Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SAbrINA
This is going to be so awkward.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been avoiding Max like the plague. Ignoring his phone calls, reading but not replying to his texts, and certainly not going to his games. But I’ve been watching.
How could I not? Walking away from him that day to think it all through was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I should have communicated that to him. I should have shared what Bruna said to me and all the conflicting and shitty emotions they brought up. Instead, I just made a sorry-ass excuse and left him in his big mansion with part of a film crew.
The worst part about it all is that he doesn’t seem upset by it. Every message he leaves me is a nice one—like I wasn’t a chickenshit who ran. He asks me about my day, tells me about his, and always ends the message with a “see you soon.”
I’m in love with him.
Which is a disaster. Potentially.
“You are being so pathetic,” my sister tells me from across the room. She’s sitting on a kitchen chair, having refused to sit beside my smelly, sad ass. Her words, not mine.
“You know,” I say between piles of popcorn, “for someone who came over to watch the pre-screening of my documentary, you’re awfully judgy. This is my moment in the spotlight.”
“Oh honey,” she mocks. “That’s so sad. This is you in the spotlight? Not a good look. Maybe you need to rethink a few things. Like wardrobe.” She pauses and watches in horror, as popcorn spills out of my mouth and down my sweatshirt. I pick the fallen pieces up and pop them back in my mouth. “And hygiene.”
“Whatever. I’m going through something, okay? You wouldn’t understand.”
“Pa-lease,” she pops out, shaking her head. “As if I haven’t experienced heartbreak before. You think Travis and I just magically got together and everything was just peachy? Baby sis, you are delusional. Every relationship has its own unique ebb and flow. You’ve just hit a rough patch.”
I snort, seriously doubting that this is a rough patch.
“I was basically told that I can either have a career in sports reporting but not a relationship with the man I love or be with the man I love but not be taken seriously ever again as a sports reporter.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“It is what she said!” I cry, popcorn flying everywhere when I fling my hands up. “Bruna Rose is one of the most influential sports reporters of our time. And she’s one of only a handful of women who have made it to prime time and run a broadcasting network. She’s what I have always aspired to be. What I always wanted to be.” My voice is quiet at the end.
“And now? Do you still want that?”
I don’t know how to answer that. The first thing that comes to mind is no.
“From what I know,” Suzanne continues, “and this is only what I’ve read in the tabloids. Bruna Rose is all the things you say she is. She’s successful and powerful. She has a seat at the table that’s mostly dominated by men. Add to that she’s rich and dresses to perfection.” My sister gives a chef’s kiss to the air, and I shake my head at her dramatics. “But I also know she’s never been in a long-term relationship. Never been married or has any extended family. Hell, she’s rich as sin and doesn’t even have a small dog to take around with her everywhere. How insane is that?”
“Pretty insane,” I agree.
“Yet even with all that stuff, do you think she’s happy?”
It’s a fair question but one I can’t answer. It does make me think about what I want my life to look like years from now. I do want to achieve all the things that Bruna has led the way on, but I also want to break barriers on my own too.
The motto of keeping professional and personal lives separate does make sense. But maybe for me, the motto adapts…changes. Max has been a part of both sides of my life for a decade now. Even if we didn’t get together, he’d still be my friend. My best friend.
Maybe there is a possibility of having it all. I’d just have to be brave enough to try. That would be the first barrier I’d break through.
I just need more time to think about what I want to do next.
“Look. The livestream is starting.” I point to my laptop. Suzanne reluctantly comes to sit beside me, wedging a blanket between us.
I throw a handful of popcorn at her, and she shrieks like she’s been shot. The laugh that comes out of me is demonic and so joyful.
“You’re a turd,” she tells me, yanking popcorn out of her hair.
“You’re a turd,” I parrot back to her. Thus begins our elbow-nudging war until loud intro music begins to play. My heart pounds in my chest, nerves making me feel a little sick.
The first time my face pops up onscreen to introduce the docuseries, Suzanne and I squeal. It’s so surreal to see your face on TV. The show has been expertly edited, making all the days we were together and all the get-to-know-you-questions blend in a beautiful flow of engaging information. There are a couple of parts I wasn’t a part of—like his gym routine and practice on the ice—but everything else I smile at hearing again.
Max looks good. So good through the entire documentary. I also didn’t realize, even in the beginning, how often Max was looking at me when I was unaware.
Then we get to a part near the end that has me confused. Max is sitting on the couch, in the same outfit he was in on our last day of filming, but he’s talking to someone else.
“I think by now, fans and viewers are going to know how much I love hockey and some of the reasons why. The sport is in my blood. It’s been my passion and my life’s goal since I was young enough to know you could play hockey for a living. But I think one thing that was missed in the documentary, and it’s my fault for not bringing it up sooner, is that if it weren’t for one very important person in my life, I might have given it up entirely.”
I’m on the edge of the sofa, utterly confused by this line of questioning. What the hell is happening?
“Did you know about this?” Suzanne asks, eyeing me.
“No. I think I was already gone by this point. It’s the last day, but this definitely wasn’t outlined in any of my notes.”
Max starts talking again, and we both go silent.
“Sabrina Sutton was my neighbour and friend growing up. We were two grades apart, but that never stopped us from trying to one-up each other. Even then, she was fierce. And opinionated.” He laughs at the apt description of me. “Still is. But she was also the only person who would tell me the absolute truth.”
“What do you mean by that?” a voice asks, one I don’t recognize.
“I was seventeen and heading to the Junior League. I’d had a good year but was lucky to have made it to the team. Everyone was building me up, telling me I was destined for great things. How this was a sign of the things to come. And fifteen-year-old Sabrina comes marching up to me and tells me I suck. She said, ‘If you think this is as great as you’re gonna get, then you’re never gonna make it. You gotta keep aiming higher. Trying your very best each day.’”
He shrugs, a huge smile spreading across his face at the memory. “And she was right. I’m a better man for having been humbled by her.”
“I can’t believe he remembers that. Do you remember that?” My sister asks, not looking away from the screen.
“I remember calling him an idiot a lot back then, but no, not that.”
“Do you think you and Sabrina are closer now, having done this documentary together?” the unknown interviewer asks.
The look on his face has me clutching my chest. It’s a mischievous smile, a knowing one.
“Don’t you dare,” I say to the screen, praying that he won’t say anything inappropriate.
“Yes. Sharing this experience with her has been amazing. I thought I loved her before this all began, but that feeling was nothing compared to what I feel now. She’ll probably kill me for saying that I love her in this documentary, but there it is. The whole point of this was for people to get to know the man off the ice. It’s only fair they learn about the woman I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Shut the fuck up.” My arms shoot out to my sister, grabbing her with a bruising hold. “Did he just say that? No, he did not just say that.”
“He definitely, a thousand percent just said that. Oh my God. Sabrina!”
Jumping up from the sofa, I begin to pace. My hands get caught in my tangled hair when I try to drag them through. I want to be mad at the public revelation, I really do. How dare he tell the public he loves me before telling me—to my actual face!
But I’m feeling relieved more than anything. He loves me too! He took a chance by admitting it on his documentary, but he’d been brave and took his shot.
Now, it’s time for me to be brave too.
“I gotta go,” I tell my sister as I’m running to the door and grabbing my winter jacket. “Let yourself out. Don’t touch my chocolate pretzels. I’m saving those for— ah !”
I yank open the door and scream. There’s someone at my door, fist held up to knock.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
It’s Max.
“Damn, I thought I timed it right. Are you watching the pre-screening?”
Suzanne comes running from the other side of the apartment, thinking I’m in trouble. When she sees Max, she also screams, but her scream is more excitement than fear.
“Oh my God! He’s here! He’s here, Sabrina!” She grabs my arm so tight I wince, but I never take my eyes off Max. Then, she suddenly stops. “He’s here. So I should go.”
“Yes, you should.”
My attention goes back to Max, and I gaze at him as my sister frantically grabs her things, then runs past us to my building’s elevators. Pulling him into the apartment, I keep my hands twisted in his jacket.
“You’re an idiot,” I tell him, a hint of a smile giving away how I really feel.
“So you did see the pre-screening.”
“I did. You were a little too forward in my opinion.”
“Well, it is my favourite position on the ice. I thought I should give it a try on solid ground.”
“Clever.” I’ll give him that play on words. “You’re lucky I love you back, or you would be a dead man walking.”
His grin grows so big at my words. Sweeping me off my feet, he carries me to the sofa and angles me so that my legs are bracing his.
“You love me?”
“I do. I do love you. And I’m sorry I walked away last week and ghosted you. I got scared and too in my head about something Bruna said.”
“She told me.”
“Wait. Bruna told you what she said to me?”
“Well, not in so many words, but when she saw the final cut—the version you saw tonight—she called me for a little chat. She didn’t apologize outright, but she did allude to the fact that she may have had the wrong idea about what was happening between you and I on set.”
“And she still kept this part of the documentary in?”
“That’s up to you. It can be cut in time for the premiere next week. If you want to keep our relationship a secret for a little longer.”
I don’t need long to think about it.
“No. I don’t want to hide how I feel about you anymore. You’re right. The documentary was about the fans getting to know you on a deeper level. They should know that you’re off the market, and they can eat their hearts out.” I giggle at his look of shock.
Bending so that my forehead touches his, I frame his face with my hands.
“I love you, Max. Thank you for waiting for me. For fighting with and for me.”
“I love you too, Bean. And I’d do it all over again.” Our lips meet for a brief kiss before he pulls back. “Question though.”
“Yeah?” I say, wanting his lips back on mine.
“Why are your hands sticky? And why is your sofa so prickly?”
I pull him in for a tight hug as laughter bubbles up again.
“It’s from the popcorn I was eating.”
“From the feel of it, you must have been shovelling it in your face and let it spill everywhere.”
“You’re not wrong about that either.”
“I’m so fucking lucky you’re mine, Sabrina. So fucking lucky.”
I kiss him, long and deep, silently telling him just how lucky we both were.
We stay like that for a while, tangled in each other on the couch, sharing soft kisses and elated chuckles. The weight of the last few weeks—the fear, the doubt, the what-ifs—melt away in his arms. Max had always been my safe place, and now, I let myself feel the full strength of that safety.
After a while, Max shifts, pulling me upright on his lap. He brushes a stray popcorn kernel out of my hair and smiles, his blue eyes warm with amusement. “So, what’s next for us, Bean? Are you ready to face the world as my better half?”
I snort a laugh, the sound loud and unrestrained. “Better half? Oh, no. I’m the much better half, and don’t you forget it.”
“Noted.” He kisses the tip of my nose, his grin growing. “But seriously. What’s next for you? For us?”
I sober at his question, but the fear of the unknown I might have felt a few weeks ago doesn’t bubble up. Instead, I’m filled with a strange sense of certainty. “I’ve been thinking about that. About what I really want.”
“Besides me?”
I nudge him playfully. “Yes, besides you.”
“And?”
“And I think I want it all,” I said, surprising myself with the boldness in my voice. “I want to be taken seriously as a sports reporter, but I also want to be with you. I don’t think I have to choose between the two. Bruna’s path doesn’t have to be my path.”
Max’s expression softens, his thumb tracing small circles on my hip. “You don’t have to follow anyone else’s path, Sabrina. You’re blazing your own trail. And if anyone tries to make you feel like you have to choose, well, I’ll be here to remind them how wrong they are.”
“Good.” I press a kiss to his cheek, my heart swelling with gratitude. “Because I can’t imagine doing this without you. I don’t want to.”
“Well, now that I have you under my spell, I’ll be around a lot.”
I smile, leaning my forehead against his. “Idiot,” I tease him. “I’ll figure something out.”
“And if you need help figuring it out, I’ll be right here,” he promises.
Eventually, I shift, glancing at the laptop. The credits for the documentary are rolling, accompanied by an instrumental version of Max’s favourite song. “Looks like your big debut is over. You’re officially a documentary star.”
Max chuckles. “Yeah, but I think the highlight was getting to tell the world I love you.”
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks flush with warmth. “You’re so corny.”
“Maybe,” he says, grinning. “But you love it.”
“I do,” I admit, cupping his face and kissing him again. “Now, what do you say we celebrate?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Celebrate how?”
“Well, I was thinking…” I trail off, a teasing smile on my lips. “We could clean up the popcorn mess I made and then order pizza. Maybe take a look at your schedule for the rest of the season and plan some stuff together. Start planning our future.”
Max’s grin softens into something tender. “I like the sound of that.”
“Our future,” I repeat, feeling the words settle into my chest. They feel good. Right.
He brushes his lips against mine.
The rest of the night passes in a blur of laughter and conversation. We clean up the popcorn—Max teasing me relentlessly about my snacking habits—and then sprawl out on the couch with a pizza box balanced on our knees. We talk about everything and nothing, from the places we want to travel to the kinds of traditions we’d start as a couple.
By the time the first rays of light peek through my curtains, we’re tangled up in each other on the couch, still talking.
This is our beginning. It may have started off rough, a little bumpy and hard to maneuver, but just like the ice rink Max had taught me to skate on when we were kids, with a little patience and a lot of dedication, everything works out.
That’s the thing about love and hockey—there’s no halfway. You have to go all in.
THE END
***
Thank you for reading A Little Too Forward , book one in the Toronto Nighthawks series. Max and Sabrina’s love story is over, but don’t worry—you’ll see them again in Mason’s story. Damsel in Defense is coming October 2025!