24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
Stanley is across the ballroom making somebody’s mom laugh hard enough that she has tears in her eyes.
Penelope has managed to force a chair between Percy and the next table.
Blue is watching Melly eat while pretending he is not watching Melly eat.
And Rowan is talking to Trent. I keep looking at him anyway.
Coach Fuller eventually stands. The room quiets almost immediately. He thanks the families for being here. Then he says something about how half the people in this room have been driving these guys to rinks since they were four years old, and my mother presses a hand to her chest.
I look at Benson.
Then Rowan.
Percy.
Stanley.
Blue.
All of them.
For some reason, I think about the stupid snow globes under my chair.
Fuller says Michigan is a good hockey team.
Then he says, “So are we.”
That is the whole speech.
He sits down.
I look toward Benson because I want to see his face. Instead, I catch Rowan’s eyes. He’s already looking at me. The corner of his mouth lifts. Then he goes back to whatever Trent is saying.
Five minutes later, I look again. He is already looking again. I raise my eyebrows. He raises his. I laugh and drop my attention to my bread roll.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
I turn toward Lucy. “What?”
She smiles.
“No,” I say automatically. And even before the word fully leaves my mouth, I know it’s not true.
Lucy sees the hesitation. Her expression changes. “You guys haven’t said it yet?”
I shake my head.
Across the room, Rowan lifts his water. His eyes find mine again over the rim of the glass.
“No,” I say. “We haven’t.”
Lucy looks toward him. Then back at me. “Well, I can tell he is.”
I cover my mouth and laugh. “Maybe.”
But something warm has already opened in my chest.
After dinner, when the team is done eating and everybody starts talking again, I pull the gift-shop bag out from beneath my chair and walk over to the table. I make sure all of them are within hearing distance when I tell them I got them something.
“I bought you presents,” I say.
Stanley looks immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“Because I love you.”
He puts one hand dramatically over his chest.
“Oh.” He turns toward Rowan. “Did you hear that? She loves me.”
Stanley takes the first snow globe out of the bag. His entire face changes. “This is fucking awesome.”
I laugh and point at it. “Appreciate it. It cost nineteen dollars.”
Stanley turns it around twice, shakes it, then holds it up toward the lights.
Benson takes his next. He stares at it. “What is this?”
“A memory.”
He makes a funny face. “There’s an alligator in it.”
I nod. “Yes.”
Blue turns it upside down and watches the glitter fall.
Benson looks back at me. “Why is there an alligator?”
I shrug. “Nobody knows.”
“There are no alligators in Nevada,” Percy says.
“Thank you, Percy,” I say, folding the bag up.
He says, “It’s a desert.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I know it’s a desert.”
Rowan takes his. He looks at the tiny green alligator in sunglasses. I suddenly feel more emotional than I should.
“I wanted everybody to have something from this trip,” I say. “Because someday we’re going to look at these and remember this exact night.”
They quiet a little.
Even Stanley.
I look around the table.
“This moment right now is kind of perfect. Nobody’s graduated yet. Everybody is here. You’re playing for a national championship tomorrow, which is insane, by the way, and somehow every single one of you idiots ended up being my family.”
Benson’s expression softens.
Stanley’s does too, which is disturbing.
“And,” I add, because I can only be sincere for so long, “I have a boyfriend.”
Benson closes his eyes.
Stanley starts laughing.
Rowan looks at me. That expression again.
I point at all of them. “I’m serious. I love you guys. You don’t need luck. You’re going to win.”
Stanley leans back and looks at Rowan. “What have you been telling her?”
Rowan shakes his head. “Nothing. She comes up with this all on her own.”
“Ah.” Stanley nods. “Reeve thing.”
Rowan shakes his snow globe once. “I like it.”
“Thank you.”
He stares at the alligator. “Why is it wearing sunglasses, though?”
“Because it’s on vacation, Rowan.”
He looks at me. “The alligator is on vacation?”
“The alligator is having the time of its life.”
He does the thing where he laughs without really making a sound. Then he puts it into his jacket pocket. For some reason, that makes me ridiculously happy.
An assistant coach appears at the door and announces they have a meeting in ten.
The whole room changes at once.
Chairs scrape back. Mothers get up. Kids are lifted for hugs. Fathers start shaking hands. Stanley’s mom has his face between both palms before he is fully standing.
My mom gets Benson. My dad gets half the team.
And Rowan passes behind me on his way toward the doors. “Come here.”
My heart jumps. He doesn’t stop walking.
I glance around. Nobody is paying attention to us.
Everybody is busy saying goodbye, so I follow him out of the ballroom and around the corner into a quiet hallway lined with closed conference-room doors.
There is a stack of chairs against one wall, a fire door at the end, and nobody else anywhere.
“You’re going to be late,” I tell him.
“I have ten minutes.” He reaches for me. His hand catches my waist, and the other comes up to my face. “We have time.”
Then he kisses me.
I go into him immediately.
My arms circle his neck, and his hand tightens at my waist. There is nothing rushed about the first kiss, but the second one is different. His body presses closer. My back meets the wall.
When I pull away, I am already smiling. “How are you?”
He looks at me. “Did you graduate from asking if I’m nervous?”
I smile wider. “Are you?”
“Yeah.”
That still gets me. Benson admitted it today too. Tomorrow matters enough to scare both of them.
“My brother said the same thing.”
Rowan nods once. “Michigan’s good.”
“Rowan.”
His mouth lifts. “We’re good too.”
His fingers move up and fix a piece of hair beside my face.
I go quiet.
He’s standing so close that I can feel the heat of him, one hand still at my waist, the other lingering near my cheek. The ballroom noise is distant around the corner. For a second, neither of us says anything.
His eyes move over mine. Then to my mouth. Something inside me shifts. My breath catches.
Oh.
My stomach drops.
Oh, fuck.
I love him.
I stare at him.
Apparently that is what this has been turning into the entire time.
I thought I had a crush on him. Then I thought I wanted to sleep with him.
Then I wanted him to be my boyfriend. Then he became my boyfriend.
And somewhere in between all those nights at Hawthorne and hockey games and him showing up when I needed him and telling me he always wanted me near, I fell in love with him.
And apparently I fell hard enough that standing in a boring hotel hallway while he fixes my hair feels like the most important place I have ever been.
His thumb brushes over my bottom lip.
“I need to go,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “You should.”
He gives me one soft kiss. Then another.
When he pulls back, he looks at me for a second longer. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
His brows pull together faintly. “You okay?”
I smile. “Of course.”
He studies me.
I know I am acting weird.
“Are you?”
“Yeah.”
“Go,” I tell him. “I need a second.”
“You sure?”
I nod.
He kisses me once more, quick this time, then steps away and slides both hands into his jacket pockets.
The snow globe makes one side of the jacket bulge.
I almost laugh.
“Go win a national championship, Laurens.”
“That’s the plan.”
He starts down the hallway.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
“Rowan.”
He stops.
Turns.
And I don’t think a single thing.
If I think, I might talk myself out of it.
“I love you.”
Everything in his face changes. Like the words hit exactly where they were supposed to.
He presses his lips together for half a second, then walks straight back toward me.
Fast.
His hands are on me before I can say anything else.
He kisses me harder this time, hungry enough that my back meets the wall again. I grab the front of his jacket and pull him closer.
When he finally breaks the kiss, his forehead presses against mine.
“I love you too, G.”
My entire chest goes warm.
I chew my bottom lip because I cannot stop smiling.
“Go.”
He smiles too.
Then he fixes my hair again, gives me one last kiss, and steps away.
He looks back once before he disappears around the corner.
Then he’s gone, and I stay. Just standing in a hotel hallway in Las Vegas, staring at a blank wall with my heart trying to climb out of my chest. And because I am apparently incapable of experiencing anything without documenting it now, I pull out my phone. I take a picture of the hallway.
There’s nothing in it. Closed doors. Beige carpet. A stack of chairs. Nobody else would know why it matters. I do. I look at the picture and smile.
Tomorrow my brother plays for a national championship.
Tomorrow Rowan plays for a national championship.
And tonight, in the ugliest hallway in Las Vegas, I told him I loved him.
And he said it back.