Chapter 14
RANSOM
I smile as she nears me, and I couldn’t stop the grin if I tried. She’s gorgeous, but there’s so much more to her than looks. I’m keenly aware of the fact that I want to spend the night with her again, but I’m just as eager to spend the next several hours together.
I want Teagan by my side as our friends get married. I want to talk to her, dance with her, toast with her.
“Hey, North,” she says when she reaches me.
“Hey, King,” I say, as I survey the beauty in front of me, in her green summery dress that shows off the skin of her shoulders—shoulders I want to kiss.
That reveals legs I want to run my hands down.
And that clings to the body I want beside me.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg.
There’s a helluva lot more to this woman I have a date with in a few days, and I’m going to need to figure out what to do with this growing storm of emotions in my chest. It’s not simply desire any longer.
There’s more at play. The more that drove me to pick up the phone and talk to her the other night. The more that had me asking her to spend some time with me today.
That’s why I say, “You look good, Teagan.”
Teagan.
Not King.
Time to dispense with the bro-dude talk. Enough of the last names. That’s for the guys. I don’t want to be one of the guys with her.
“So do you. . . Ransom,” she says, meeting me on this new terrain, saying my name with a little sweetness, a little suggestiveness.
I step closer and drop a kiss onto her cheek, brushing my lips across her skin.
A gust of breath escapes her lips, then a soft, lingering ohhh.
“Hey,” I say when I step back, woozy from the strawberry scent of her. “It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise.” She sounds the slightest bit shy, then she shucks that off as she says, “I was looking forward to this all day.”
“To the wedding?” Because she can’t mean anything else. Can she?
“Yes, to the wedding. I love weddings. But also,” she says, taking a beat, her eyes flashing with a hint of nerves that she blinks away, “to seeing you.”
My heart hammers at words I didn’t let myself hope for. My skin warms at her admission.
This woman makes me feel so damn good—in my body and right in my heart.
Those words she said should scare me.
They ought to terrify me.
But when I’m with Teagan, I’m everything Logan said I was, everything I haven’t truly been since Edie—I’m happy.
I drag a hand through my hair. It’s decision time.
Do I still want to toe all my lines?
Heed all my mantras?
Or will I kick them to the side?
I swallow past the roughness in my throat and take a step closer to what I want. “Want to go on a date with me? To see our guys get hitched?”
Her smile lights the sky. “You bet I do,” she says, and we walk the rest of the way together.
I return to what she said a few seconds ago as we stroll past a tree with white blossoms. “Tell me why you love weddings.”
Her response is breezy. “Why does anyone love weddings?”
I shoot her a give me more look. “I don’t know why anyone else loves them. But I want to know why you do,” I say, and I’m driven by the need to know her more, to understand her. “That’s why I asked.”
I expect her to say the dress, or the vows, or the way they make her feel.
She turns her face to me, taking a beat, the cogs in her brain whirring, I can tell. “I love rituals. I kind of can’t get enough of them.”
“Why is that?” I’m intrigued by her answer. Once upon a time, she was simply a funny girl, and I liked that about her. She was free and easy, a hoot to play games with. In this last week, she’s peeled back new layers, shown me other sides, and those sides draw me in just as much as her humor does.
“I think we need them desperately as a society. The before, the after, the way rituals mark a new phase in our lives. Weddings, of course, do that. They’re not only a declaration in words but in deeds too.
You’re leaving one stage behind and stepping into a new future.
I think celebrations to mark those changes are so necessary for our hearts”—she slides a hand briefly over her chest then taps her temple—“and our heads.”
I noodle on that as we near the other guests, letting her observations sink in. “I expected you to say something else. But that makes beautiful sense. I get it. I get it completely.”
She meets my gaze, her blue eyes etched with intensity. “Right? I think we need the acknowledgment to see us through both good times and bad.”
“To guide us through the insanity around us.” I wave toward the city behind me to indicate the topsy-turvy madness of the world today.
“Yes. Life is only uncertain. Life is only unpredictable.”
Hell, she’s the expert. She knows this better than any of us, losing her family the way she did.
She goes on as we reach the friends and relatives here for Fitz and Dean. “Birthdays, celebrations, weddings, graduations, funerals. All of it helps us to process the unpredictable unknowns around us.”
Unknowns.
That’s exactly what Logan was getting at earlier. I think about my own fears—the great, big unknown that is everything that might happen if I step over the line with Teagan.
What it would do to our friendship.
What it would do to our friends.
What it would do to me.
I don’t have those answers. No one does—until they invent time travel, I suppose. But maybe I’m ready to face that uncertainty because the woman I want to spend the next several hours with—and a whole lot longer—is so damn brave.
Braver than I am.
Knowing that, feeling that, makes my heart beat a little faster for her.
This is the moment. I take a step closer, reach for her hand, and hold it as the grooms walk to the justice of the peace.
She squeezes my fingers back, and like that, we watch our friends get married.
As they say their vows, I understand why Teagan loves rituals. There’s something intensely powerful about witnessing this moment.
Plus, it’s pretty fucking cool to see one of the toughest defensemen in the NHL, a guy who has my back on the ice in every damn game, pledging to be with one person for the rest of his life.
It’s a before and an after.
And most of all, it’s a choice.
When they say I do, a kernel of something bitter that had staked a claim inside me since Edie left cracks further, halves down the middle, and maybe, finally, it crumbles to nothing.
Or perhaps it’s that I’ve finally decided it’s time to let go of that line I was holding.
To say goodbye to the past and not look back.
Maybe that’s my private ritual. One I didn’t even know I needed until I watched this public one.
This vibrant and powerful celebration of love.