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9:41 tonight. Don’t forget.

I set my alarm. Not that I needed it anymore. My body knew when 9:41 was coming the way it knew when to drop into the butterfly position.

Except this felt better than any save I’d ever made.

I looked at the sticky note one more time before tucking it carefully into my equipment bag, next to the instruction sheets. Evidence that I meant more than the weapon in the net.

Evidence that I was learning to see myself that way too.

Practice started in twenty minutes. I should get inside, change, and start warming up. Do all the things I’d done a thousand times before.

Instead, I sat in my truck, staring at my lock screen, and let myself feel the fear that I’d almost lost this. The relief that she’d stayed. And the hope that maybe I could be someone worth keeping.

My hands were still shaking when I grabbed my gear. That was fine. They shook before big games too. This just felt bigger than hockey ever had. For the first time in my life, I had something to lose that mattered more than my save percentage.

The instruction sheets crinkled in my bag when I lifted it. I’d keep them even after I didn’t need them anymore, when my hip was fully healed, and I could do every stretch without thinking.

Because they weren’t really about the stretches. They were about the woman who’d written in the margins. Who’d seen something in me worth fixing that had nothing to do with hockey.

I still didn’t know if I believed it. But I wanted to.

I was still broken, but broken wasn’t the same as worthless. And I’d bet anything Ellie would give me the time I needed to figure this out.

Tonight at 9:41, I’d text her.

And every night after that too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EPILOGUE: ELLIE

SIX MONTHS LATER

Marzipan’s weight on my chest pulled me out of sleep early in the morning.

I cracked one eye open. She stared down at me with her yellow eyes, unblinking, her tail flicking.

“I fed you last night,” I mumbled.

Her expression said she didn’t care about last night. This was now.

Brashe’s side of the bed was empty, the sheets still warm. Water ran in the bathroom.

My phone sat on the nightstand with a purple sticky note stuck to the screen.

Good morning, Dr. Lundrig. Your coffee is in the kitchen. Your fiancé is in the shower. Join me?—B

Heat swirled through my belly and shot lower.

Marzipan meowed, louder this time, reminding me she existed and was a kitty-girl with needs.

I grabbed a sticky note from the pad we kept on the nightstand. They were everywhere. On the kitchen counter. The bathroom sink. His truck dashboard. My office desk. A paper trail of our relationship, stuck to every flat surface in the condo.

Tempting. But I have patients at 8. Rain check?

I stuck it to the bathroom door on my way to the kitchen, Marzipan weaving between my feet. If she kept it up, she was going to trip me.

“Patience is a virtue,” I told her.