Page 156 of Faking Forever With The Hockey Star

For so long, I thought safety meant holding back. Keeping my heart guarded. Keeping Jillie’s life small enough that nothing could break it.

But I was wrong.

Safety is not always a locked door.

Sometimes it’s a hand that’s reaching for yours. A man who stays. A child laughing under spring lights. A town that somehow becomes family.

Colby lowers his forehead to mine. “Happy?”

I look up at him. At the man who walked through snow for us, the man who waited, the man who became home so quietly I almost missed it happening.

“Yes,” I whisper. “More than happy.”

His smile is soft enough to undo me.

And standing there in the middle of Briar Cove with his hand wrapped around mine, I realize the safest thing I have ever done…

is to love him back.

THE END