Chapter 72 Playoff Mode Activated
PLAYOFF MODE ACTIVATED
Nate
“When it comes to her, I don’t play safe. I play to win.”
Something inside him had shifted. Not from the sex, or the chaos. Not even because he was still catching his breath like he’d just played a double shift.
I don’t give a fuck about any of it, as long as I have you.
He felt the impact of those words deep in his chest before he even realized he’d been checked.
It killed him that she didn’t look away or try to soften it.
She just stood there, flushed and trembling and completely, utterly terrified.
He gathered her close without thinking, inked-up arms closing around her.
“Holly, I’m yours,” he promised, voice rough with something dangerously close to awe.
His forehead pressed to hers, breath still uneven, heart hammering like the last seconds of overtime.
Her hands were fisted in his shirt like she needed the same anchor he did, and the look in her eyes nearly undid him all over again.
“I’d walk away from all of it if you asked,” he continued, thumb brushing her cheek with a reverence he had no intention of hiding. “The show. Hockey. The whole fucking circus.”
The confession sat heavy and solid between them, and for once he didn’t try to soften it with humor or by being cocky. Instead he ducked his head, leaning down into her so that he could peer into her gorgeous brown eyes.
“I love you,” he murmured gently. “So much it actually scares me. And I don’t scare easy,” he grinned.
Her smile broke softly, like dawn finally deciding to show up. When she answered him, it landed just as hard as the words she’d already said.
“I love you too, Nate.” Her hands left his shirt and found his, their fingers lacing together on instinct. She gave a small, disbelieving shake of her head. “I don’t deserve you. But I’m going to try.”
Something inside his chest gave way completely, opening like a door he didn’t know he’d been guarding.
“Baby,” he sighed, pulling her closer until there wasn't a single inch of space left between them. “You don’t have to earn me. You already have me. All of me.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, gently grounding and nothing at all like the frantic urgency that brought them here in the first place.
For a moment he let himself stay there, holding her in the quiet bubble they’d carved out of chaos, pretending the rest of the world wasn't waiting just outside the door.
Then he shifted his stance, and instantly regretted it as cold air hit the front of his thighs.
He went very still.
Holly went very still.
They both looked down at the same time.
His pants and underwear were still bunched around his lower hips, having only been shoved down just far enough to grant him the access he’d needed.
But now that the passion had subsided for the time being, there was no mistaking the situation.
The front of his pants and boxers were completely soaked.
Stunned silence stretched between them for a second before Holly made a tiny, strangled noise that sounded like her soul trying to exit her body.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, horror blooming across her face in real time. “Oh my god. Nate, I messed your costume pants.”
He stared down at himself with an intensity usually reserved for game tape. Then lifted his gaze back to her, blinked, and barked out a laugh before she could spiral herself into orbit. Not a polite chuckle, either. A full, helpless chuckle that extended into a whole series of them.
“Holly,” he managed between breaths, tugging her back toward him when she tried to retreat. “I’ve bled through three jerseys in one game. I promise you, this is not my worst wardrobe emergency.”
She groaned into his shoulder. “You can’t compare this to hockey.”
“Can and will,” he grinned shamelessly. “Don’t worry, my other dance partner left me a spare pair of black pants around here somewhere.”
She swatted his chest. Hard.
“Ow,” he laughed before a tentative knock on the door they’d just defiled made them both freeze.
“Nate? Holly? You’ve…uh… got five minutes until results.”
Five minutes.
He and Holly looked at each other.
Then they both started laughing again, the absurdity of the situation crashing in all at once. They’d just detonated their emotional lives against a dressing room door, and now they were totally going to have to strut out under studio lights in front of a live audience like nothing happened.
“Okay,” Holly said, getting a grip on herself first as she adjusted her tiny shorts back into position with terrifying speed. “Damage control. New pants. Towels. Possibly divine intervention.”
Nate toed off his shoes and shuffled hilariously over to his bag, legs still restricted by those soaked pants. Holly had found his gym towel, and was sorting out her own business. He paused to watch her.
“Have I ever told you how hot it is when you take charge?” he smirked.
“Four minutes!” She laughed, pretending she was about to throw the towel at him.
He grinned like a monster and stepped out of the compromised pants, tossing them toward a chair with a resignation usually reserved for broken sticks.
“Backup pants,” he announced, pulling them out of his bag. “Always prepared for an emergency.”
“This was not the kind of emergency they were meant for,” Holly chirped at him, checking her hair and makeup in the mirror quickly.
“Disagree.”
“Three minutes,” she warned him.
Those three minutes devolved into chaos.
Nate nearly lost his balance hopping into his fresh pants, freeballing because he didn’t have emergency boxers.
Holly blotted the floor with tissues like she was trying to erase a crime scene.
A bottle of hairspray rolled dramatically under the table, and neither of them had time to retrieve it.
He tried to fix his hair using the reflection in his phone and somehow made it ten times worse.
Another knock. Louder this time.
“Two minutes!”
“Tell them we’re stretching!” Holly called back, voice pitched an octave higher than usual as Nate snorted unhelpfully at her choice of words.
Eventually, they both rushed for the door, arriving there at exactly the same time.
And there, in the back of his surprisingly romantic head, Nate thought that had to be a sign.
He stepped in front of her, reaching up to smooth a strand of hair away from her cheek.
Her breathing was still uneven but her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed from everything they’d just done, and said, and survived.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
She nods. “Yeah. You?”
He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to her lips without giving a fuck who was waiting for them or why.
“Best I’ve ever been,” he murmured, smitten. “Let’s go win ourselves an episode, Martinez.”
Walking back into the studio felt different.
Not ‘maybe the lighting changed’. Full-body, bone-deep different.
Nate’d skated back onto plenty of rinks after a fight with adrenaline still in his veins, jaw aching, crowd roaring, but this was something else.
His pulse wasn’t spiking from nerves. It was humming and warm, like he’d just won something no scoreboard could measure.
Holly’s hand stayed linked with his as they stepped out under the lights again, and he could feel the shift in the room almost instantly.
No one pointed, but conversations stalled mid-sentence.
A boom mic operator suddenly found the ceiling deeply fascinating.
One of the backup dancers coughed suspiciously into her hand while trying not to grin.
Nick gave them both a stoic once-over, then raised a brow in what passed as the Brit edit of a thumbs-up.
It was the exact same energy as a locker room when a player and his girl had clearly disappeared for ‘strategy talks’ and came back looking suspiciously satisfied. No one said it. Everyone knew it.
Holly squeezed his fingers once in a sharp warning. He squeezed back, slow and smug. They walked to their mark beneath the scoreboard like two people who absolutely had not just turned a dressing room upside down. Totally normal. Completely professional.
Not.
The studio lights flared overhead, and Indie swanned into position like she’d personally engineered every ounce of tension in the building.
She held her cue cards to her chest and gave them both a look that was ninety percent host professionalism and ten percent I am going to dine out on this energy for weeks.
“Well,” she sang, drawing the word out with theatrical relish, “our couples certainly brought the heat tonight!”
Her gaze lingered on Nate and Holly just long enough to make one of the other male pros snicker.
Nate didn’t react. Not even a twitch. Internally? He was grinning like an idiot. He’d played in arenas with twenty thousand screaming fans. He’d scored in overtime. He’d been revered for knocking men flat and skating away without looking back.
This was better.
Indie lifted the first card, and the room quieted like someone had turned down the volume on the world.
“The couple leaving Take The Floor tonight is…”
The pause stretched, delicious and cruel.
“Marco and Lila.”
Gasps burst through the audience, applause following quickly as Indie performed her graceful escort routine. Nate barely processed it. He was aware of Holly’s fingers curling more tightly around his and he shifted closer without even thinking, solid.
Indie returned to center stage, final card in hand, grin positively wicked.
“And now… the winners of the week.”
Nate felt the anticipation ripple through the crowd, but it didn’t land in his gut the way it had in previous weeks. There was no nausea. No tightness. No quiet fear that he’d let Holly down. Because he already knew he hadn’t.
“Based on the judges’ scores and the highest number of viewer votes…”
Another pause. Another inhale.
“The winners of the week are… Holly and Nate!”
The studio exploded.
Cheers crashed over them, applause echoing off the walls, and Holly turned to him with eyes so wide and bright he actually laughed out loud.
He didn’t hesitate. He just scooped her up like she weighed nothing and spun her once in the center of the stage, the audience roaring louder at the blatant display of affection between them.
She laughed against his shoulder, arms tight around his neck. Cameras zoomed in. Somewhere, someone definitely clipped that moment for TikTok already.
He set her down but kept his hands on her waist, unable to convince himself to let go. Her smile was incandescent. Not polished-for-TV radiant. It was raw, earned and slightly unhinged in the way pure joy sometimes was.
“You just Cha Cha’d America into submission,” he murmured, leaning in close enough that only she could hear.
She smirked back. “You’re welcome.”
Indie slid back in beside them, practically vibrating. “A flirty Cha Cha to Training Season and a live declaration of feelings? Honestly, you two are exhausting.”
Holly beamed sweetly.
Nate, meanwhile, felt something settle deep in his belly that had nothing to do with glitter trophies or weekly titles. Standing there under the lights with her hand in his, the room still buzzing with cheers, he didn’t feel like he was surviving the competition anymore. He felt invincible.
Because she was beside him, totally flushed, absolutely fierce.
His in every way, with the entire world watching them choose each other without flinching.
The scoreboard flashed their names in bright gold letters overhead, but Nate barely looked at it.
He didn’t need numbers to know they were winning.
@BallroomInsider on X:
Holly Martinez & Nate Eriksson just went from ‘unexpected chemistry’ to ‘probable winners’ in record time. Judges loved it. Viewers loved it. The internet is already planning their victory edit. #takethefloor
@HockeyWAGCentral on TikTok:
(caption on slow-mo clip of Nate lifting Holly)
the hockey girlies have gathered to announce:
we are no longer watching this show ironically
@icegirlsunite (comment reply)
we lost him to ballroom but like… respectfully??? look at him????
@PuckBunniesDaily on Instagram:
I regret to inform everyone that Nate Eriksson smiling like that should be illegal.
We have lost a soldier. He is DOWN BAD.
SportsNet segment soundbite:
“We expected Eriksson to pick up some footwork and maybe some anger management strategies. We did not expect him to pick up America. The man looks like he’s playing Game 7 every week.”