Chapter 20
twenty
Dani
I didn't sleep much after Luke left.
I sat on the edge of that generic hotel bed for a long time, staring at the half-packed suitcase, at Lily, and her rabbit peeking out of the pocket like it was waiting for an answer too.
In the morning, I called my mother first. Some habits went back further than the fear did.
"You sound tired," she said, no hello, the way our whole family apparently communicated.
"I am tired."
"Tell me what happened."
I told her. All of it—the concussion, the nights nursing Luke back to himself, the pool, the red dress, the way he looked at Lily like she mattered, the way I'd built a wall so high I couldn't see over it anymore even when I wanted to.
My mother was quiet for a long moment. "Danielle," she said finally, using my full name the way she only did when she meant something. "You've spent five years protecting Lily from a hurt that already happened. That man is gone. This one is standing in front of you, asking to stay."
"What if he's not different?"
"What if he is?" she said. "You'll never know standing in a hotel room."
I called Maya next, keeping my voice low so I wouldn't wake Lily, still curled up asleep in the other bed. Maya picked up on the first ring, breathless, like she'd been waiting by the phone.
"Are you okay? Luke asked me about you like the world was ending."
"I'm okay." I looked at the suitcase again. "I canceled the flight."
Maya made a sound that was half relief, half triumph. "Thank God—what flight?"
"Don't celebrate yet."
"I'm celebrating a little." A pause, softer. "Bring Lily over whenever she's up. I'll keep her all day if you need it. Sounds like you've got some walking to do."
She knew me well enough not to make it a question.
By nine, Lily was fed and dressed and delivered into Maya's kitchen with her rabbit and a change of clothes, still groggy enough not to ask too many questions about why Mommy looked like she hadn't slept. Maya took one look at me in the doorway and just said "Go," like she'd already rehearsed it.
I spent the rest of the morning walking.
Just walking, no destination, the city loud and indifferent around me in exactly the way I needed it to be.
I walked past a park where kids were playing hockey with a tennis ball and a stick that had clearly seen better days, and I thought about Lily's drawing—Luke with a stick, Luke making a save, Mommy's hockey friend scrawled across the bottom in crayon.
I thought about how she'd stopped asking about her father months ago. How she'd started asking about Luke instead.
I thought about the difference between the two, and how big that difference actually was, if I let myself look at it honestly.
Luke had shown up at an airport hotel at midnight, sweaty from a championship celebration he should have still been drowning in, and instead of asking me to be smaller or quieter or more convenient, he'd told me the truth about his father and his mother and the boy who'd learned to be loud because nobody was watching otherwise.
He hadn't promised me the world. He'd told me he wanted to build one with me. That was different. I was starting to understand that was the whole difference.
By the time I'd walked myself out, I'd made my decision.
I found out later Luke wasn't at the team celebration.
Eli told me, when I called him on a whim from a park bench, half-expecting to be told Luke was somewhere with a trophy and a crowd.
Instead Eli said, quiet and a little surprised at the question, "He's been at his place all morning. Said he was waiting for someone."
I drove to his apartment with my heart fluttering in a way that felt entirely new.
He opened the door before I finished knocking, like he'd been standing right there the whole time. He was in sweats, hair a mess, dark circles under his eyes from a night that clearly hadn't given him much rest either.
“You’re here,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“Here-here?” His expression shifted, cautious and hopeful. “Here for me? For us?”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
“Yes,” I said. “For us. I want to try.”
Something broke open across his face—relief and joy tangled together so completely I couldn't tell where one ended and the other started. He pulled me into him, arms wrapping tight, and I let myself sink into it the way I'd been too scared to before.
“I need you to understand why I shut down,” I said against his chest. “It wasn’t really about you. I’ve trusted someone with my future before. I let myself believe he’d stay, and then he left me to raise our baby alone. I was terrified of hoping like that again.”
"I know."
"I need you to keep knowing it. Even when I get scared again."
"I will." He pulled back to look at me, hands framing my face the way he had that first night in the fever dark, when neither of us had known yet what we were building. "You're not doing this alone anymore, Dani. Not the fear. Not any of it."
We didn't rush to the bedroom.
We sat on his couch for a long time, talking—really talking, in a way we'd never quite managed between fevers and stolen pool nights and rushed goodbyes.
He told me about his father, the version his mother had finally given him honestly.
I told him about Lily's father, the actual shape of the wound instead of the guarded outline I'd offered before.
"You did an amazing thing yesterday," I told him, somewhere in the middle of it. "I saw the highlights. All three shootout saves." I smiled, the first easy smile in days. "It must feel incredible. Hoisting that trophy, knowing you were the reason it happened."
Luke's face softened, something almost shy moving through it. "It felt good," he admitted. "But it feels better sitting here with you than it did on the ice. I didn't expect that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I kissed him then—slow, deliberate, nothing rushed about it, both of us finally letting ourselves believe this was real and not a fever dream either of us would wake from.
His hands slid into my hair. Mine found the hem of his shirt.
"I want you," I said against his mouth. "Every day. I don't know what to do with how much."
"Tell me," he whispered.
I didn't tell him. I showed him instead.
I pushed him back against the couch cushions and climbed into his lap, knees on either side of his hips.
The fabric of his shirt was soft under my fingers as I worked the buttons free one by one, revealing the warm skin beneath.
I leaned in and pressed my mouth to the center of his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart against my lips.
He exhaled, long and low, hands settling at my waist like he needed the anchor.
I kissed lower, following the line of muscle down his stomach, unhurried despite the urgency radiating off both of us. When I reached the waistband of his shorts I looked up. His eyes were dark, focused entirely on me. He gave the smallest nod.
I eased the shorts down. He lifted his hips to help.
When I wrapped my fingers around him he made a sound that seemed to come from deep in his chest, head tipping back against the cushions.
I stroked him slowly, learning the weight of him, the way his breath caught when my thumb brushed over the sensitive head.
I was patient the way he'd been patient with me that first fevered night, taking my time with every inch of him until his hands were fisted in the couch cushions and his hips were straining against the effort of holding still.
"Dani—" His hand found my hair again, not guiding, just holding on.
I lowered my head and took him into my mouth.
Soft at first. Testing. Then deeper, using my hand and my tongue in a rhythm that made his hips shift restlessly beneath me.
I took my time. Every soft sound he made, every controlled tremor in his thighs, told me I was doing something right.
His fingers tightened in my hair when I hollowed my cheeks and took him deeper still.
"Oh God," he breathed. "You have to—I can't?—"
I released him and let him pull me up by the arms. He kissed me hard, tasting himself on my tongue, then guided me higher until I was kneeling over his shoulders. His hands gripped my hips and brought me down to his mouth.
I laughed, surprised and delighted, and let him strip me the rest of the way as I climbed over him, thighs bracketing his shoulders.
The first stroke of his tongue nearly undid me.
He was thorough, focused, lips and tongue working with a patience that somehow made everything more intense.
I gripped the back of the couch, hips rolling against him without thought.
He hummed against me and the vibration shot straight through my core.
My thighs trembled. I could feel the pleasure building already, low and insistent.
“Luke—” I whispered. “God, right there?—”
He stayed exactly where I needed him, steady and relentless, until the first wave broke over me. I came with a soft cry, body shaking, one hand still buried in his hair. He held me through it, mouth gentle now, kissing the inside of my thighs as the tremors eased.
I slid down his body before I had fully recovered, needing more of him. I straddled his hips again. He was still hard, still ready. I reached between us, guided him to my entrance, and sank down slowly. The stretch was perfect. Full. We both exhaled when I took him all the way.
I stayed still for a moment, adjusting, feeling him throb inside me. His hands moved up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. I leaned down and kissed him, soft and deep, while I began to move.
The rhythm started slow. Rolling hips. Long slides. His hands stayed on my waist, steadying me, letting me set the pace. Every downward movement pressed him against the place that made my breath stutter. I could feel the next release already gathering, deeper this time.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
I opened my eyes. His were locked on mine, open and unguarded. Something shifted in my chest.
I moved faster. He met every roll of my hips with a controlled thrust of his own. The couch creaked beneath us. Sweat slicked our skin. The only sounds were our breathing and the soft wet slide of our bodies.
The pleasure tightened. My thighs started to shake. I leaned forward, forehead against his, and the words left me before I could stop them.
“I love you.”
His eyes widened for half a second. Then his hands tightened on my hips and he drove up into me harder, deeper.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“I love you,” I repeated, voice breaking as the climax hit me full force. I clenched around him, crying out against his mouth, body trembling through wave after wave.
He followed moments later, pulling me down hard against him as he spilled deep inside me with a long, low groan. His arms locked around my back. We stayed joined, shaking, breathing into each other’s skin.
After a long minute he rolled us carefully so I was beneath him, still connected. He brushed damp hair from my face and kissed me slow and deep.
“I love you too,” he said against my lips. “I have for longer than I knew how to say it.”
We stayed like that on the couch, tangled and quiet, while the city lights outside the window kept shifting and the rest of the world stayed far away.
Eventually he carried me to the bedroom. We cleaned up slowly, traded soft touches and quieter kisses, then curled together under the covers. His heartbeat under my cheek was the last thing I felt before sleep took me.
For the first time in a long while, I did not feel the need to guard anything.
"That," Luke said eventually, "was worth more than the trophy."
"Don't let the team hear you say that."
"I mean it." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, eyes soft in the afternoon light coming through the window. "I've been chasing something my whole life. Turns out it was never the Cup. It was happiness. You bring me happiness Dani."
I kissed him, slow and sure this time, no fear left in it.
"Shower?" he asked.
"Only if you're gentle. My legs don't currently work."
He laughed—the real one, unguarded, nothing like the performance he used to put on for cameras and reporters and teammates who never got to see this version of him.
We showered together, unhurried, washing the day off each other and trading soft kisses under the water. He held me from behind, chin resting on my shoulder, both of us quiet in the way that only comes after everything's finally been said out loud.
"This," he murmured against my ear, "is better than lifting any trophy."
I turned in his arms and looked up at him—this man who'd shown up at midnight in an airport hotel and refused to let me disappear, who'd told his mother the truth about himself so he could tell me the truth about us, who saw my daughter and didn't flinch, didn't perform, just loved her the way she deserved to be loved.
Outside, the city carried on the way it always did—indifferent, loud, full of people chasing their own version of a trophy.
But in that small bathroom, steam curling around us, I finally let myself believe I'd found something worth staying for.