.”

Andrew shifts to stand in front of you. You tried really hard not to say the wrong thing but you worry you have. Andrew stays quiet, eyes locked on yours in a way that would make you squirm if it were anyone else. Then, his hand reaches out to smooth the pad of his thumb over the apple of your cheek. The touch is shy, overly careful.

“I like it when you touch me. I want you to keep doing it.” 

You nod and he brings his hand to cup your face completely.

He leans forward like he might press a kiss to your brow but he hesitates. His nose brushes your hairline instead, holding you very close for just a moment. When he pulls away, you look as though he’d done much worse. Your pupils are wide and your skin feels warm under his hand. 

He lets go, gives you the choice of stepping away. You do, just a small step back, eyes downcast and shy. Your fingers lace together, squeezing tight, and Andrew thinks about how much he’s looking forward to holding your hand on the drive ahead of you.

-

Andrew was fine a few minutes ago. Happy, even. You’re with him in his apartment, watching something you’d been telling him about all week. You’re tucked into his side and he would hate to disrupt you, to interrupt the feeling your shoulders completely relaxed against him. He tries to keep quiet, blinking hard to dispel the watering of his eyes. He doesn’t do a very good job, unfortunately.

This isn’t the first time Andrew has ever cried in front of you, but he hates it every time. His therapist told him this was normal for people with C-PTSD. He knows the mechanics of a flashback, of a panic attack, but it never helps him while he’s in the middle of one. He doesn’t think anything even happened this time. His chest just got tighter and the back of his neck got colder and his ears stopped hearing anything in the span of five minutes. 

“Andrew? What’s wrong?” Your voice is so soft when you notice and he can't stop the hiccup rising in his chest. 

You turn against his side, shifting to wrap your arms around him carefully. You watch to make sure your touch doesn’t make anything worse. It’s hard to watch him make himself small, shrinking into himself while he rests his head on your shoulder like he’s trying to take up less room. 

“It’s okay.” You soothe. “You’re safe.”

His hands gather the fabric of your loose shirt in a gentle fist against your back. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to remember how to breathe.

“I used to feel like this after.” He says, his voice uneven.

“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.” You don’t know what he means exactly, what ‘after’ he’s talking about, but you can make a few guesses.

You feel him tense in your arms and you pull back enough to look at him. Your brow pinches as you try to figure out if you said the wrong thing. He’s frowning, red eyes downcast like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Why do you do that?” He sounds small.

“Do what?”

“Call me that.”

“Oh, call you baby?” You press your lips together. “I’m sorry if it’s been making you feel weird, I just… I really care about you and I don’t always notice when I say something too soft. I can stop.”

“Don’t.” He answers quickly. “Please don’t. I want you to keep saying it.”

Too soft, you said. No such thing, he thinks. Not coming from you. You handle him with a kind of softness he didn’t know he was missing, a gentle touch he’s never been lucky enough to receive.

“I’m not used to it. Not the way you say it.” He tells you.

“What do you mean?”

He still won’t look at you. He lays his head back on your shoulder, encouraging your arms to tighten around him again. 

“You don’t only say it when you want something.”

Your heart breaks.

“Andrew…” Your sentence barely starts before it tapers off. Everything you feel like you want to say feels too big.

“Please.” He says, one more time. “Please keep doing it.”

You hold him for the rest of the night, slowing your breathing when you notice he’s trying to match his inhales to yours.

-

Andrew finds hipster bars fucking insufferable. And you do too, for the most part. It’s just that your definition of hipster and his definition of hipster are a little different.

There’s a bar not far from your work that you’ve taken a liking to. They have good beer and seasonal mixed drinks, and the bartender you like always gives you an extra maraschino. It’s not a microbrewery or anything, and the menu is simple and unpretentious. To you, it passes the vibe check. Andrew would beg to differ. 

The crowd is what makes up most of the vibe he thinks, and this place is always full of men too old to be shoving themselves into jeans that skinny and to be wearing glasses with frames way too big to suit their faces. He’ll admit that the bartenders are nice and a lot of the people in the neighbourhood are normal enough. But there’s only so much he can take.

The bathroom is decently clean although the music is far too loud. As he washes his hands he considers asking if you want to go home soon. You have a day off tomorrow so you might want to be out for a bit, but you told him your shoulders had been bothering you this week so maybe you want to rest. He’ll ask you.

Coming back into the main room, he notices that the crowd is a little thicker now. He scans the room quickly out of habit before looking over to where he left you. You’re still there at the bar, as he expected, but some Portland-looking motherfucker is sitting in his seat. You’re doing that thing you do to him sometimes, resting your chin in your hand and looking up through your lashes. 

No. Not happening, absolutely not. The guy is wearing Sperrys for god’s sake. Sperrys!

Andrew makes his way back to you, rolling back his shoulders as he comes to stand behind you. He won’t get violent, there’s absolutely no need. He knows his size is enough to do the scaring. He thinks about reaching out, just enough to hold your waist. He puts his hands in his pockets instead.

The guy you’re talking to is telling you some story about recording his first LP and Andrew’s eyes roll. You both turn to look at him, becoming aware of his presence at the same time. Your easy smile never leaves your face but the guy’s smile drops as he runs probabilities in his head. Odds that Andrew is your boyfriend, odds that he’s about to get beaten up. He stands quickly, excuses himself, forgets his beer.

Andrew watches him go but you watch Andrew’s face.

“I was talking with him, you know.” You could do a better job pretending to sound annoyed.

“He was talking to you weird.” He slides back onto the seat beside you as soon as the guy is far enough away for his liking.

“What does that even mean, Andrew.”

“He was too preppy.”

“Maybe I like preppy.” You drag your glass closer to you and take a drink.

“No you don’t.”

A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth when you give him a look over the rim. His body leans towards yours, he can’t help it. His elbow touches yours on the bartop, his head turned completely your way.

“You don’t see me interrupting when you get flirted with.” You say, turning the glass in your hands.

“I do not get flirted with.”

“Are you kidding me?” 

You stare at him. Andrew’s chest warms gently and he holds down a laugh. He knows when he’s being flirted with, he’s not unaware. It just doesn’t matter. Nobody could, not compared to you. He knows exactly how often he gets approached, he just wants to press your buttons.

“Why would I joke about that?”

“You can’t be serious. Do you know what it’s like going out with you? Women are all over you, all the time.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not!” You insist. “It’s always ‘Oh Andy, buy me a drink’, ‘Oh, Andy, I dropped my purse’, ‘Oh Andy, come upstairs to pet my dog’.”

You don’t mean to sound jealous but maybe you are. 

“They do not invite me to pet their dogs.” He is so very, very amused.

“Exactly, they’re inviting you upstairs for sex. Obviously."

“Well I would never go upstairs. Not for dogs or for sex.”

You huff, playfulness giving way to something a little more honest.

“I’m serious. You’re the only one I want in my apartment, okay? And I only want to be in yours.” He lowers his head to find your eyes.

You look at him, softening under his gaze. You nod and take another drink before you do something stupid like try to kiss him.

“Kenny probably had a dog.” You mutter, deflecting back to Sperry guy.

“That guy’s name was Kenny? You’re lucky I was here to save you.”

-

It’s weird to see you at Smurf’s house. No, not Smurf’s house– it’s Andrew’s house now. It’s easier to think of it as his or as a family home, anything to distance it from her name. Deran and Craig still crash here on a regular basis. He stops by sometimes to have a beer or when he suspects they’re letting the trash fester. 

There’s a small get together tonight, just his brothers and a few friends. Not quite a rager like they used to throw. This is nicer, he thinks. There is still laughter and loud music and shots, there are still cannonballs and backflips and roof jumps. It’s different though. A kind of contained joy, a comfort that comes from being part of a small circle that truly knows you. Andrew is still getting used to the feeling. 

But watching you take up space in the backyard in your little swimsuit and duster? That gives him a familiar feeling. A kind of warmth in his chest and heat in his belly. He doesn’t need to touch you, he just likes knowing you’re here. He counts himself lucky for having the privilege of seeing you with wet skin, of having you share his lounger, your bare legs cool against his when they touch.

There are a stupid amount of rooms in the house so you got your pick of the bunch for the night. Andrew let you have first dibs when you arrived and closed off the door to the one you wanted. He didn’t ask you to share his room although he thinks there’s a chance you would’ve said yes. He’s trying not to push his luck.

Andrew thinks of you all the time but he thinks of you extra after you wish him sweet dreams, squeezing his hand before he turns back down the hallway for the night. He’s jumpy with a kind of awareness, knowing you’re so close and so far all at once. He pictures you getting out of the shower, dressing only in a tshirt and your boyshorts, hanging your swimsuit to dry before tossing the decorative pillows off of your bed. He goes to sleep imagining you’re in the space beside him.

Andrew gasps himself awake a few hours later, his sheets too tight where they’ve become wrapped around his middle. Sleeping in this house, in this room, is hard sometimes. Things are so different now, but that doesn’t change the way things used to be. 

Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he scrubs hand down his face. He makes his way to the backyard, to the edge of the pool. He tries not to think of his dream. He tries not to think of his niece, of his mother, of that long stretch of time where all he did for years was try not to kill himself. It’s hard to stop himself from chasing thoughts once they’ve made themselves known to him

He tries breathing, begins to pace. Steam comes off the pool in small curls. He tries to remember what his therapist told him. Name five things he can see, four things he can touch. He doesn’t stop pacing long enough to put his hands to anything. He can feel his fingers fidgeting at his sides, his shoulders coming up towards his ears. And then he sees you. He stops. His palms smooth against his thighs. His posture straightens, opens. His heart still beats too fast.

The collar of your sleep shirt is tugged closer to one shoulder than the other and your feet are bare where they stand just over the threshold into the house. A hand comes up to rub your eye. You take a step out onto the concrete towards him and Andrew is moving without thinking, shepherding you right back into the dark kitchen so that you won’t step on anything, not a sharp pebble or any glass that hasn’t been swept up. 

You blink at him and wait. You know that if he wants to tell you anything he will.

“I had a nightmare.” He feels kind of stupid.

“What can I do for you?” You ask, voice soft as anything.

He almost smiles. You take him seriously, everything he says.

He doesn’t answer for a moment, soaking in your nearness. There are faint lines on your arm where it must have been pressed into your covers. Your face still looks a little dewy with the moisturizer you’ve told him you only use at night.

“Will you stay with me?” He faces you head on when he asks, trying to be brave.

“Is that what you want?” You’re already stepping away from the island, like you already know the answer.

“It is.” He affirms, because you want to hear it. Because he wants to say it. He needs you to know he wants you with him, near him always, even if he can’t say it all as one sentence.

So he follows after your sleepy figure, steps soft on the vinyl flooring down the hall. You collapse into his bed without waiting for him, rightly expecting him to be right behind you. He pushes the door to his room shut and stays standing for a moment to watch you settle into his sheets, onto his pillows. You look almost put out when you catch him, your eyebrows creasing in the cute way they do when you get grumpy.

He practices self-restraint by not crawling directly on top of you and covering nearly your entire body with his. He gets in on his side of the bed, leaving space between you. Your brow smooths and your eyes fall closed. Your hand reaches towards him, nearly touching but not quite. You don’t make it easy for him, if he wants to touch you he’ll have to be the one to move. So he does. His fingers trace a very careful path from your wrist to your shoulder and you make a small noise like a sigh. He watches you for another moment in the dark before reaching over to drag you against him. You turn in his arms to settle your back to his chest, pressing the line of your body to fit against his. He feels his cock start to stir, he can’t help it. But all he wants is to hold you, press his nose to the side of your head, feel the way your shoulders loosen into sleep.

In the morning you wake together slowly, spending time in the space between dreams and wakefulness. Eyes still mostly closed, Andrew presses his mouth to your skin, pretending there’s a difference between what he’s doing and the purposeful act of kissing your neck. Half dressed in the kitchen waiting for coffee, you don’t pretend it’s anything else when you tuck yourself into his side and press an all too tender kiss underneath his jaw.

-

“A guy asked me out today.”

You’re scrolling through your phone on the couch while Andrew works on dinner. He likes that he can see you from the stove in your apartment, even if the burners aren’t as hot as his. His hands move between a cutting board and a sauce pan, balancing onions and garlic and aromatics.

“What?” Andrew freezes. 

He was under the impression that you were exclusive. He knows he’s not your boyfriend, and he knows you’re not even officially dating, but the two of you are a package. He thought you knew that, and he was pretty sure you felt that way too.

“Yeah, that guy from work who I told you was flirting with me. I honestly thought it was a joke until now, but he asked if I wanted to go with him to the film festival by the marina.”

“Are you going to go?” Andrew’s hands are very still over the cutting board, paused with knife and parsley in hand.

“No.” You smile at him like he’s being silly. “Why the fuck would I?”

He exhales. He’s right then, about your mutual understanding of the situation. He’s still thinking when you start talking again.

“Andrew,” you say, drawing his attention back. “I want you to take me. To the festival.”

“You what?” He puts down his knife. Rinses and towels off his hands. His brain and his ears are not processing at the same speed.

“I want you to take me out.” It’s not really a question. You don’t doubt that he will. “I want you to pick me up and bring me flowers and kiss me goodnight at the end.”

He can see it already, the night you’re asking for appears to him in flashes. He’ll have to get a new shirt. He’ll get you a bouquet of those ranunculus you point out every time you pass your neighbour’s garden gate. You’ll wear something pretty and delicate and put on a little more of your perfume than usual. You’re going to look beautiful and he’s going to spoil you and you’re already asking him for a goodnight kiss, as if he wouldn’t get on his knees now if you told him to.

“Anything.” He says, a little shy. “You can have anything you want.”

Your smile is destabilizing.

“Anything?” You echo.

“Anything.”

“Do you think I could get a kiss now, then?”

Andrew comes out from the kitchen, makes his way to stand over where you’re sitting on the couch. You lift your chin for him and it’s like an arrow through his heart. He takes your face softly in both hands. He presses his mouth to yours, once, twice, again. The kiss is sticky-sweet and makes his insides feel molten.

You follow after him when he heads back to the kitchen. You stick too close and start talking about the rest of your day. Andrew just listens. He nudges you to the side when his sauce starts to pop, offers you a small taste from the back of his spoon. He stirs, you hover. He’s glowing.

“Okay,” she’d said, because there were moments where compassion had to take priority over personal fulfilment. “We’re going to sleep.”

Garrett had made a muffled sound of protest into her skin.

“You just lost consciousness between my legs.”

“Didn’t.”

“Your mouth was open.”

He adjusted his face more firmly into her stomach. “It was already open.”

“That is not the defence you think it is.”

He had tried to lift himself onto one elbow, managed perhaps four inches and then dropped his face back against her with the exhausted dignity of a man being asked to complete one final push-up after the end of civilisation. “Give me five minutes.”

She’d taken one look at the grey shadows beneath his eyes, the tired drag at the corners of his mouth and the fading yellow bruise along one shoulder from the regional final, then pulled the blanket over both of them instead. Garrett had been asleep before she finished getting her underwear back on.

That was nearly two weeks ago. She hasn’t been fucked properly in three, which would be a more compelling personal tragedy if Garrett hadn’t spent those same three weeks skating like Briar University’s continued existence depended on him alone

The tournament has eaten all of them alive. Two regional wins to secure the Frozen Four. The semifinal two nights ago, won in overtime after Briar spent most of the third period trapped in its own zone and Garrett blocked a shot with his ankle badly enough that he limped until the next morning but still refused to acknowledge anything had happened. 

Film sessions. Practice. Recovery. Media. Team meetings. More film because Garrett had decided there might be a hidden tactic buried in the exact angle of an opposing winger’s shoulder if he watched the footage enough times.

He’s been sleeping in pieces. Forty minutes on her dorm bed before practice. Twenty in the passenger seat while Tucker drove. Once at her desk with his forehead resting on a chapter about community health, and one hand still wrapped loosely around her wrist like he had fallen asleep halfway through confirming she was there.

She has watched the tournament take him apart in small, ordinary ways nobody else would necessarily notice.

The protein bar wrappers multiplying in his gear bag because he keeps forgetting meals until she puts food directly into his hand. The way his jaw goes hard whenever somebody asks what it means to play the national championship at TD Garden, when everyone knows perfectly well what it means. 

The Bruins. His future. His father’s history hanging somewhere above all of it, invisible and still somehow taking up space. Garrett has answered every question correctly. He says it’s about Briar. About the boys. About finishing what they started. He means it too.

Garrett’s spent weeks carrying everyone else’s nerves so convincingly that half the team appears to have forgotten he possesses any of his own.

By the time she reaches the Garden, she feels like she has swallowed something carbonated. It moves beneath her ribs in bright, rising bubbles as she follows Lucy and Monique through the concourse, one hand wrapped around theirs to keep from losing either of them in the river of navy, silver and white pouring toward the arena. 

Everywhere she looks, somebody from Briar is there. Students she recognises from tutorials. Professors wearing team scarves over collared shirts. Alumni with old jerseys stretched across bodies that have changed significantly since graduation. Half the hockey house’s regular party population appears to have made the trip, suddenly united by school pride and the urgent need to buy beer before warm-ups begin.

The Garden itself feels too large to hold all of them. Light spills down from the high ceiling onto the ice in hard, clean sheets, making the rink look almost blue at the edges. Music pounds through the arena speakers while the scoreboard turns slowly above centre ice, cycling through team logos, player footage and the words NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in letters large enough to make her stomach tighten every time they appear.

The air smells like cold metal, popcorn, spilled beer and the sharp synthetic chill that rises from a sheet of freshly cut ice. Even through her jeans and the long-sleeved top beneath Garrett’s jersey, she can feel the cold working its way in through her knees. She doesn’t care.

Their seats are down against the glass, close enough that she can see the scraped white line where the boards meet the ice and the little ridges the resurfacer left behind. Kendall, Paige and Sienna are already there when they arrive, occupying several seats in a loose cluster with enough bags, drinks and handmade signs to suggest they’re establishing a permanent settlement.

Kendall has silver stars beneath both eyes. Paige has somehow worked Garrett’s number into her eyeliner despite Garrett not being her boyfriend, which she claims is general captain support and not an act of targeted provocation. Sienna is holding a sign that reads DEAN, PLEASE TRY DEFENCE TODAY in thick navy letters.

“That’s so mean,” she says, accepting the silver face glitter Paige immediately begins pressing toward her cheek without permission.

“He’ll love it,” Sienna replies. “He responds well to criticism.”

“He responds loudly to criticism.”

Lucy has made a sign too, although hers simply says GO HAWKS because Lucy believes in encouragement without inviting retaliation from large men on skates.

Monique has brought no sign and is carrying emergency supplies instead: tissues, water, painkillers, two granola bars and a portable charger because, in her words, somebody in this group has to remain connected to civilisation.

“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Monique observes as Paige draws a small forty-four near the corner of her eye.

“I’m not.” She glances at the scoreboard. Five minutes, forty-eight seconds until warm-ups. “That’s basically now.”

Lucy loops an arm through hers and squeezes. “You excited?”

The question is absurdly insufficient. Excited is standing in line for concert tickets. Excited is finding out the difficult lecturer has cancelled class. This feels more like every part of her body has been tuned slightly too high, her skin warm beneath the cold arena air and her pulse sitting visibly in the base of her throat.

She looks down at the jersey instead. Garrett’s name stretches across her shoulders. Forty-four covers most of her back. It still smells faintly like his detergent even after being folded inside her overnight bag, and something stupid happens beneath her breastbone when she smooths one palm over the number on the sleeve.

“Normal amount,” she says.

Lucy looks at Monique. Monique nods gravely. “She’s going to throw up.”

She doesn’t throw up. She does, however, nearly crush Kendall’s hand when the lights shift and the first few players spill onto the ice.

The Briar section detonates. Noise surges up around them so quickly it seems to change the pressure inside her ears. People are already standing, banging hands against the glass, screaming names into the cold while the boys come through the tunnel in a loose stream of navy jerseys and silver helmets.

Tucker is one of the first out, skating directly toward centre with his head down and his stick loose in one hand, settling immediately into the quiet, economical movements he carries everywhere. Logan comes behind him faster, taking his first lap like he has something personal against the far boards.

Dean’s last only because Dean has decided entering the national championship requires choreography. He pushes onto the ice backward, both arms spread toward the Briar section like he’s rented the building for the evening. The response gets louder. Dean cups one glove to his ear, shakes his head as though disappointed and gestures for more.

Sienna slams her sign against the glass. Dean spots it. His mouth drops open beneath his cage. He points his stick at her, then at himself, then makes an offended gesture toward his chest as if he’s just been accused of a serious crime.

“TRY DEFENCE,” Sienna screams.

Dean skates past them shaking his head, one glove held over his heart.

“He’s going to bring that up for six months,” Paige says.

“He needed motivation.”

The rest of the boys circle out into warm-ups. Pucks scatter across the ice. Skates begin cutting sharp white lines through the untouched surface, the hard clack of sticks and pucks occasionally breaking through the music and crowd noise. She finds Garrett almost immediately.

Her body knows where he is before she properly registers the forty-four on his back. He’s near the blue line, taking two long strides before dropping into the familiar stretch he always does first, one knee bent deeply while the other leg extends behind him. 

His helmet is tipped forward. His gloves are tucked beneath one arm. For several seconds he stays there with his head lowered, shoulders rising and falling beneath the jersey. He looks tired. She sees it in the slowness when he stands, the careful roll of his shoulders and the way he flexes one ankle before starting toward the far end.

Then a puck comes to him. Everything changes. His stick catches it cleanly, and his body settles into the ice as though it has finally entered its natural environment. One stride, two, a quick shift onto his outside edge. 

He sends the puck hard into the top corner during the first shooting drill, circles behind the net and shouts something at Logan that makes Logan raise one glove without turning around.

The pressure beneath her ribs goes soft and hot. There are feelings that arrive with sensible names and manageable symptoms. Affection. Attraction. Pride. Things that can be discussed over coffee without anyone needing medical supervision.

Whatever she feels for Garrett has never behaved properly enough to qualify. It spreads through her bloodstream like she has been drinking on an empty stomach. Warm behind her face. Loose in her knees. Her brain a little slower and much happier whenever he looks at her. 

Sometimes she catches him standing barefoot in the kitchen eating cereal and has the deeply unreasonable thought that this may be the best thing that has ever happened to anyone. Not her. Anyone.

It feels rare in a way she doesn’t know how to say without sounding insane. Like something a person might stumble into once every several lifetimes if the timing is right and the universe briefly stops being an asshole.

Garrett takes another shot. The puck hits the post with a sharp metallic crack. She cheers anyway. He turns at the sound of the Briar section, lifting his head toward the glass. His eyes begin moving over the crowd.

She knows what he’s doing. The knowledge lands in her stomach with enough force that her fingers tighten around Lucy’s wrist.

“He’s looking for you,” Lucy says.

“I know.”

“Wave.”

“I’m trying to look normal,” she mutters.

“You’re wearing his jersey and gripping my arm,” Lucy replies.

“Wave,” Monique orders.

She lifts both hands. Garrett sees her. His face changes so completely that the whole arena seems briefly less important.

The hard focus around his mouth breaks first. Then his eyes soften and his grin comes in bright beneath the helmet, familiar enough to reach through the glass and settle directly beneath her ribs. He points his stick toward her, says something to Tucker as he passes and turns sharply toward the boards.

“Oh my God,” Kendall says. “Incoming.”

Garrett stops in front of them with a small spray of ice, one glove braced against the top of his stick. Up close, she can see the faint tiredness beneath his eyes and the flushed line across his cheeks where the cold has already caught him. Damp curls push out beneath the back of his helmet. His gaze drops immediately to the jersey, then returns to her face.

She leans toward the glass, grin stretching before she can even try to control it. “Hey, forty-four.”

“Hi, baby.”

She barely hears him over the music and the crowd, but she knows the shape of his mouth well enough to fill in whatever sound the glass steals. Garrett shifts closer, face tipped toward her through a narrow break between the panels, and for one second everyone around them appears to become extremely interested in watching something else while also listening with every available part of their bodies.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks.

Garrett nods once. “Good.”

It comes automatically. Captain answer. Media answer. The exact response he has been giving anyone who asks for the past three weeks. She narrows her eyes.

Garrett’s mouth twitches, but the expression doesn’t hold. He looks back toward centre ice, where the other team has begun its own warm-up, then returns his gaze to her. “I just–” He exhales, the breath fogging faintly against the glass. “They’ve been killing it this tournament, baby.”

She looks at him for half a second. “And you guys haven’t?”

His eyes drop briefly.

“Garrett.”

He nods. “I know.”

She presses closer to the glass, lowering her voice even though she has to speak louder to be heard. “You don’t have to drag them through this by yourself. Tuck’s been seeing everything before it happens. Logan looks like somebody put rocket fuel in his water. Dean’s so excited he might actually attempt defence just to surprise us.”

Garrett smiles properly at that.

“You’ve won every shitty game they’ve put in front of you,” she continues. “You won the one where half your bench could barely stand. You came back Thursday when everyone had already decided you were done. You’ve been killing it too.”

His gaze stays on hers.

“Okay?”

Garrett nods.

She shakes her head once. “Words, baby.”

That gets the full grin. Bright, sudden and so deeply him that her stomach tips. “Yeah. Okay.”

“You’ve got this, Garrett.”

His throat moves when he swallows. “Yeah.”

“You feeling good?”

He looks at her for another second, shoulders sitting lower now, his grip easier around the stick. “Yeah, Coach.”

She grins. “Good.”

A whistle cuts across the ice. Garrett’s head turns toward the bench. Coach is gesturing sharply, calling the first unit back toward centre for the final drill. Logan skates past behind Garrett and hits the back of his helmet with one glove.

“Stop flirting,” he yells. “National championship.”

Garrett twists around. “I’ll bench you.”

“You can’t.”

“Watch me.” Garrett looks back at her. The whistle goes again, longer and significantly less patient. “Gotta go, baby.”

She nods, still smiling so hard her cheeks ache. “Go.”

He pushes away from the boards, then turns while skating backward. One glove lifts to his mouth. Garrett blows her a kiss.

She catches it automatically, closing her hand against her chest with the same stupid little movement she’s done from stands and car parks and the end of hallways a hundred times before. “Love you, baby.”

The words leave her mouth without consulting anybody. Garrett’s already turning.

Tucker catches the shoulder of his jersey and pulls him toward the drill as Coach shouts something from the bench. Garrett’s head shifts slightly, perhaps toward her, perhaps only because Logan has said something at his other side. Then all four of them are moving, sticks dropping toward the ice while a puck slides into the face-off circle.

Her smile stays where it is for one full second, then her brain receives the sentence. Her hand opens against her chest.

“Oh,” she says.

Lucy slowly turns toward her. Monique’s eyes widen. Kendall’s mouth drops open, silver stars stretching at the corner of one eye. Paige stops halfway through lifting her drink. Sienna lowers the sign in front of her with the solemn care of somebody putting down a weapon.

“Did you just–” Lucy begins.

She slaps both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God.”

The words come out muffled into her palms. Heat climbs from her chest to her face so quickly she can feel it beneath Paige’s little silver forty-four.

Monique catches both her elbows. “You’re okay.”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I just told him I love him.”

“You did,” Kendall says, then winces when Monique looks at her. “Supportively.”

“I told Garrett Graham I love him through plexiglass before the national championship,” she squeaks.

Lucy reaches for one of her wrists, gently pulling her hand away from her mouth before she can smother herself. “It’s okay. It was cute.”

“It was not meant to happen.”

Lucy shrugs. “Most things aren’t.”

“It just came out.” She stares at the ice, where Garrett has dropped into position for the drill like her entire internal structure hasn’t just collapsed twenty feet away. “I didn’t decide anything. My mouth went… it went freelance.”

Paige presses her lips together.

Sienna points one warning finger at her. “Do not laugh.”

Paige shakes her head. “I’m not.”

She turns desperately toward Monique. “Do you think he heard?”

The girls all look toward the ice. The Garden is still roaring. Music pounds through the speakers. Hundreds of Briar students are chanting something about Burlington’s goalie that will almost certainly lead to an email from university administration. Pucks slam against the boards, whistles splitting the cold air while the players call to one another through helmets and crowd noise.

Kendall tilts her head. “Honestly? Maybe not.”

“Oh, good.” Relief hits for less than a second before immediately becoming something else. “Wait. Is that good?”

“Yes,” Lucy says.

“No,” Paige says at the exact same time.

Lucy glares at her.

Paige lifts both hands. “I’m only saying she might eventually want him to hear it.”

“Not like that,” she says. “Not while Coach is threatening him and half of Massachusetts is watching.”

“He probably thought you said good luck,” Sienna offers.

“That doesn’t have the same number of syllables!”

“He’s often concussed,” Kendall suggests.

“Not currently!”

Monique squeezes her elbows. “Breathe.”

She takes one breath. It catches somewhere high in her chest and comes out thin.

“Again.”

She breathes again, staring helplessly through the glass. Garrett takes the next pass near centre ice, cuts around Logan and shoots. The puck goes in cleanly. He circles the net, taps Tucker’s shin pads with his stick and joins the line again without looking toward her.

That should help. It doesn’t.

“What do I do?” she whispers.

Lucy rubs one hand down her arm. “Right now? Watch the game.”

“For three periods?”

“Hopefully only three,” Monique says. “Overtime might kill you.”

She makes a noise of genuine distress.

“Not helpful,” Lucy tells her.

The warm-up clock keeps counting down above the ice. Two minutes, nineteen seconds. The boys gather near the bench for water, shoulders bumping, helmets tipping together as Garrett says something that makes Dean slap one glove against his chest.

He looks like the captain again. Focused. Certain. Every inch of him turned toward the game waiting on the other side of the clock.

She cannot tell whether he heard. There’s no visible sign that her first I love you reached him at all. No stunned look. No missed stride. No Garrett abandoning the national championship to climb over the glass and demand clarification, which is ridiculous but currently feels like the only response that would give her useful information.

Instead, he takes his place beside Tucker while Coach speaks, one glove wrapped around the top of his stick and forty-four broad across his back. The buzzer sounds to end warm-ups.

The crowd rises again as the players begin filing toward the tunnel. Garrett disappears between Logan and Dean without looking back, swallowed by navy jerseys and the dark opening beneath the stands.

She stays at the glass with both hands over her mouth, his name stretched across her shoulders and his number pressed warm against her back.

Behind her, Lucy says, “You’re fine,” with the determined confidence of somebody trying to influence an outcome medically beyond her control.

Monique pushes a water bottle into her hand. Kendall begins listing reasons the arena acoustics are unreliable. Sienna insists declarations made during warm-ups may not be legally binding, and Paige is still being prevented from mentioning that Garrett’s head had moved slightly after she said it.

Above centre ice, the scoreboard resets for puck drop. Eighteen minutes.

At least three periods before she could get him alone. Sixty minutes of hockey, plus intermissions, during which she would have to watch her boyfriend play for a national championship while wondering whether she had accidentally changed the entire shape of their relationship at full volume. 

The Garden roared around her, and she stood there with Garrett’s forty-four stretched across her back, and absolutely no way to take the words back through the glass. 

The first face-off happens before her body has remembered how to process oxygen normally. One second the teams are circling beneath the hard white light, officials gliding into position while the noise inside the Garden rises and breaks and rises again.

The next, the puck hits the ice, Garrett’s stick snaps forward and the national championship becomes too fast and too violent to leave much room for privately destroying her own life.

For roughly fourteen seconds, anyway. Garrett wins the draw cleanly and knocks the puck backward toward Tucker. Briar surges forward around him, all navy shoulders and cutting blades, the opening shift moving with the sharp, practiced rhythm she’s watched enough times to recognise before she could ever explain it properly. 

Logan flies up the left side. Dean cuts across behind him, already throwing his weight into a defender with the subtlety of a car entering a building. Tucker sends the puck deep, Garrett follows it into the corner and the opposing defenceman drives him shoulder-first into the glass hard enough that the boards shake beneath her hands.

Her whole body contracts. She doesn’t scream or grab Lucy or begin climbing over the glass. It’s smaller and worse than that, a hard internal flinch that starts somewhere behind her sternum and pulls all the muscles down her back tight at once.

Garrett comes away from the hit still moving, knees bent, stick down, one glove briefly flexing near his shoulder before he takes the puck from beneath the other player’s skates and sends it back toward the point.

“Oh,” Lucy says beside her, eyes wide. “They’re not fucking around.”

“Nope,” Monique answers. 

The game establishes its personality quickly. It’s mean. Every hit arrives half a second before it could become something officials might feel obligated to stop, all sharp hips and shoulders and bodies driven into boards with the deeply technical violence of men who have spent their lives learning precisely how hard another person can be struck while everyone calls it clean.

Tucker gets crushed behind Briar’s net three minutes in, his helmet snapping backward against the glass before he drops to one knee. She’s halfway out of her seat before he plants one glove on the ice, stands and immediately hooks his stick beneath the other player’s to strip the puck away.

“Jesus Christ,” Paige mutters.

Tucker sends the puck up the boards like nothing happened. Garrett catches it, turns through the neutral zone and gets met by two bodies at once.

He disappears. She sees one navy sleeve, the silver of his helmet, then his skates leave the ice and he lands flat on his back hard enough to slide several feet before friction finally catches him.

The Briar section loses its mind. Her hands slap against the glass. “Oh my God.”

Garrett lies there for perhaps one second. Long enough for her stomach to turn over completely. Then he rolls onto one knee, gets his stick beneath him and pushes upright while Logan barrels into the guy who hit him with enough force to send both of them into the boards.

The whistle goes. Players gather immediately, shoulders colliding, gloves pressing into chests while officials wedge themselves between bodies that clearly have no intention of politely separating. Dean arrives late and shoves someone who’s not even involved.

“Of course,” Sienna says.

Garrett skates into the edge of the gathering and catches Dean around the chest before he can convert an ordinary post-whistle disagreement into an actual incident. He says something beneath his cage. Dean replies with both gloves raised as if innocence is a position he has ever occupied. The official sends Dean toward the box.

“What did he even do?” Lucy asks.

Sienna presses both hands to the glass as Dean passes. “WORTH IT!”

Dean turns his head and blows her a kiss. The penalty kill lasts less than a minute before Tucker takes a puck off the ankle, limps through one stride and sends it down the ice anyway. She watches him reach the bench with his face drawn tight, one trainer bending immediately toward the skate while Tucker waves him off and points toward the play as though the trainer has accidentally started discussing something irrelevant.

The boys have been exhausted for weeks. She knew that. She has watched Garrett fall asleep with food in his mouth, watched Logan lie facedown on the living-room rug because walking upstairs felt unreasonable, watched Tucker stretch one hamstring against the kitchen counter while stirring pasta and watched Dean voluntarily turn down a party because his entire skeleton had a headache.

Knowing it in kitchens and bedrooms is different from seeing it here. Every hit looks like it should empty them. Every collision seems large enough to knock the last little reserve of energy loose and scatter it across the ice. Instead, they keep getting up, and they give it back.

Dean comes out of the penalty box like he’s been insulted by the concept of confinement. His first shift ends with an opposing winger folded into the boards and Dean skating away while the man’s teammates shout after him.

Tucker catches another player cleanly near centre and sends him onto his ass with such quiet efficiency that the crowd makes one collective, delighted sound.

Logan scores first. The play starts with Garrett trapped along the boards beneath two bodies, one stick pressed across his hips while another player tries to dig the puck out from between four pairs of skates. Garrett somehow gets it loose. She doesn’t see how. One second it’s beneath him, the next it slides backward to Tucker, who sends it across the width of the ice to Dean.

Dean takes one stride, pulls the defence toward him and passes to Logan at the back door. Logan buries it.

The red light comes on. The Briar section erupts so hard the sound seems to push against her skin from every direction. She screams with everyone else, both arms thrown upward as Logan crashes into the glass near the corner and gets swallowed by navy jerseys.

Garrett’s first to grab him. Tucker follows, then Dean launches himself into the group with enough enthusiasm that Logan nearly goes down beneath all three of them. The scoreboard changes.

BRIAR 1.

The number glows above the ice for forty-one seconds before the other team answers. A turnover near the blue line. A breakaway. Briar’s goalie makes the first save, but the rebound kicks loose and an opposing forward gets there before Tucker can tie up his stick.

1-1.

Then 2-1 to them after Dean gets caught too high in the zone and Briar gives up an odd-man rush.

Sienna lowers her sign. “He’s actively refusing to take constructive feedback.”

Briar ties it again before the end of the period. Garrett scores this one.

Tucker wins the puck behind their own net and sends it to Logan, who carries it through centre with two defenders closing. Garrett’s moving beside him, a little behind, his stride long and controlled even though she can see the heaviness beginning in his legs.

Logan waits until the last possible second and slides the puck across. Garrett receives it without looking down. One touch. Then another. He shoots through the defenceman’s legs. The puck hits the back of the net before the goalie has fully dropped.

For half a second, Garrett stays where he is, chest rising beneath the jersey, eyes fixed on the goal like he needs visual confirmation that it really happened. Then he turns. He points directly at her.

There are thousands of people in the building. Hundreds wearing Briar colours. His entire team is skating toward him, Logan already reaching for the top of his helmet while Dean screams something close enough to distort Garrett’s grin.

Still, Garrett finds her. His glove lifts. Two fingers extend toward the glass. Her heart punches once against her ribs.

She points back before she can think better of it, forty-four stretched across her back while the girls around her scream. Garrett’s grin widens, and then Tucker catches him around the shoulders and drags him into the celebration.

“Oh my God,” Lucy says, gripping her upper arm. “That was for you!”

“No way,” she says automatically, voice already ruined from yelling. 

“He pointed at your face.”

“He could’ve been pointing at, like, the general student population.”

Kendall looks around them. “Anyone else wearing his jersey and blushing?”

She puts both hands over her cheeks. They are burning.

The goal helps. It should make the earlier problem worse. Garrett pointing at her after scoring in the national championship shouldn’t reduce the pressure of having accidentally told him she loves him. It should drive the sentence deeper, sharpen it, make every thought inside her skull louder.

Instead, something settles. The question is still there, pacing badly inside her. Did he hear? Did he understand? Is he waiting until after the game to say something? Has she just handed him an emotional grenade and then sat down behind plexiglass while he tries to win a championship?

But the game keeps demanding her attention, and Garrett keeps finding her. Every time he comes near their side of the rink, her body locks onto him. The bend of his knees. The tilt of his shoulders. The little shake of one glove after a slash the officials pretend not to see. When he scores, he points. When he assists on Dean’s second-period goal, he glances toward her before the boys have finished celebrating.

It’s not an answer. It feels enough like one to stop her throwing up.

The second period becomes uglier. Nobody has enough energy left for finesse without violence beneath it. The hits get heavier, tempers shorter, every whistle followed by little scrums where gloves climb higher and sticks become objects with plausible deniability.

Dean gets driven face-first into the boards behind the net. His cage strikes the glass with a sound that makes half their row gasp. He pushes backward at once, turns and swings both hands into the chest of the guy behind him.

Tucker gets between them first. This is, perhaps, the least sensible possible person to use as a calming influence, because Tucker’s version of de-escalation involves shoving the other player away hard enough that his skates leave the ice.

The officials grab both Briar players. Dean is yelling. Tucker is quieter, which looks significantly more dangerous.

“Oh, Tuck’s mad,” Paige says.

“How can you tell?” Lucy asks.

“He’s not blinking.”

Across the ice, Garrett circles in, one hand gripping Dean’s shoulder while he talks into the side of his helmet. Whatever he says works. Dean’s posture drops by an inch. Tucker releases the front of the other player’s jersey with the slow reluctance of a man being asked to return stolen property.

The officials send one from each team to the box. Dean skates away mouthing, “Bullshit,” so clearly that the Briar students nearest the glass begin chanting it for him.

The game stays tied until six minutes remain in the second. Then Briar goes ahead. Then gives up the equaliser less than ninety seconds later.

3-3.

The scoreboard becomes a threat hanging over centre ice. The other team scores again after a scramble in front of the net.

4-3.

For the first time all night, the Briar section goes briefly quiet. The sound changes, falling inward around thousands of held breaths while the opposing players celebrate near their bench and Garrett stands several feet away with both hands braced on the top of his stick.

She can see the pressure arrive in him. It’s in the angle of his neck. The way his chin drops. The stillness that overtakes his body while everyone else moves around him.

The old instinct. Mine. My fault. Fix it.

Garrett lifts his head toward the bench. He skates over and leans toward Coach, listening. Tucker joins him. Logan. Dean leaves the penalty box and takes his place at the edge of the group, chest still heaving.

Whatever is said lasts only seconds. Garrett nods once. Then the boys go back out. The next shift is brutal.

Logan takes a hit near centre that spins him completely around. Tucker loses his stick and still manages to kick the puck forward with one skate. Dean blocks a shot off his thigh and nearly folds, gets up anyway and drives into the corner.

Garrett gets the puck beneath the goal line and tries to cut toward the net. The defenceman catches him directly in front of her.

The impact drives Garrett into the boards with enough force that the glass shudders beneath both her hands. His shoulder hits first. Then the side of his helmet. The other player keeps him pinned there, forearm across Garrett’s back, stick trapped between their skates.

She sees Garrett’s face turn against the glass. Sees the flash of his teeth beneath the cage. The fury moving into his eyes. The defenceman gives him one additional shove after the puck is gone.

Garrett explodes backward. He twists free, throws both gloves into the man’s chest and shoves him hard enough that the other player stumbles two strides. The crowd roars immediately, half excitement and half invitation.

The defenceman comes forward again.

“Garrett!” she shouts, slamming one hand against the glass. “Focus!”

He doesn’t look at her. For one horrible second, she thinks he hasn’t heard. Then Garrett’s head tilts slowly to one side. His neck cracks. Even through the glass and the crowd and the scrape of skates, she can practically hear it. He turns away from the defenceman and skates back into the play.

Beside her, Lucy says, very quietly, “Oh, that’s so hot.”

She smacks Lucy’s arm without looking away from the ice. “Hey. My boyfriend.”

“Ow.” Lucy rubs the spot, entirely unrepentant. “Sorry, but I have eyes.”

“Close them.”

“No,” Lucy smirks. 

Kendall leans toward them. “In her defence, that was objectively hot.”

“None of you are being supportive.”

“We are incredibly supportive,” Paige says. “We support you having that.”

She looks at all of them with genuine betrayal. “He’s exhausted and being assaulted.”

“And listening when you yell at him through reinforced glass,” Sienna replies. “Very sexy.”

Monique places one steady hand on her shoulder. “You can be concerned and recognise that the neck thing was unfortunately effective.”

“Thank you,” Lucy says.

She stares at Monique. “You too?”

Monique’s mouth tightens. “I’m not dead.”

The period ends 4-3.

The teams disappear into their tunnels, the Garden filling immediately with music and conversation and thousands of people attempting to breathe through the same collective stress. She drops into her seat for the first time in several minutes and realises her legs are shaking.

Lucy gives her water. Monique opens a granola bar and places half of it in her hand without asking. Kendall starts analysing the opposing goalie’s rebound control as if she has been retained by Briar’s coaching staff. She eats because Garrett would somehow sense if she didn’t.

The I love you returns during intermission. Without hockey moving in front of her, the sentence comes back and sits directly on her chest. She stares at the tunnel where Garrett disappeared and replays his face when he scored. The point. The grin. The way he looked toward her after Dean’s goal.

“He heard,” Paige says.

She turns. “What?”

Paige has the good grace to look slightly guilty. “I’m not saying definitely.”

Lucy points at Paige. “We agreed not to bring this up until after.”

“You agreed. I was drinking.”

Monique rubs a hand between her shoulder blades. “It doesn’t matter right now.”

“It matters a lot,” she mumbles.

“Not in a way you can do anything about during intermission.”

That’s so painfully sensible she briefly considers ending the friendship. The lights shift before she can. The teams return, and Briar comes onto the ice differently. She sees it before the puck drops. All the boys look like someone has reached into the locker room and replaced whatever exhaustion was left in them with something sharper.

Dean’s practically bouncing on his skates, jaw moving as he talks continuously at Logan. Tucker rolls one shoulder, then the other, gaze fixed down the ice. Logan taps his stick three times against Garrett’s shin pads. Garrett stands over the face-off dot with his body low and still.

She doesn’t know what Coach said in that room. Maybe he reminded them they had twenty minutes left together. Maybe Garrett spoke. Dean. One of the seniors. Maybe they sat in silence and listened to their own breathing, every one of them understanding there was no sensible reason they should have anything left.

Whatever happened, Briar comes out violent in a completely new direction.

Garrett wins the opening draw. Tucker gets the puck and sends it forward before the opposing centre has finished turning. Logan carries it over the line. Dean drives the net and pulls both defencemen with him.

Garrett trails the play. Logan drops the puck backward. Garrett shoots. Goal. Nine seconds.

The Garden detonates. She’s on her feet, screaming before the red light comes on fully. Garrett circles away from the net and drops onto one knee, fist punching once toward the ice while Logan crashes into him from behind.

4-4.

Garrett stands beneath the weight of all three boys and looks directly toward her, and points. Her throat closes around the noise. She puts both hands to her mouth and blows him a kiss this time. Garrett catches it against his chest with one glove before Dean nearly tackles him into the boards.

“That man so heard you,” Paige says.

“Shut up.”

Briar scores again two minutes later. Tucker this time, a shot from the point that changes direction through traffic and slips beneath the goalie’s arm. Tucker doesn’t even appear certain it went in until Dean grabs both sides of his helmet and screams into his face.

5-4.

Then Logan scores.

6-4.

The opposing coach calls timeout. His players gather around the bench while Briar circles near centre, shoulders bumping and gloves tapping helmets. The entire arena feels tilted now. Briar’s section is on its feet and stays there. Nobody sits again. Every touch of the puck earns a scream. Every clear is celebrated like a goal. Every blocked shot feels personal.

The other team starts taking chances because they have to. That makes them dangerous, it also leaves space.

Dean scores on a breakaway with eight minutes remaining. He comes over the blue line alone, one defenceman chasing. She can feel the entire Briar section inhale. Dean shoots high. The puck hits the crossbar, drops behind the goalie and bounces into the net.

7-4.

Dean skates directly toward their corner with both arms spread, mouth open in a yell. Sienna slams her sign against the glass so hard one corner bends.

“DEFENCE,” she screams.

Dean points at the scoreboard and mouths something that looks very much like, “Don’t need it.”

Garrett reaches him first and shoves him affectionately in the head. 

The other team pulls the goalie with three minutes left. The extra attacker floods Briar’s zone. Pucks hit skates, shin pads, sticks. Their goalie makes one save, then another. Tucker dives to knock the rebound away and gets landed on by two bodies.

Garrett clears it down the ice. The puck misses the empty net by inches. The crowd groans. 

One minute, twelve seconds.

Her hands are numb from gripping the rail.

Forty-eight seconds.

The puck comes out toward centre. Logan reaches it first, pokes it past one defender and sends it sideways. Garrett has open ice, he takes the puck, crosses the red line and shoots from distance. The puck slides over the ice toward the empty net, turning slightly on its edge. It crosses the line.

8-4.

Garrett doesn’t celebrate immediately, he looks toward her. Even from the other end of the rink, even through the bodies and glass and thousands of people between them, she knows he’s smiling.

He points one final time. Her chest feels too small to contain anything currently inside it. The final seconds come off the clock beneath a wall of sound.

Ten.

Nine.

The boys stop pretending to play normally.

Eight.

Dean’s already grinning.

Seven.

Tucker turns toward the bench.

Six.

Logan lifts one glove.

Five.

The entire Briar section begins counting.

“FOUR!”

Garrett looks toward the scoreboard.

“THREE!”

She grabs Lucy with one hand and Monique with the other.

“TWO!”

The Briar bench empties before the clock reaches one. The buzzer sounds. For a second, she hears nothing.

The noise is too big. It strikes her all at once and wipes itself out, becoming pressure rather than sound, something physical moving through the arena floor and up her legs while the boys throw themselves over the boards.

Briar’s fucking won.

The girls collapse into one another. Lucy screams directly into her ear. Monique, usually the least likely person in any room to lose control of her limbs, grabs her around the neck and jumps hard enough that all three of them stumble into Kendall.

Everyone is crying or laughing or doing both without making a meaningful distinction. Paige spills half her drink over the floor and doesn’t notice. Sienna’s sign bends completely in the middle when she hugs it to her chest.

On the ice, the team becomes one enormous pile of navy jerseys and raised sticks. Garrett disappears beneath it. Dean launches himself on top of Logan. Tucker is somewhere near the bottom, one glove reaching upward as if requesting rescue. Their goalie skates the length of the ice and dives into the mass, sending three players sliding.

Helmets and gloves scatter across the surface. The Briar bench is empty. Coaches stand near the boards with their arms around one another, several of them looking as though they’re trying very hard not to cry on television.

She finds Garrett when the pile begins to break apart. He’s on his knees, helmet gone, curls damp and flattened strangely on one side. Logan has both hands on Garrett’s face. Dean grabs him from behind. Tucker reaches them and folds all three into another hug.

Garrett throws his head back and yells. The sight of it breaks something open inside her. It’s too large and warm and sharp at once, rising behind her ribs until she cannot breathe around it.

Three weeks of watching him drag himself through every practice. Every night he fell asleep before she finished speaking. Every meal she had pushed toward him. Every time he said the team was killing it and left himself out of the sentence.

On the ice, officials and event staff begin organising the presentation. A carpet is carried toward centre. Someone wheels the championship trophy through the open gate, silver catching beneath the arena lights.

The boys see it and lose their minds again. Dean points with both hands like nobody else has noticed the enormous trophy entering the rink. Logan shoves Garrett toward it. Tucker is laughing so hard he bends forward, hands braced on his knees.

Garrett takes two steps with them, then he stops. He turns away from the trophy, his head comes up, eyes moving over the crowd. She knows immediately.

“Oh,” Monique says behind her.

Garrett scans the front rows once, fast and frantic, until he finds her, and the expression on his face changes. She’s already moving.

There’s an opening near the bench where staff have begun letting family and selected guests closer to the ice. She doesn’t ask whether she’s selected. She slips past the end of the row, nearly trips over a folded sign and pushes through the bodies clustered near the gate.

Someone says her name. Maybe Lucy. Maybe a security worker attempting to protect the national championship from overly emotional nursing students.

Garrett’s skating toward her. He reaches the open bench gate just as she does, one hand catching the boards while the other reaches for her.

She throws herself at him. Her sneakers leave the rubber flooring. One knee knocks lightly against the boards and Garrett catches her beneath the thighs with a startled laugh, skates shifting backward on the ice before he steadies.

His arms tighten. He spins her once, the Garden lights sweep through her vision and her stomach lifts while she grabs both sides of his face.

Garrett kisses her before she can speak. It lands crooked at first, half her mouth and half the corner, both of them laughing too hard for accuracy. Then he adjusts his hold and kisses her again. Properly. Hard and warm and breathless, tasting like sweat, cold air and the mint gum he must have been chewing before warm-ups.

She pulls back because there are things she needs to say. “You–” Garrett kisses her. “Baby, you–” Another kiss. Shorter, but still enough to knock the sentence loose. “You won,” she manages when his mouth moves briefly to her cheek. “Garrett, you fucking won.”

“I know.”

His voice cracks on the words. She barely gets to hear it before he kisses her again, one hand leaving beneath her thigh to catch the back of her neck.

Behind him, somebody screams, “GRAHAM, TROPHY!”

Garrett raises one hand over her shoulder without looking and gives the entire team the finger. She laughs into his mouth. “Baby, the trophy.”

He shakes his head once and kisses her again. It’s ridiculous. The championship trophy is thirty feet away. His entire team is shouting his name. Cameras are absolutely capturing the captain of Briar University ignoring the formal presentation to make out with his girlfriend through an open bench gate.

She cannot make herself care. Garrett’s forehead presses against hers. His breathing is rough, chest rising hard beneath her arms, damp curls brushing her fingers where they hold the sides of his face.

His eyes are bright. Something wet catches along his lower lashes before he blinks and laughs like his body has become too full to choose one reaction. “I fucking love you,” he says.

The words strike her in the centre of the chest. For half a second, she can only look at him. Then the laugh comes out of her, thin and startled and so relieved it nearly turns into a sob. Her forehead presses harder against his. “You heard me?”

Garrett lets out one disbelieving breath. “Baby, I heard you.”

“Oh my God.”

“I nearly threw up.”

She laughs harder, both hands sliding into his hair now, holding him close enough that their noses bump. “You nearly threw up?”

“I was about to play for a national championship and my girlfriend just yelled that she loved me through the glass.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

His brows lift.

“No, I mean– I meant it.” Her mouth cannot keep up with her brain. Everything comes out tangled, warm and too fast. “Obviously I meant it. I just didn’t mean to say it then. It slipped out and then you skated away, and I didn’t know if you heard, and Paige said your head moved, but heads move all the time–”

Garrett kisses her once, laughing against her mouth. “You’re spiralling.”

“I’ve been spiralling for three periods,” she groans.

“I know.”

“I was watching you get hit by men the size of refrigerators.”

“And thinking about whether I heard you.”

“Yes.”

His smile goes soft. Tired and overwhelmed and so openly happy that the sight of it makes her throat tighten. “I heard you,” he says again, quieter now. “Every word.”

She touches the little cut near his cheekbone, thumb brushing beneath it without pressing. “I love you so much.”

Garrett closes his eyes for one second. When they open again, there’s no joke waiting there, no grin to make the sentence easier. Only him, holding her against his chest while the Garden roars around them and his team shouts increasingly creative threats from centre ice.

“I love you,” he says. “Fuck, I love you.”

She kisses him because there’s no possible response her mouth could make that would improve on that. Garrett kisses her back immediately, deep enough that another wave of yelling rises from the boys.

“CAPTAIN!”

“WE HAVE A FUCKING TROPHY!”

“GRAHAM, WE’RE ON TV!”

“That one was Tucker,” she whispers against Garrett’s mouth.

Garrett laughs, forehead returning to hers. She looks past him at the boys clustered near centre. Dean has both hands on his hips. Logan is pointing urgently at the trophy. Tucker is shaking his head, but he’s smiling so hard it ruins any attempt at disappointment.

“Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay, go get your trophy.”

Garrett tightens his arms around her. “In a second.”

“Baby.”

“One second.”

“You’re the captain,” she argues.

“I know.”

“They need you.”

He grins. “They’ve needed me all month. They can wait ten more seconds.”

Warmth pushes hard behind her eyes. She swallows it, kisses the corner of his mouth and presses both palms to his cheeks. “I’m so proud of you.”

Garrett’s face shifts. His lips part slightly and his eyes drop for half a second like those words have reached somewhere the championship couldn’t.

She strokes one thumb over his skin. “You did it.”

His throat moves, then he kisses her again, one firm press of his mouth to hers that feels less like interruption now and more like an answer.

“Love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you too.” She gives his shoulders a small push. “Now put me down before Dean starts crying.”

“He’s already crying.”

She looks past Garrett again. Dean’s wiping both eyes with the collar of his jersey while aggressively denying something Logan has said. “Oh.”

“Told you.”

Garrett lowers her carefully. Her sneakers land on the rubber mat beyond the ice, knees wobbling after being held above skates and adrenaline for longer than sensible workplace guidelines would recommend. His hands stay at her waist until he’s sure she is balanced.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says.

“You better.”

His grin returns. Bright, golden and exhausted, split at one corner by the small cut on his lip. “Bossy.”

“National champion or not, you still need to listen.”

“Yes, Coach.”

She leans through the gate and kisses him one last time, quick enough not to trigger another team revolt. “Go.”

Garrett pushes backward onto the ice. She catches his wrist before he gets too far. He turns. Her chest is still heaving. Her face hurts from smiling. His jersey hangs heavy and warm over her body, number stretching across her back while the Briar crowd shakes the building around them.

“Love you, Captain.”

Garrett’s whole face lights. He brings one glove to his mouth and blows her a kiss. She catches it.

“Love you,” he calls.

Then he turns and skates toward the boys. Dean meets him halfway and jumps onto his back, nearly taking both of them down. Logan slams into Garrett’s side. Tucker catches his other shoulder and drags the group toward centre, where the trophy waits beneath the arena lights.

She stands at the open gate watching them go, one hand still closed around Garrett’s imaginary kiss. Then Lucy crashes into her from behind.

“You said it twice,” she screams directly into her hair.

Monique wraps both arms around them. Kendall and Paige arrive next, Sienna pushing in with the damaged sign still trapped beneath one elbow until all six of them are pressed together in a laughing, crying mess beside the bench.

“He heard me,” she says, although no one asked.

Lucy squeezes harder. “We noticed.”

“He loves me.”

“No shit,” Paige replies, voice thick with tears. “He abandoned the national championship trophy to kiss you for five minutes.”

Out on the ice, Garrett reaches centre. The boys crowd around him as officials begin saying things nobody in the building has any intention of hearing. Coach hands him the trophy.

Garrett takes it with both hands. For one brief second, he looks down at the silver beneath his gloves. His mouth presses together. Tucker’s hand lands on the back of his neck. Logan grips one shoulder. Dean has both arms raised already, visibly incapable of waiting.

Then Garrett lifts the trophy over his head. The Garden erupts all over again. She screams with everyone else, hands thrown upward, tears warm on her face and Garrett’s forty-four stretched across her back while the boys jump around him.

The trophy shines above them. Dean’s yelling. Logan’s trying to touch it before Garrett has finished lifting it. Tucker’s head is tipped back in laughter.

And Garrett, standing in the middle of everything he has spent his whole life being pushed toward, looks past the cameras and the confetti beginning to fall and the men crowding around him, and he finds her again. 

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Now your hanging chair is softly swinging back and forth as you crochet, listening to the birds and the neighbors kids next door playing in their pool. Now and then you can hear a dog bark down the street. The relatively silent afternoon is pretty relaxing, the only thing really missing, to fully relax, is Jack. Of course he’s at SWAT again. A quick help for a friend of a friend as he had put is yesterday evening before leaving for his shift. It’s not like you particularly like him being shot at but you know he does somewhat enjoy it. He still has to suffer form your coddling and protectiveness and endless reminders to be careful but that is seemingly a sacrifice hes willing to take and you’re not intending to change that until he finally stops doing SWAT altogether. He should be back in a few minutes, though. Hopefully in one piece.

To shove the worry aside and minimize it as much as possible you start a new row on the square, focusing solely on counting the stitches. You start the same section for a third time by now because you had missed a few stitches here and there and now really want to get it right this time. Taking everything apart is exhausting and frustrating. Though the constant nagging worry at the back of your mind doesn’t make the task at hand any easier. You notice that you’re much slower today than you were last night.

It’s maybe twenty minutes later that you hear your phone ringing in the living room. Although you try to get free form your square, yarn and out of the chair you’re too late in the house. The phone stopped ringing already. Sighing in annoyance you think about going back outside, leaving the phone were it is to not distract you, but before you even start turning around the phone rings again. This time s you’re fast enough but your heart stops beating for a second. PTMC blinks your way.

Swallowing thickly you presses the green button, taking the call. “H-hello?”

“Hello, this is PTMC. Are you Y/N Y/L/N?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Slowly you sink onto the couch, fingers of your free hand worrying on the hem of the shirt that you stole from Jack’s closet this morning. “I’m calling on behalf of Dr. Abbot. I was told to let you know that- Sorry, one second-” You can hear the muffling of voices in the background but otherwise you don’t really take anything in that’s being said. Your mind is already running a mile a minute. Someone’s supposed to call in for Jack? Did something happen? Is he hurt or… or worse? Before your worry can get out of hand the other person on the phone is back. “I’m sorry, I have to leave but yeah. I just wanna let you know that Dr. Abbot is here at PTMC. Have a good day.” Just like that the line goes dead. “W-what the hell?!” You slowly let the phone sink, staring at the screen that already turns black again. A bit of anger mixes with your confusion and worry. Jack’s at the hospital and the person on the phone wasn’t even bothered to tell you Whats going on, how bad it is, if you needs to come in… Anything!

Without really thinking you get up from the couch, pacing behind it while dialing Jack’s number. The call is immediately redirected to his voicemail. No surprise, really. Jack always shuts it off at SWAT. Such a small detail can make a big difference and usually he doesn’t even take the phone on the mission but lets it lie in at HQ. Next you try Robby’s number, knowing if someone knows what’s going on it must be him but as it rings and rings your worry intensifies again. Robby’s probably working a trauma, if not even on Jack himself. Of course he wont pick up.

Your legs start going weak, your heart fluttering with anxiety. Suddenly you feel really sick. “Oh my god…” Muttering you try Robby’s phone two more times before giving up. The worry and anxiety wins over the need to reach someone to tell you anything. “Fuck it.”

You shove the phone into one of your shorts pockets and practically run out of the living room. You barely remember to grab your purse and keys before you’re already flying down the stairs of the front porch and to your bicycle. Of course, of all the days, Jack had decided to take the car today instead of walking!

The ride is a blur of time. You don’t really remember much about the ride at all but soon the hospital comes in sight. You take the first free space to park and lock your bike, not caring how far you still have to walk. You run the whole way to the ED and burst through the doors of the waiting room. There are a few people glancing at your way but mostly everyone is busy with themselves. Ignoring the people around, though you do notice that it’s packed and hot in the waiting area, you push past a few people to stop at the clerks desk, ignoring the protest of an elderly man in her own worry. “Lupe! Jack! Jacks here, I need-”

“It’s okay dear, go on in.” Lupe smiles at you and opens the side door for you to come in before she focuses back on the elderly man. For a second you’re confused why Lupe smiled. Surely if Jack is badly hurt, or worse, she wouldn’t smile… So, does that mean he is he alright? Not as bad off? Or does she only try not to worry you any more than you already are. The confusion starts to make your head hurt as well. The nausea is still there and it feels a little bit like you could collapse at any moment if you would allows your body to break down.

You walk into the ED fully but don’t come that far before someone calls your name. Turning to the right you sees Perlah stepping up to you, the nurses face a mask of slight confusion but she is smiling at you. “What are you doing here?”

“Jack.” It’s all you can choke out. Now that you’re actually here, you can feel your heart beat faster again. The panic gets stronger each second you don’t see Jack around, really setting in now. All around you are people, most sitting around on chairs, wheelchairs or beds. Not all of them look so much worse than it could be but you can also hear the occasional groaning and a few screams. Somewhere a bit far off is someone crying loudly and desperate. The thought that that could be you in just a few minutes closes your throat up, building a lumps that’s difficult to swallow past. “Oh, yeah he’s here. So someone did call you.” Perlah smiles, guiding you to the hub with a gentle hand on her back. “But why did you com-”

“If that’s not my favorite cousin.” Robby’s sitting at a computer but the second he sees you, he stands up to pull you into a hug. It’s warm and comfortable but you don’t really relax into his hold as you usually do. Instead your body is tense. “I’m your only cousin.”

“See. Favorite. What are you doing here?”

“Sweetheart? Are you okay?” Your heart stops beating altogether for a second. That voice… It’s his voice and it sounds so ordinary and normal as ever. No pain apparent, no strain, no hidden flinch, no clenched teeth. Maybe a bit of worry swings in it. Slowly you turn around and, yeah, there he is. Still in his combat clothes, his hair a bit disheveled and sweaty. But other than that he looks okay. No Injuries to be seen, no blood. Nothing.

Your breath still catches in your throat. Slowly, almost not believing that he’s really here in front of you, you walk up to him. You let your hands roam over his arms and his face. “Y-you’re okay?” Your voice is a disbelieving whisper, a bit of a stutter mixed in. “Yeah.” Jack frowns, his own hands coming up to rest at her hips. “Whats wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Sick?”

“No. I-I… You’re not hurt or anything?” Your eyebrows draw together as you look at his face for any sign that somethings wrong. “No, I’m okay. I chatted with Robby and now I was on my way back to HQ to get the car and come home.” He was chatting with Robby? You’re worried out of your mind, been on edge and trying to stay calm the whole day and he’s chatting with Robby? Without really thinking it you punch Jack hard on his arm. “You asshole!”

“Ow! What the- What was that for?” Jack rubs his arm and you feel a bit of satisfaction on actually having managed to get a reaction out of him. “Whats that was for?” Incredulous, you stem your hand to your hips. “I’m sitting at home, worrying the whole day only to get a call that you’re at the hospital. No other explanation, no information what’s going on, no request to come in. And you’re sitting here having a nice little coffee klatsch with Robby!” The snort from your right side is enough that you turn to Robby, who has sat down again. Out of the corner of your eyes you can see nurses and residents glancing at you, maybe reveling in the drama playing out in front of them. Not one to spare Robby you clap the back of his head, hard. “Ow.”

“You’re not any better! You could’ve texted and answered my fucking calls as well!” Fury rages through you, though, you do know you won’t be angry for long. Jack must have had a reason to come here and he probably didn’t intend to scare you. But still, you were so on edge the whole day, probably risked your life on the way to the hospital, only for him to be here chatting with your stupid cousin. “Sweetheart. I’m sorry.” Jack steps back up to you, one hand carefully loosening one from your hips to take in his own. You allow it for now, seeing the guilt on his face. “I asked Dana to let someone call you to to make sure you knew I would be a bit later than intended. One of the SWAT guys had a stroke in the middle of the mission and I went with him.”

“You know, it’s been hell here up until ten minutes ago. I would have called you. Promise.” Your gaze wanders to Robby. He doesn’t really look sorry. He knows you won’t stay angry for long. “Hm.” It’s all you’re saying. You take your hand back, only to cross your arms and stare at the two attending. Robby runs a hand through his hair, rubbing his neck before he turns to the surrounding people. “Don’t you have patients?” People scatter and run, some flinch, others laugh. “Sweetheart, I’m really sorry. I’ll make it up to you. How about I take you out to dinner tonight? That place that you like so much?” You purse your lips, thinking it over but then shakes her head. “No.” You see him falter for a second, the small smile that had been on his lips slowly vanishing. You don’t wont to make him suffer as you did, so you continue. “You won’t take me out. Instead, you’re going to cook tonight. This chicken thing you did a few months back.”

“Deal.” Jack’s smile returns, almost could be described as a grin, seemingly relived. “We do have to go grocery shopping though.”

“You mean you.” Jack stares for a second before he nods slowly. “Right. I need to go shopping beforehand.” You nod satisfied before your eyes wander to Robby, who hold’s his hands up in defeat. “I know, I’m paying for your next fabric and yarn shopping.”

“Good.” You nod once more, also satisfied and already planning on buying way more than you would need for a few dresses, shorts and whatnot. “Fine.” With that you turn around and walk in the direction of the ambulance bay to leave. “Sweetheart, where are you going?”

“Home, I have no desire on staying any longer, now that I know you’re not actively dying.” She can see Jack wince for a second and behind him she can see Dana slap another nurse on the back of his head. Maybe he was the one to call her? “Oh, and Jack?”

Protective!Park who becomes even more protective of you, the moment you get the positive test.

Protective!Park who carries your bags every where, and refuses to let you do any heavy lifting whatsoever.

Protective!Park who tells Robby to go easy on you, and not to pressure you into doing too much work. Robby knows not to mess with the Shark so he does everything Park tells him to.

Protective!Park who gets angry if any of your colleagues, or any patients touches your baby bump without your consent. The Shark comes out to play.

Protective!Park who’s protectiveness becomes softer at night time, but doesn’t leave entirely. He will give you foot massages, wait on you hand and foot. And when you go to bed at night, he sleeps with a hand gently resting on your stomach. You’re the little spoon and he’s the big spoon.

Protective!Park who will research everything, like what foods you can and can’t eat, ways to help you sleep comfier at night when your bump gets bigger. How to help you deal with morning sickness. Every single element he has researched.

Protective!Park who has a huge stack of pregnancy and baby books. He reads them over and over again.

Protective!Park who speaks to your bump every night. Promising your baby that he will protect him/her and mummy every single day.

Protective!Park who will hold your hair, and rub your back during morning sickness.

Protective!Park who drives slower. And insists on always driving you everywhere.

Protective!Park who attends every pre natal appointment, and scan with you.

Protective!Park who rests his forehead against your stomach, and kisses your bump.

Protective!Park who will give you a lower back massage, when your back is pain.