Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots #3)

Chapter Five

Two months later

Sig sat in the front row of the concert hall, thanking God it was dark.

Because he was pretty sure his jaw was in the vicinity of his knees.

Tonight was Chloe’s first student showcase with Berklee. It wasn’t the first time Sig had put on a tuxedo, but the only other times he’d worn a penguin suit, he’d been at the ESPY Awards, surrounded by other athletes roughly his size. Not tonight. He was by far and away the biggest motherfucker in attendance—and sitting in the first row with a bouquet of roses crushed in his lap, he was probably blocking everyone’s view of Chloe playing the harp onstage. There was no greater crime, because she was...

Eyes closed, she tilted her face and her cheek caught the light, her fingers moving fluidly over the strings, lips moving with the notes, verbalizing sound in a way no one else could interpret, playing what had to be the entrance music to heaven. This wasn’t normal. She was better than everyone else, right? Didn’t the audience realize that?

Oh Jesus .

His heart was going to rip a hole in his chest.

How had he managed to stop himself from touching her since that day in the laundry room? It was a daily struggle, due to the sheer amount of time they spent together, but Harvey’s voice always echoed back to him before his hunger could take over. Her mother would disown her before she weathered a scandal like that. Is that what you want?

No. God, no. Because Sig couldn’t match the life Sofia could provide for Chloe.

Not yet. Maybe not ever. With the contract deadline approaching in the next few months and rumblings of a change in ownership going around the locker room, he had no idea what the future held for his career.

No player ever really had a guarantee of a holy grail contract, right? He was no different.

None of this stopped him from falling for her. Deeper and deeper. Did it?

Every day—every single day—he swore he’d reached the pinnacle of his feelings for this woman and then he was proven wrong. Even last week when she had her period and answered the door sobbing in sweatpants and cradling a mug of soup, he’d been fucking mesmerized.

“ Do you know that when birds fly into closed windows, they’re usually attacking their own reflection? It’s all just a big mistake and sometimes they die for it.”

He cataloged the situation the way he registered the positions of each defender on his way down the ice. “Did a bird fly into your window?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to go check if it’s okay?”

“Yes. I’m scared to do it myself.” She sighed down at her soup, stirred it, and seemed frustrated by the fact that it was soup in the first place. “I have my period.”

“Oh. Maybe you should go lie down.”

“I tried that,” she groaned, head falling back on her shoulders. “Still cursed.”

Sig was not adequately trained for this. He was a fixer. Hockey was nothing but a series of problems that needed to be solved—fast—but he couldn’t just get rid of this problem or fight his way out of it. That sucked. “I’m going to go downstairs and make sure the bird flew off, happy and alive, and then I’ll be back with a solution.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Go try lying down again.”

“Okay.”

She cried her way to the couch, set down the soup, and fell face forward onto the cushions. Sig felt helpless on his way back down the stairs and out of the building, where he stopped short, raking a hand through his hair.

Bad news: the fucking bird was dead.

“Jesus Christ.” He paced a little, ignoring the passersby that snapped pictures of him with their phones. As soon as the coast was clear, he hunkered down and used a tree branch to dig a bird grave, lowering tweetie into it with a few muttered words of remembrance. Swiping dirt off the knees of his jeans, he made his way back up to the apartment, letting himself in. “Good news, I didn’t see the bird anywhere. It must have flown off.”

Chloe sat up, looking hopeful. “Really? Because you were gone a long time.”

“Yeah, well. I was doing a really thorough search.”

“Oh.” She pressed a hand to her chest, tension ebbing. “Thank goodness.”

“Yup.”

“Do you want to watch a movie with me?” She picked up the remote. “I was thinking of putting on A Star Is Born .”

A tearjerker. In her state? Terrible plan. “How about a comedy?”

Her eyes turned glassy. “Maybe that’s a better idea.”

Sig went over and sat beside Chloe on the couch, smiling when she situated the blanket so he could have half. For the first forty-odd minutes of the movie, he bit the inside of his cheek while she struggled to find a comfortable position. And then he threw out every last ounce of his common sense and dragged her sideways into his lap, tucking her head beneath his chin and slowly, hesitantly, rubbing her belly with his knuckles.

She sighed happily and didn’t move for the next hour, except to laugh.

And it was the happiest and most capable he’d ever felt... ever.

Now, as she played the last note of her song, concluding the concert, he stood up and almost decimated the bouquet of roses, trying to clap while they were still in his hands. When Chloe appeared to be searching for someone in the crowd, he almost shouted, Who are you looking for? That way, he could track that person down and take them to her.

Turned out, it was him, though.

Him.

As soon as she spotted Sig, she sucked in a breath and waved, before finally exiting the stage, leaving him standing there with a knot in his throat, as the applause died down. His row had almost cleared completely by the time he remembered Chloe had gotten him permission to go backstage after the show—and he went there now, wanting to see her, of course, but also wanting to get the fucking roses out of his hands before they were as lifeless as tweetie.

Sig made his way to the stage door and gave his name to a security guard, waded through a sea of well-heeled people accustomed to classical music and Thursday night concertos—and he finally caught sight of Chloe.

Surrounded by dudes.

Musicians.

Vaguely, he recognized a lot of them from the show. Violinists, pianists, and whatnot.

One sweep of their rapturous expressions told Sig all he needed to know. They were down bad. Every one of them. She dazzled them effortlessly with her constant motion and animated hand gestures and those gorgeous, expressive eyes. And they were all sorely out of luck. Because no one got close to Chloe. No one but him.

A gut instinct as destructive as it sounded.

Sig cleared his throat as he got closer to Chloe and her group of admirers. He watched her stop midsentence, turn and launch straight into him, wrapping both her arms around his neck, the front of her body molding to his muscle. Making eye contact with every single member of her fan club, he lifted her off the ground and kissed her temple.

“Hey, dream girl.” He squeezed her closer. “You were incredible.”

Don’t even think about it , he mouthed at the quartet of guys. I’m as mean as I look.

They paled, before all moving in opposite directions at once.

Chloe didn’t notice because her arms were still slung snugly around his neck, the side of her cheek pressed to his shoulder. “Did you bring me flowers?”

Sig hummed. “There should be at least one or two left intact.”

“Big hockey hands. Fragile flowers,” she murmured, smiling. “Not a match.”

He tightened his hold that final degree, making her gasp in his ear—and he went too far. One of many times he would go too far with Chloe. God help them both. “These hands can handle fragile things just fine when necessary, Chlo.”

Over the top of her head, Sig could see people were beginning to take note of their too-long embrace and he reluctantly set her down. She stared at him for several seconds, probably replaying his comment and wondering if he’d meant it like it sounded. Eventually, however, she visibly shook herself and looked around. “Oh.” She reared back. “Where did everyone go?”

“I don’t know.” Sig shrugged. “Weird.”

Four Months Later

Chloe sat in the stands of Boston Garden listening to the sounds of the Bearcats wrapping up practice. She’d become a regular at games, but not so much training. Today was a special occasion because Sig was going to give her a driving lesson afterward. She wasn’t the only person spectating practice—several reporters were there, as well as a group of people taking a tour of the arena. Dozens of team administrators and coaches stood in groups on the outskirts of the ice, gesturing to the players, conferring.

She’d brought a book to read, but it sat in her lap unopened, her hands cemented around the spine, squeezing. Her heart knocked in her rib cage. Sig was so incredible out there, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off him long enough to find her page. His behavior during practice differed from games. For instance, he was smiling a lot more today. Talking shit , as he called it, to his teammates. And yet he still stopped on a dime, spraying ice in a chilly plume. Still moved like a magician. Just switching back and forth from amused and jocular to devilishly fast and capable within seconds.

Flashbacks from the last four months came to her in snippets. Sig sitting in the front row of her performance holding roses. Sig passed out on her coach, exhausted after a game, covered by a fleece Barbie blanket. Sig showing up at a nightclub and dragging her out onto the sidewalk, claiming he wanted to see her home safely, when they both knew he didn’t want her talking to other men. And so it went, this man being a massive fixture in her life.

Daily joy and daily... discomfort.

Like right now, she was so slick between her thighs, her vagina could pass for a miniature waterslide. There’d been a near incident yesterday when she’d overslept and woken up to Sig standing above her bed, looking worried, holding paper cups of coffee.

Assuming she’d been dreaming—because, honestly, she couldn’t remember a night where Sig didn’t star in her dreams, anymore—she’d arched her back and purred for him to get into bed and wake her up properly.

He’d almost complied.

Almost.

His muscles had stiffened, his pupils expanding, and he’d set her coffee down. She’d watched him thicken in the front of his jeans and reached for the growing ridge, but he’d strode out of the room before her fingertips could make contact. The slam of the front door alerted her to the fact that she was, indeed, very much awake. Not dreaming.

She already knew they were going to pretend it never happened.

And she hated that.

They talked about everything, but they avoided the topic of their attraction to each other like the plague.

A loud slam shot Chloe’s heart up into her mouth.

Sig was vying for the puck with one of his teammates—Corrigan, she saw.

A whistle blew somewhere, ending the play, and both men looked up at Chloe. Corrigan grinned around his mouthpiece, using the end of his stick to salute Chloe, while Sig glared at him from two feet away. She saluted back, regardless.

Then Corrigan rapped his glove against the glass. “Let me get your number, though.”

Sig took out his legs with a hard sweep of his stick, leaving Corrigan flat on his back. She couldn’t make out the words her future stepbrother said while bending forward over his prone teammate, but a lot of them seemed to begin with “F.” None of this surprised her, and it probably should.

No, it definitely should.

The coach brought the Bearcats together at the bench for some feedback from several members of the staff, after which they exited the ice through the tunnel.

“Ms. Clifford, you can follow me,” said a security guard in a blue windbreaker to her left, smiling at her from the concrete steps. “You can wait for Mr. Gauthier by the team exit.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Ten minutes later, Chloe stood at the end of a long, brightly lit tunnel by a set of double doors, not far from the locker room. She could hear metal doors slamming, yelling, laughter, running showers—and just as she finally opened her book to read a few pages, Sig emerged from the chaos, hair wet, still in the process of pulling on his T-shirt. As in, no shirt yet.

Nothing to cover his smooth slabs of muscle. Or the tattoos she’d never seen.

Or that black trail of hair under his navel.

One of the shirtsleeves got caught and he cursed, twisting the fabric to correct the angle, and everything flexed at once, including his eight-pack... and she dropped her book. Probably went through puberty a second time, too. Adult puberty. Oh no. No. This accidental flashing was taking place way too soon following the wake-me-up-properly incident. Her hormones were multiplying like rabbits. How was she supposed to learn how to operate a motor vehicle in this state? How was she supposed to breathe ?

Finally, he got his shirt down and continued his long-legged stride in her direction. “Hey, Chlo.” He hesitated in front of her, but after a brief check of the empty hallway, ultimately leaned down to kiss her cheek. Once. Twice. “Sorry, I tried not to keep you waiting too long.”

“It’s fine,” she said in a rush, goose bumps shivering down her back. “I’m reading.”

He looked down at her dropped book and raised an eyebrow.

“I got to a scary part,” she explained. “A jump scare. It flew right out of my hands.”

“I see.” He swiped a hand through his wet hair. “You ready for your driving lesson? We’re going to use the underground parking garage.”

“The one beneath the arena?”

“Yeah. It’s empty.” He ran a knuckle down her cheek. “No one for you to crash into.”

“Oh, really?” she deadpanned. “What about the walls?”

“They can rebuild those.”

Chloe broke into a laugh.

Sig’s gaze traveled from her mouth to her eyes. Back down. “Listen, about yesterday—”

“There she is,” said a voice behind Sig—one that caused him to roll his eyes. Corrigan.

And a second voice. “Stop trying to sneak her out of here before I get a chance to say hello.” Mailer.

Collectively known as the Rookies. Or the ORGASM DONORS , according to the matching sweatshirts they often wore.

“Hey, Chloe,” Mailer said, drawing even with her and Sig, shoulder to shoulder with Corrigan. Both of them were... hot, frankly. Tall and stacked. Corrigan with his wild reddish-brown hair and beard, Mailer with his ice-blue eyes and shaved head. To put it simply, however, they paled in comparison to Sig. From her point of view, anyway. Someone else might disagree.

That someone would be wrong, but they were entitled to their opinion.

Chloe smiled. “Hey, guys.”

“Don’t encourage them,” Sig muttered.

“We don’t need encouragement,” Corrigan said, trying to slide in between her and Sig and getting an elbow to the chest for his effort. “Ow.”

“What brings you to practice, Chloe?” Mailer asked, watching Sig’s elbow out of the corner of his eyes, poised to block it. “Stop hiding your true feelings. You can tell them you came to watch me.”

“Actually, Sig is going to teach me how to drive.”

Corrigan did a double take. “You don’t know how to drive ?”

“Do you like your nose where it is?” Sig snapped. “Because I’d be happy to relocate it for you.” He gave Chloe a reassuring look. “Plenty of people in Boston never learn how to drive. That’s what the trains and buses are for.”

“You’re not going to teach her in that old truck, though, right?” Corrigan asked, obviously placing very little value on his life.

That moment marked one of the two times she’d seen Sig look less than 100 percent confident and in charge of his surroundings. The other time had been at the country club. When they’d walked into the lounge together to charge his phone and he’d seen the luxury she took for granted.

“I love his truck,” Chloe blurted. “I never would have met Sig if it wasn’t for that truck.”

The Rookies exchanged a confused glance.

“But... really? I thought your parents were getting married. Isn’t that how you met?”

“Yes,” Sig said, emphatically. “It is.”

Mailer looked like he was doing math. “So...”

“I’m confused,” Corrigan added.

“Confused is your default,” Sig shot back, steering Chloe out of the tunnel and into the parking lot. “Let’s go.”

“I love your truck,” she whispered up at his set chin.

“Nah, they are right about this one thing. It’s time for a new one.”

“No.” She dug in her heels, literally, but he merely picked her up and kept walking. “If you try and get rid of that truck, I’m going to handcuff myself to the wheel.”

Humor was slowly drifting back into his expression. “I’d get a much higher price if you were included in the deal, dream girl. In the billions, at least...” He looked over his shoulder, presumably to make sure they weren’t being followed. Then he hefted Chloe up so the fronts of their bodies were pressed together, her toes dangling in the vicinity of his shins. “Never mind, you’re priceless,” he grumbled, rubbing their noses together. “A high enough number doesn’t exist.”

Then he set her down, grabbed her hand, and kept walking.

Chloe floated on a breeze behind him, her body twisting in the air like a windsock.

“Don’t get rid of the truck, Sig.” She tugged on his hand, giving him her most pleading look when he turned around. “You love it. You told me it made you feel free. When your mom was working late and your house felt quiet, you’d go drive around and listen to sports radio in your truck and feel less lonely. Remember? It’s part of you. It’s... freedom, you know? For you and me. Please don’t listen to those guys.”

“I want to give you nicer things, Chloe. What you’re used to.”

Neither one of them addressed the fact that giving her nice things wasn’t the traditional role of a stepsibling. Or that it was something a spouse might say. The irony went unnoticed. Or ignored, rather. “Out of everything I’ve ever had, you are the nicest.” She let those words fly right out of her, unchecked. “And the truck is part of you. Keep it.”

They were standing at the passenger-side door of said truck now, toe-to-toe.

There was something about the way Sig looked at her that said he was replaying her statement in his head on repeat. Good. Good, she was desperate and sexually frustrated today—maybe that made her too honest. And maybe it rubbed off on Sig.

Briefly, he looked back over his shoulder at the arena, turning back to face her with a locked jaw, leaning down to speak against her temple. “I’ll keep the truck as long as you never give another man your phone number. How does that sound?”

Heat slithered up her thighs. “Sig...”

“Just make the promise. Don’t think about why you shouldn’t.”

“I promise.”

His mouth dipped to her neck, exhaling against her rioting pulse. “That’s a good girl.”

Her sex flexed so dramatically; she choked on a moan.

Seconds ticked by while she reeled, and Sig visibly struggled to get himself under control.

Finally, he opened the passenger door and boosted her inside, giving her a long, starved look while he engaged her belt buckle. “Maybe we should put off the driving lesson for another day.”

Chloe closed her eyes and nodded. “Good idea.”

S IG ACCEPTED A slap on the back from Burgess while sitting in the last row of lockers. He was taking his time getting dressed after practice, because he had an uncomfortable phone call to make and he didn’t want to put it off any longer. And call him crazy, but there was something about the stench of freshly used hockey equipment that he found comforting.

When Sig heard the final locker slam, he rooted through his duffel bag and took out his phone, smacking it against his palm a couple of times, before hitting the third speed dial on his list, just below Chloe and Burgess.

Rosie. His mother.

It rang three times before she answered. “Hi, Sig.”

“Rosie. Hi.”

Sig couldn’t remember the last time he’d called his mother by anything besides her first name. That formality had a lot to do with the way he’d been raised. Act like an adult. Tough it out. Suck it up. That had been the rhetoric at home and on the ice. At home, those lessons had been out of necessity. Mom wasn’t home to make school lunch or drive him to practice, so he’d figured it out himself. Sig didn’t hold a single ounce of resentment over being treated like an adult so young. Nah, he was stronger and more capable, thanks to that. Upon reaching college, he’d excelled while everyone else learned to take care of themselves for the first time. He had Rosie to thank for that, along with working herself to the bone to pay for hockey, food, shelter.

Unfortunately, the formal relationship with his mother also meant they didn’t have a lot of heart-to-hearts, back then or now. He had more meaningful conversations with Chloe in the first week of their acquaintance than he’d ever had with Rosie. Hell, anyone.

That’s what was going to make fishing for information about his father so difficult. But he’d been waiting for months to get a call from Sofia or Harvey saying they’d called off the wedding. That Sofia’s high-priced lawyers had turned up something questionable from Harvey’s past and advised her against the marriage. That they’d decided to be friends, instead. He’d lived for that phone call, so certain that it would arrive.

But it hadn’t.

And Sig couldn’t continue to leave his future with Chloe in someone else’s hands.

If he’d given her that driving lesson last night, she’d have ended up on the rear gate of his truck with her legs spread. Every time he left her for the night, it got a little harder, verging on impossible. They gravitated toward each other like magnets. He missed her voice when he wasn’t hearing it. She made every single day better just by being alive. Being his best friend, as well as his...

Fuck. There had to be a solution here.

“How is the weather in Boston?” Rosie asked.

Sig shook his head to clear it of visions of his hands tugging Chloe’s panties down to her ankles, her knees opening to let him see it all. “Right now, it’s raining,” he said thickly, clearing his throat hard. “But it’s not too cold for January.”

“Ah. Good. I’ll have to get out east soon for my annual trip to watch you play.”

“Just let me know the game you want to see and I’ll handle the rest,” he said, automatically, knowing she’d probably wait until closer to the end of the season, as usual. She’d once explained she wasn’t one for crowds or public events and needed time to psych herself up for the spectacle. “Is everything good with the house?”

“Better than good. Great. You know how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me, Sig. I don’t say it nearly often enough.”

He was already shaking his head, wishing he hadn’t asked about the house. It almost sounded like he’d called for a pat on the back. “It’s no problem. But listen, I called for another reason.” He rubbed the back of his neck hard. “There’s something I was hoping to ask you about.”

The slightest hesitation ensued. “Oh?”

She already knew. He’d asked so many times before and been stonewalled.

“Yeah.” He took a centering breath, stood, and slowly walked a path in front of the bench. “I know you don’t like to talk much about Harvey. Or that whole mess back in the day. But, uh... I’m still curious about what went down. I always will be, you know? I can’t help it, and now...”

Rosie’s sigh emerged a little shaky. “Sig, I would really like to leave the past in the past.”

“I realize that. I do. Could you just answer a few questions?”

“I’ll try.”

Sig glanced at the ceiling in relief, quickly decided which questions to prioritize. Maybe it was best if he started easy. “How long were you and Harvey in a relationship before you got pregnant with me?”

“Oh... about a year, I would say. Off and on. It was rocky at the best of times. But so was every other relationship among my friends.” She laughed lightly, as if reminiscing, but her humor faded quickly. “Back when I still lived with my parents and life was simple—but only as long as I dated the men they approved of.”

“And they didn’t approve of Harvey.”

“No. They’d already picked someone else out for me. Bobby Prince. And I tried to make that work, but Harvey always wormed his way back in. That’s his way. He’s a love bomber. You’re so dazzled by his attention, you don’t realize he’s only seeing dollar signs.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about.” He paused, trying to organize his thoughts. “At that point, your money was coming from your parents. How did he get access to it?”

“Sig, I would really like to move on from this for good, you know?”

Why was this always the point where she balked? The details of how Harvey allegedly took Rosie’s money and hightailed it, leaving her alone and pregnant, seemed destined to remain muddy and indecipherable.

It was on the tip of Sig’s tongue to explain to Rosie why he needed this information so badly. To tell her about Chloe for the first time ever. But he didn’t. He wanted to know they could be permanent first. Talking about his girl out loud to his mother? He needed more freedom to do that. He needed forever to be in the bag, otherwise sharing her felt premature. Or like he was jinxing his chances of making them work.

Sig cleared his throat. “Did your parents offer to support you—us—after Harvey left?”

“With strings attached. There were always strings.” She made an impatient sound. “We did all right on our own, didn’t we, Sig? It wasn’t so bad.”

“No.” He sighed. “No, Rosie. It wasn’t bad at all. I wouldn’t change anything.”

Frustration was biting into his ribs. He’d reached another dead end. That much was obvious. He could push, but he was always hesitant to upset his mother. She was the only family he had and he wanted to remain on good terms. Still, he didn’t want to end this phone call with nothing. He just needed a crumb. Something he could use to look into Harvey’s background himself. Not only to prevent him from rendering Sofia, and thus, Chloe, penniless... but because if he didn’t do everything in his power to stop the wedding, he’d regret it his whole life. “Do you happen to know any of the women Harvey dated after he left Minnetonka?”

This wasn’t a question he’d asked before and it seemed to momentarily throw off his mother. When she recovered, her tone was almost bashful. “Well, I’ll admit to doing some light internet stalking in a moment of weakness. Harvey and I retained one mutual friend—for a while, anyway. I’ve lost touch now. But they did delight in telling me he’d moved on to some beautiful heiress down in South Carolina, just months after he took off.”

Had Harvey conned this heiress, too? “Do you remember her name?”

“I’m embarrassed to say that I do. But... well, he made an impression, I guess. The jealousy must have burned her name into my brain. It’s Ulla Franklin.”

Now it was burned into Sig’s memory, too. “Thanks, Rosie. I’ll let you go now.”

“All right. Thanks for calling.”

“Don’t forget to give me a date to visit.”

“I will, Sig. Bye now.”

“Bye.”

After hanging up, he remained eerily still for a moment, asking himself if he was really prepared to take the next step. One he’d been on the verge of pursuing for a while. It seemed extreme. No, it was. But he’d go to every extreme possible for Chloe. She was worth every effort available to him.

Sig scrolled to an email he’d received from his agent, David, a week prior. A response to a message Sig had sent the man asking if he could recommend a private investigator. Now, he clicked the phone number, which was highlighted in blue, and put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” asked a voice on the other end.

“Hi. Is this Niko?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“My name is Sig Gauthier. You were recommended by my agent, David Malone.”

“Right.” Fingers tapped on a keyboard in the background. “What kind of investigation are you calling about?”

Five months later

Sig let himself into Chloe’s apartment, freezing in place when he saw her standing less than five feet away... holding a cake. Covered with lit candles.

Behind her in the kitchen lay a mess of epic proportions. Pans and batter and filthy utensils on every surface. Hell, Chloe herself looked like she’d been doused in flour.

This couldn’t be what he thought it was.

The very possibility weighed him down with so many emotions, he almost turned and walked out of the apartment. Her smile kept him there.

“What is this?”

“It’s your birthday!”

Suspicion confirmed. She’d made him a birthday cake.

Oh fuck.

He’d been stung by a swarm of wasps in the dead center of his chest. He had tremendous balance, but just then, it was deserting him, so he tried to make it look casual when he closed the door and leaned back against it, using it to stay upright.

“You made that yourself, Chlo?”

Dumb question. He’d seen the kitchen. But words were failing him.

“Yes.” She presented the cake higher, proud, but also worried. He could see that. She was worried he wouldn’t like it? “No one ever talks about how hard it is to crack an egg. And then getting the broken piece out of the bowl? It’s like... ugh. It just doesn’t want to be caught, you know? Just when you think you’ve trapped that sucker, boom, it’s gone.”

Growing up, his mother had done everything she could to make the day special with limited resources and Sig treasured the memories of those slices of Entenmann’s and cups of grape soda. And his mother had called this morning. But it had been... damn. Almost a decade since the last time he’d celebrated his birthday with someone else.

To have it be Chloe?

To have her go to this much trouble?

And yet, he should have expected it from her. Because as much as he tried to do things for Chloe, she supported him, tended to him, in the ways she knew how. Never failing to be at his home games. Sending him audio of her playing the harp after a loss on the road. No words, just song. Just the presence of her—exactly what he needed.

Defending his truck.

Making him ice packs and propping his foot up on her little pillows. Sometimes he didn’t even need ice, he just rubbed a part of his body and winced, hoping she’d fuss over him. He’d never had anyone fuss over him. Chloe did.

I love you. I love you so much. To my dying day.

“It’s the most incredible cake I’ve ever seen in my life, Chloe,” he said, finally finding his voice. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“You should.” She flicked a look at the cake. “Do you really think it’s incredible?”

“Yes.”

She squinted a blue eye. “I definitely didn’t get out all the eggshells.”

“They’ll add texture.”

She laughed, pleasure bringing color to her cheeks. “Blow out the candles. Make a wish.”

Sig leaned down, looking her in the eye while he made the wish. A wish he couldn’t guarantee would ever happen. A wish that seemed to get further out of his reach the more time passed.

I wish for this same exact birthday next year, except you’ll be wearing a wedding ring.

Mine.

Chloe turned on a heel and headed for the kitchen, presumably to cut the cake. “Don’t tell me what it is, or it won’t come true,” she sang over her shoulder.

That’s what I’m afraid of.