23. Chapter 22 #2
"Hey." I tip her chin up with two fingers until she has to look at me. "Tell me what happened at the meeting first. My phone's been going absolutely insane for the last two hours and I've been ignoring it, which is either the best or worst decision I've made today."
Her breath catches. And then, finally, she meets my eyes.
"I reversed my recommendation." Her chin comes up, and she says it the way she'd present to a boardroom.
"In front of Colin and Coach Pearson. Pete was there too, and your brothers—" She pops her eyes wide, which I absolutely understand as holy shit.
"I'm fairly sure Diego was live-texting Zoey the entire time.
But I did it, Beck. I told them my original model was wrong. That I was wrong."
The wind pushes her hair across her face, and her eyes are shining beautifully now. Like she's as proud of herself as I am of her.
"I told them the Bears shouldn't trade you under any terms. And then—" her voice wobbles, "—then I told them I fell in love with you during the assessment."
I stare at her, my heart exploding. "You told a room full of management you love me?"
"I did."
"Darce." I press a hand to my chest. "That's the filthiest thing you've ever done."
She laughs, wet and cracked around the edges, and swipes at her eyes with the back of her wrist. "But it doesn't matter, though. Does it? Colin said the teams already agreed to your contract overnight."
My phone vibrates in my pocket again. I don't have to look to know it's Philip. The contract is sitting in my inbox, right now.
One signature. That's all it takes.
One signature and I'm on a private jet to Nevada, trading California coastline for casino lights, and somewhere on the Las Vegas Strip a billboard is already waiting for my face to fill it.
I'd finally be the guy. Nobody's little brother. Not the punchline, the afterthought, or the one Darcy's spreadsheet said to cut.
Just Beck Morrison: Hockey Superstar.
"Darce—"
"Beck, if you've decided on Vegas, if that's what you really want, I'm not going to stand here and—"
"I'm not going."
She stops. Completely.
"You… what?"
"I'm not going to Vegas." I pull my phone from my pocket as it starts vibrating again, Philip's name flashing across the screen. "This is probably him calling for my answer. Again."
Darcy stares at the phone. Then at me.
"You haven't accepted?"
"Nope."
"But Colin said the teams agreed overnight."
"They did. Apparently everybody had a very productive night planning my future without me." I decline Philip's call and shove the phone back into my pocket. "Problem is, they still need one fairly important thing."
Her lips part.
I grin.
"I'm the one who needs to sign the contract."
Darcy blinks at me. I can actually watch her brain hit the problem
"But… the meeting was at ten. My report. You didn't know I reversed it. You couldn't have known—"
"Nope."
"Then why?"
She's genuinely lost now, gripping Beartholomew like a flotation device.
"Beck, they offered you everything you wanted. The spotlight. Face of the franchise." She takes a step closer, gripping to the front of my shirt. "You told me on this pier, this exact pier, that you wondered who you'd be somewhere else. It was everything you asked for."
"Yeah." I step closer, sliding my hand through her hair. "It was everything I asked for. Turns out I was asking for the wrong thing."
"I don't understand—"
"Darcy, I spent my whole life thinking I needed a new city, a new team, a new Beck.
I just wanted a blank slate." I tuck the wind-blown hair back from her face, and my hand stays there, because it always stays there.
"But I sat in that fancy room in Vegas, listening to two very expensive men tell me I could be the guy, the headline, the whole show… and all I could think about… was you."
Her breath catches.
"I love you, Darcy. That's the thing I figured out. Nobody's ever chosen me first. Not once, my whole life. I've been the bundle deal, the extra Morrison. So when Vegas said we choose you, I won't lie. I wanted in."
My thumb traces her cheek.
"But then I got back to Beachside, and I realized… choosing myself doesn't mean running from everything I love. It means finally deciding what I want, and finally having the guts to say it out loud. And what I want isn't a billboard."
"Beck—"
"It's you."
"It's this ridiculous town and my idiot brothers and Diego's constant judgment. But mostly… it's you. It's always you."
She's crying now.
"I love you," she says. "I love you so much I torched my own report."
"I love you too. So much I turned down a billboard with my face on it, which, let's be honest, is the much harder sacrifice."
She laughs and cries at the same time. I just hold her tighter.
"Whatever happens with hockey… if Colin trades me anyway, if the whole thing blows up, there's no fucking way I'm building a life that doesn't have Darcy Madden in it."
She nods, then her expression shifts into that lightning-fast Madden pivot into problem-solving mode.
"Okay. Okay, so… I'll resign then. I'm in love with a player, it's a complete conflict of interest, I'll draft a letter this afternoon, Colin can have it by—"
"Absolutely fucking not."
She blinks. "Beck—"
"No. Nope. Vetoed. Denied." I take her by the shoulders. "Darcy. Listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. You are not quitting. That's color-coded red. You remember what red means, right?"
"Non-negotiable."
"Exactly." I grin. "You're the best analyst in this league."
"Beck—"
"You spent your whole life giving things up to be what other people needed.
Your parents. The gala nights. The society boyfriends with the foot stuff.
" I duck my head to catch her eyes. "I don't want you any different, Darce.
I want the spreadsheets. The career. The ambition.
All of it. You don't have to give up a single thing to prove you love me.
You just have to be here. Next to me. Being annoyingly right about my shitty zone entries. "
She stares at me, the carousel music turning behind us, the ocean glittering all the way to the edge of the world.
Then she grabs my shirt and kisses me.
I cup the back of her head and kiss her until she's smiling against my mouth, until her heels are abandoned somewhere near my feet and she's up on her toes trying to get closer.
I don't know what happens tomorrow. I don't know what Colin does with the trade or what jersey I'm wearing next season.
But I know this.
Darcy Madden is mine.
I pull her closer, but immediately encounter a problem.
"Darce."
"Mm?"
"Beartholomew is between us."
We both look down, and sure enough, there is an enormous blue bear wedged directly between our bodies, his tiny plastic glasses digging directly into my crotch.
"He's watching."
Darcy shrugs. "He's seen worse."
"He really has." I take the bear, hold him out at arm's length over the railing, look him dead in his little glasses. "Sorry, buddy. She chose me."
"Beck, no! Do not drop that bear."
"He's a witness, Darce. He has to go."
She lunges and grabs Beartholomew's arm, and for a genuinely undignified three seconds, we're standing on the end of a public pier having a tug-of-war over a giant stuffed bear wearing glasses.
"Give him to me."
"I'm doing him a favor. The ocean is freeing. He'll love it."
"He'll sink."
"He's stuffed!"
"Beck."
"He weighs like forty pounds, he'll be fine."
"Beck."
I pull him back over the railing.
"Fine." I shove the bear into her arms. "But he rides in the back seat. I'm not having him watch us from the front."
She laughs, and I pull her against me properly. I kiss her at the end of the pier like the whole world isn't watching, even though this is Beachside, and it absolutely is.
Somewhere behind us, the carousel spins its slow circles, and the ocean keeps crashing, steady and endless, completely unbothered by the fact that Beck Morrison…
The tradeable asset, the bundle deal, the Morrison who never got chosen…
Just got chosen.
And dammit, he chose right back.