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And still wearing my jersey.
I briefly wondered while getting dressed if maybe the sense of rightness I had when she kissed me was exaggerated. A product of the moment, snowballed into feeling like something more than it was. Nope. Seeing her now, even across the room, there’s a tug in my gut, and my feet respond, carrying me toward her with purpose.
Her smile is slow, a little tentative at first before it blooms into something that takes over her whole face, making her eyes crinkle and a not-quite dimple appear in one flushed cheek.
Huh. Never noticed that before. Wonder what else I haven’t noticed about her? Probably plenty. But I’m not going to miss anything else now.
I cut through the crowd, seeing no one, hearing nothing, until I reach Bailey. With no hesitation, she walks right into my open arms. I pull her into a hug so tight, her feet lift off the ground, dangling against my shins.
She’s warm and smells so good and fits right here: arms linked around my neck, face tucked against mine. A wave of emotion swells and crests before tumbling through me. Bailey isthe kind of perfect I could get used to. A permanent fixture. The kind I’d fight to keep.
I want to kiss her again, but I don’t know if that’s allowed. I don’t know if she would want me to, or if kissing me once was a green light for kissing any time. We never sat down and talked this through, and now I’ve catapulted us ten steps ahead. I have no idea where we stand with anything at all.
Her lips brush my ear as she says, “What took you so long, hockey player?”
“You miss me or something, Leelee?”
I expect her to say something smart back to me, keep up this teasing dance of words. Instead, she surprises me again when she’s flat-out earnest.
“Yeah. I think I did.”
CHAPTER 13
Eli
I findParker in the hallway the next morning, humming, with her face locked on her tablet screen. Per the usual. Before she looks up, I curl my hands around her shoulders. She lets out a squeak, but I am undeterred.
I steer her inside her office, closing the door. Down the hall, I hear a couple of the guys laughing—laughing at me, I’m sure—the sound now muffled. I ignore it.
“I need your help, Boss.”
Parker must miss the desperation clawing at the edges of my voice because she laughs and plops into the pink chair Logan gave her. “Again? Already? The proposal was perfect. And it’s viral, so if you needed social proof for the whole”—her voice drops to a whisper—“visa thing, you got it. Everyone loves that she said yes without looking at the ring.”
It’s true. Both the video on the Appies’s main account and the one on mine blew up overnight. People couldn’t get enough.My mom told me there was a mention on SportsCenter. I’m not sure when she started watchingthat, but okay.
I get it. I was there, and yet I watched no less than twelve times, finding some fan videos so I could see different angles. Reliving the moment.
The surprise of it. The taste of Bailey on my lips, like the desserts I sometimes sneak even after the trainers tell us to make every calorie a good one.Food is fuel, they like to say. But food is alsofun. Kissing Bailey somehow felt like the very best of both.
Watching the video also made me want to kick myself for the whole stupid idea because it made Bailey so uncomfortable. I won’t make that mistake again.
Parker sighs, a happy little exhale, heart-eye emojis practically hovering around her in a pink cloud.
I shake my head. “The problem,” I say, “is that I like her. I like Bailey. Like, reallylikeher like her.”
“That’s too manylikesin one sentence, Hop.” Parker tilts her head. “And I fail to see the problem.”
I rap my knuckles on her desk. “I’m notsupposedto like her. The plan was to get married and then …” I trail off because I have no idea how to finish this sentence. I shrug instead, feeling helpless.
“So, you have feelings for the woman you just proposed to—and this is a problem because?”
“It’s a problem because feelings weren’t involved when we agreed to do this. Now they are. And we’re getting married. It’s like …” I fumble for an explanation, an analogy to straighten out my tangled thoughts. “It’s like a Trojan horse. Bailey let me in the city because I said it was about me getting a visa and her getting money. But inside the horse?—”
“But inside the horse you’ve got a whole feelings army you’re about to let loose,” Parker finishes.
“Um, yes?”
Parker taps a pen on her desk, which is covered in an array of multi-colored sticky notes. The tiniest of smiles lifts one corner of her mouth. I bet she’s probably already thinking about whether or not she could trademarkfeelings army.
