Chapter Thirty
Everything
Banks
I’m playing like absolute shit.
I can’t.
My head is full of Winnie—her face when she walked away from Logan’s place and the text she sent me a couple of hours ago: We need to talk.
The puck drops, and I try to focus. Defensive positioning. Read the play. Anticipate the pass. Basic stuff. Stuff I’ve been doing for fifteen years.
My brain won’t cooperate.
Philly’s forward cuts across the blue line, and I’m a half-second late on the challenge. He blows past me, feeds his winger, and suddenly it’s a two-on-one, with Lockwood scrambling to cover the angle.
The shot goes wide. Lucky.
“Banks!” Coach’s voice cuts through the arena noise. “Get your head in the game!”
I get my head in the game. For about thirty seconds.
Then one of Philly’s defensemen—a guy I’ve fought before, a real piece of work named Kowalski—takes a run at Zayden behind the net. It’s borderline legal, the kind of hit that’s technically clean but designed to send a message. Zayden goes down hard, and something in me snaps.
I don’t think. I just move.
Kowalski sees me coming and drops his gloves before I even reach him. Good. I want this. I need this. I need to hit something, hurt something, channel all this chaos inside me into something I actually understand.
We grab each other’s jerseys and start swinging.
He’s strong, but I’m stronger. I’m also angrier, which counts for something. My first punch connects with his jaw, snapping his head back. He responds with a shot to my ribs that I barely feel. We’re spinning now, trading blows, the crowd roaring around us.
I take a hit to the eye. Another to the mouth. Blood—mine or his, I can’t tell—spatters across the ice.
The refs finally pull us apart. I’m breathing hard, my knuckles throbbing, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Kowalski is yelling something at me, but I can’t hear him over the ringing in my ears.
Five minutes for fighting. Penalty box.
I skate to the box and drop onto the bench, grabbing a towel to wipe away the blood and sweat from my skin. The arena is loud—cheers from our fans, boos from theirs, the usual chaos of a rivalry game.
And then, for some reason, I look up.
Into the stands. Into the crowd.
She’s here.
Winnie.
She’s sitting in the WAG section, in the same spot Tori usually claims. Her hair is down, falling around her shoulders in soft waves. Her face is pale and worried, her eyes fixed on me as if I’m the only person in the building.
She’s wearing a jersey.
My jersey.
Number 44. She’s here, wearing my name on her back as if she’s claiming me the same way I claimed her all those weeks ago.
Something cracks open in my chest.
The rest of the game is a blur.
We lose, 3-2. I play marginally better after my stint in the box, but it’s not enough. Nothing I do is enough tonight. When the final buzzer sounds, I skate off the ice with the weight of the loss on my shoulders and Winnie’s face burned into my mind.
I shower quickly. Dress even faster. I ignore the post-game debrief, the disappointed looks from my teammates, and the reporters hovering near the locker room exit. I need to find her. I need to see her. I need to—
She’s waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall, wearing my jersey.
I stop walking.
My whole chest does something I don’t have a name for.
She texted me. She came. She’s standing here looking at me with those blue eyes, and I can’t—I can’t read her expression yet, but she’s here. She’s here, and that has to mean something.
“Win.” My voice comes out rough, cracking over the single syllable. “I’m glad you came.”
She pushes off the wall. Not toward me, not yet, but toward me-ish.
I close the gap a little more. My hand finds the sleeve of her jersey—my jersey—and I touch it without thinking. “You texted me,” I say. “Said we needed to talk.”
She nods.
“You’re right. We do.” I pull in a breath and let it out slowly. “I just—I made a lot of mistakes, and I’m not even sure how to start.”
“Banky.”
She only calls me that when she’s not angry with me. I file that away.
“I know I hurt you.” The words come out rough, and I take a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Win. The last thing I ever—” My voice cracks. I keep going anyway. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”
Her arms cross over her chest, but it’s not defensive. It looks more like she’s holding herself together.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the trade,” I say. “I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I made you feel like you did something wrong when the only person who did anything wrong was me.”
She watches me. Waiting. Blue eyes steady.
“I told myself I was protecting you. That I didn’t want to worry you until I knew something for sure.” I look down for a second, then back at her. “But that was bullshit. I was protecting myself. I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Of needing you.” It hurts to say. Like pressing on a bruise you didn’t know was there.
“Of letting myself want something I might lose. I’ve spent my whole life bracing for people to leave, Win.
It’s the only thing I know how to do. And when the trade stuff started, I just—I went back to that.
Built the walls up before it could hurt. ”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.” Her voice is quiet.
She uncrosses her arms. Steps closer.
“When you started working at the facility,” I say, “all I wanted to do was help you. Look out for you.”
“You did.” Her voice is small.
“I never thought I’d—” I stop. Start again. “I didn’t expect to fall for you. But I did, Win. I really did.”
She bites her lip. Her eyes are getting glassy.
“I don’t deserve a girl like you,” I say. “I know that. But if you’ll let me, I’d like to try again.” A breath. “I don’t know if I can make you happy. But I’d try. I’d try for you—to be everything you need—because to me, you’re—” My throat tightens. “You’re perfect, Win. And I love you.”
A single tear slips down her cheek.
“I love you too.”
I go still.
“Wait.” My voice barely comes out. “Really?”
She nods, and she’s half-crying, half-smiling now.
I don’t think. I just reach for her—arms around her, pulling her in, her face tucking against my chest like she belongs there, because she does. She wraps her arms around me and holds on, and I press my face into her hair, and I feel everything in me go quiet for the first time in weeks.
“Say it again,” I murmur into her hair.
She pulls back just enough to look up at me. “I love you, Banksy.”
I smile. I can’t help it. “Win.”
“Tough guy.”
I kiss her.
It starts soft. It doesn’t stay that way for long.
“Okay, wow.” Logan’s voice cuts through the hallway, and I feel Winnie laugh against my mouth before I pull back.
He’s standing there with his hands clapped over his chest, blinking like he just witnessed something that broke his brain.
“That was—I don’t know if I want to cheer or cry. I think I’m going to do both.”
“Walk away, Logan,” I say.
“I’m emotionally processing right now, Banks, give me a second.”
Winnie buries her face in my chest, laughing.
“I have literally never heard you say that many words in a row,” Logan announces. “In four years.” He presses both hands to his cheeks. “I feel like I witnessed history.”
“Logan.”
“Walking away,” he says, backing down the hall with both hands raised. “Walking away. Giving you your moment. Totally not going to tell everyone in the locker room about this.” He pauses. “Okay, I’m definitely going to tell everyone, but I’ll be respectful about it.”
He disappears around the corner.
Winnie looks up at me, still smiling, eyes still wet. “He’s going to tell everyone.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you okay with that?”
I brush her hair back from her face, tuck it behind her ear. “Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
She’s still laughing when I kiss her again.
It starts soft—just my mouth on hers, her hand gripping my tie—but then she gives it a tug, and suddenly soft isn’t anywhere near enough.
Her back meets the wall, and she gasps, and I swallow the sound.
“Banks.” Breathless. “Logan literally just—”
“I know.”
“We’re in a hallway—”
“I know.”
She kisses me back anyway, which is really the only thing that matters.
Then I hear it. Voices. Footsteps around the corner, getting louder.
I grab her hand and move.
There’s a supply closet ten feet down. I try the handle—unlocked—and we tumble inside. I kick the door shut behind us.
Dark. Cramped. She’s pressed against the door, and I’m pressed against her, both of us breathing hard, and I couldn’t care less about the setting.
I pick her up, hands under her thighs, and she wraps around me automatically.
I kiss her jaw, her neck, the spot just below her ear that makes her shiver. She tips her head back and lets me.
“I missed you.” Her voice comes out unsteady. “I was so scared I’d lost you.”
“You didn’t.” I press my mouth to her throat. “I’m right here.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Her hands slide into my hair. Mine find the hem of the jersey and drift underneath to warm skin, and she makes a sound that I’m going to be thinking about for a long time.
“Banks—”
“I know.” I drag my mouth back to hers. “I know, I just—I need—”
“Me too,” she whispers. “I need you too.”
Then voices again, right outside the door. Someone laughing. Keys jingling.
We go completely still.
I have one hand under her jersey, and her legs are hooked around my waist, and we are absolutely, completely frozen.
The footsteps pass. The voices fade.
I drop my forehead to her shoulder, breathing hard.
“This is insane,” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
“We’re in a supply closet.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m wrapped around you like a koala.”
“I noticed.”
She laughs—warm and bright and real—and I feel it move all the way through me.
“Come home with me.” The words come out rough. “Please.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are soft in the dim light, still a little wet at the edges. She cups my face in both hands.
“Take me home, Banksy.”
I kiss her one more time. Slow. Like I have all the time in the world now, because I do.
Then, reluctantly, I untangle us. She slides down, and we both make a sound we probably shouldn’t.
“You’re going to kill me,” I mutter.
“Not until I’m done with you.”
I crack the door, check the hall. Clear.
We slip out together, her hand in mine, both of us grinning.
The drive to my apartment takes forever. Every red light is torture. Every stop sign an assault. She’s in my passenger seat, wearing my jersey, her hand resting on my thigh, and I’m breaking approximately seventeen traffic laws trying to get us there faster.
“Slow down,” she laughs. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You have no idea how much I like hearing that.”
She squeezes my thigh. “I mean it, Banks. I’m choosing you. Messy, complicated, terrible-at-communication you. All of it.”
I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles.
“I love you,” I say, because I can now, because I’m allowed to.
“I love you too.” She leans over and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “Now drive faster.”
I accelerate.