Chapter 16
Vanessa
sixteen
. . .
On the flight home, there’s no question: I sit beside Sven.
Immediately after I join row 13, he has his arm around me, pulling me into his side. He presses a light kiss to my temple and I melt into him.
Everyone knows. We don’t have to hide.
Although…
We weren’t exactly hiding. We were?—
I turn my face to his. He’s smiling fondly down at me, his expression clear and open.
Leaning up, I press my lips to his, tasting his smile.
The guys around us hoot and holler, and even though my cheeks flame, when Sven holds me close, I can’t care about them anymore.
Curling into him, I set my hand on his leg, and I can feel his entire body go tense.
Does he not want me to touch him?
Sven cups my face with his palm, keeping me close. He kisses me softly, sweetly. When he pulls away, he doesn’t go far, dropping a soft kiss on my forehead.
He breathes me in, and I take a moment to do the same, memorizing the scent of his soap and his skin.
“Ugh, you guys are so sweet,” Jenkins says.
Pope, sitting across the aisle from him, gags. “I might be sick.”
Robby, directly behind him, rolls his eyes. “Go be sick somewhere else.”
I have to sit in my own seat for takeoff. Sven doesn’t go far, though—he holds my hand, running his thumb over the back of my knuckles, and the simple intimacy of it makes my heart sing.
We need to have a conversation.
When we land, I let go of Sven’s hand and pull out my phone. It’s late, already after midnight, and I’m definitely not taking the T back to my apartment with my luggage.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I tilt my screen so he can see the rideshare app.
“You’re not taking a rideshare at this time of night,” Sven says firmly. “I’ll drive you.”
“But—”
He glares at me.
“Listen to your boyfriend, Van,” MacGregor teases. He’s sitting behind us, and I glare at him over my shoulder. He smirks as he tucks his phone into his pocket.
It’s late, and there’s surcharge pricing on the app. With a sigh, I roll my eyes and nod. “Fine. If you insist.”
“I do.” Sven’s quiet determination rings through.
“Nah, man,” Robby says. “It’s too early to be saying that shit.”
Turning to glare at him, he grins and winks at me.
“It’s not, though,” Sven murmurs, so quiet only I can hear it.
Whipping to face him, his eyes are serious.
“It’s not too early.”
Laughing nervously, I grab for my purse. We definitely need to have a conversation.
His car is a big black SUV with creamy leather seats. He opens the door for me and then stows both his bags and mine in the trunk before rounding to his side.
There’s a lemon air freshener on the dash and a Chapstick in the cupholder. When he turns on the ignition, the radio connects to his phone, continuing the audiobook he listened to on the flight. He flicks off the radio.
“Do you want to come to my place?” he asks guilelessly.
“I should go home. It’s late.”
Sven accepts this at face value, and I punch my address into the car’s GPS, even though he dropped me off after our impromptu sleepover.
For a minute there, I was thinking about going home with him. For a minute, I was thinking about more with him.
And those four words? “It’s not too early.” They ring in my head like a bell: ding ding ding, pay attention.
So I am.
What are we?
Is this real, or are we still faking it?
His kisses felt real. The display before the game—that felt real, too. And in the locker room?
The lines are too blurry.
As he pulls up in front of my apartment, Sven cuts the engine.
“We need to talk,” I tell him, turning to face him.
He nods. “I scared you.”
“Yes.” How can I think about forever when I don’t even know where we stand?
“I apologize for making you uncomfortable,” he says quietly. “I know there’s nothing with you and Whitney, you’ve never made me doubt your integrity. When I saw him with you, I saw red.”
In the middle of a nod, I pause. “Wait, what?”
He raises his eyebrows. “When he kissed you?”
I blink a few times. “You think that scared me?”
He nods.
“No, Sven, it didn’t scare me,” I tell him slowly.
“Then what did?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the part when you started talking about ‘I do’?”
He swallows. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a breath. “How much of this is real, how much is still a lie?”
“I’ve never lied to you.” His voice is quiet, strong. “The one thing I’ve never done is lie to you.”
“But—”
His hand covers mine on the center console. “I agreed to this because I had feelings for you, feelings I would never act on while you worked for the team. I’m not going to deny them.”
“Why?”
“You don’t date hockey players,” he says simply. “That’s your boundary. It would hardly be appropriate for me to try to change your mind.”
I stare at him.
“I want you to like me for who I am, not what I can do for you,” Sven continues.
“I do. I mean, I do like you,” I say awkwardly. “I just…”
He waits patiently.
“Marriage? That’s, like…” I laugh nervously.
His dark green eyes meet mine. “I’m following your lead.”
It’s my turn to swallow. “Wow. So you?—”
Squeezing my hand, he shrugs. “It’s never been like it was with you with anyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the one I compared everyone else to,” he says simply.
I freeze.
“After all, I rather had to. That was my first experience.”
I gape at him. “What?”
Sven blinks, cocking his head. “Is this too much?”
“What do you mean, it was your first experience?”
“At Jackson’s wedding. The night we were together,” he says.
“Yeah. I remember it. We hooked up.”
His face tints pink. “You were the first person I ever slept with.”
“How?”
“What do you mean, how? You were there. We?—”
“I was already twenty, so you would have been nineteen or close to it,” I barrel on. “And you were already in the league.”
He rolls his eyes. “So?”
“So? I’m sure there were women throwing themselves at you. Hell, I threw myself at you.”
“I waited until I was ready,” he says simply. “I was a neurodivergent, hockey-obsessed weirdo who had been thrust into the spotlight and barely knew how to talk to my teammates, much less talk to pretty women. I didn’t want to get it over with. I wanted to be comfortable with the decision.”
“But—if I’d known, I would have…”
He squeezes my hand again. “I didn’t want that.”
“It should have been… I don’t know, special, or memorable, or?—”
“It was,” he says firmly. “Do you really think I would let myself forget?”
I look away. “I mean, it was just sex.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he says slowly. “We had a connection that night. We still do.”
I think back to that night… It's been a long time, but I can’t deny it hasn’t been on my mind on and off over the years. Especially once I joined the team. But…
“Tell me I’m not alone in this. Tell me I’m not the only one to feel this way,” he implores.
“I… I…”
Sven inhales sharply. “I see.”
“This is just… a lot,” I say lamely. “It’s late. A lot has happened today. I just—I need to sleep on this.”
“Okay,” he says quietly. He opens his door and rounds the SUV to pop the trunk, extracting my suitcase and work bag. I open the car door before he can, reaching for my bags.
“Thanks for the ride home,” I tell him.
“Anytime.”
He ducks down to kiss me.
I can’t.
At the last moment, I turn my face, so he gets my cheek.
“Goodnight, Vanessa,” he says quietly.
My eyes well with tears. He sounds so sad. I want to turn around, tell him that I want this, want him, that I?—
But I don’t.
I can’t.
Not while I’m still unsure. He deserves more than my hasty non-confrontational non-truths.
It isn’t until I’m in my apartment, changed into my pajamas and climbing into my bed, that the heavy weight of the evening crashes into me.
He likes me.
More than that, he compares other women to me.
Because I was his first.
He’s ready to say I do.
He wants this. He wants me.
He—
Curling into a ball, I bury my face in my pillow.
I don’t think I can do this.