Chapter 41
CHAPTER 41
GABE
I let the applause die down so Natalie can take her bow and soak up all the accolades and appreciation she deserves. Then, as the audience turns to go, I move against the flow—stepping toward the pond to emerge from between them, feeling like I’m taking my life in my hands.
Despite the cold, my palms are sweating in the new pair of Apollos gloves I grabbed from the team store to replace the ones I gave to Grayson. The clamminess started as I got out of my SUV, crossed the sidewalk, and made my way up the path between the snowman and Santa lights, to the pond.
When I first got here I lurked behind everyone. A couple of times I almost turned around to drive back to New York and give all this up as a bad idea. But I made myself stay. The potential prize is too big to not at least be in the game.
I know I want Natalie in my life for as long as she wants to be in it. And I’m certain this is the right thing to do and the right way to do it.
As the play got to Sir Percival’s final chance with Wendolyn, I inched my way around the edge of the audience until I was just feet away from where Natalie was standing with her aunt and Mrs. B.
Then it was Natalie I was watching, not the play.
Her lips were in almost constant motion, silently saying the kids’ lines with them. A beaming smile spread across her face every time there was a laugh. She clapped and whooped to egg on the crowd at all the right parts—not that she needed to. The audience was ahead of her every time, needing no encouragement because she’d done such a fucking good job.
The sight of her lit up my heart and made my stomach flip in a way that I’d thought only teenage crushes could, and removed any shred of doubt over whether I’m here for the right reasons and whether I’m doing the right thing.
And now, as the audience moves away, this is my moment.
I step forward and have set one foot on the mat covering the ice when she starts talking again, and the crowd turns back toward her.
Shit. And I’m already out here now, exposed.
I try to get back on land, to disappear and not detract from her glory.
“And, I have to confess,” Natalie tells her audience, “the idea to stage it on ice wasn’t mine.”
Is she about to give me credit for this whole idea? Jesus. I’m not having that.
Driven now only by the need to be sure she gets the mountain of praise she’s earned, I continue my journey toward her, past the kids who lined up on the mat to take their bow. There can’t be more than twenty feet between us now, but as my stomach flips and rolls and my heart pounds, it feels like the longest walk of my life.
“It was—” She’s distracted by muttering as more people spot me and nudge and nod in my direction.
Natalie follows their gaze, shielding her eyes and squinting into the bright lights behind me.
And suddenly the audience standing around the pond, the kids standing behind us, the chill of the evening, everything in the whole fucking world fades away and it’s just me and Nat looking at each other.
Her mouth drops open.
Somewhere someone starts a rhythmic clap and a chant of “Gabe! Gabe! Gabe!” and slowly the rest of the audience and all the play kids join in.
Natalie does not.
She looks at me like she wants the ice under my feet to crack open, sending me disappearing into the freezing water below forever.
Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. Maybe I can’t recover from disappearing and leaving a note. Maybe I’ve put myself in an unrecoverable position.
I have never felt more vulnerable in my life. My heart might as well be on the outside of my chest, and someone might as well be throwing punches at it.
This is why I don’t do things like this. This is why I’ve wrapped myself in that standoffish loner shell for so long.
But, holy shit, if Natalie is willing to forgive me, it will make shedding that shell and crushing it into a million pieces so fucking worthwhile. And I haven’t come this far to not take that risk, no matter how big it is.
I keep my eyes on Nat. “Hi.”
At my first word, the chanting dies down and I come back to reality, painfully aware that everyone’s eyes are on us. We’re at the center of the stage. The stars of a new show. An unexpected encore.
And as accustomed as I am to having my every movement scrutinized by thousands of people in the stands and millions more watching at home, no audience has mattered as much as this one of probably a little over a hundred.
Natalie moves toward me. “Let’s get out of the way,” she mumbles, grabbing my elbow and urging me off the ice and out of the spotlight.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply loudly enough for at least the front row to hear.
“What are you doing?” she asks through gritted teeth, her brows pinched just below the edge of her blue hat.
Her eyes burn a hole in me, making my stomach twist, and suddenly my plan seems like the worst idea in the world. But fuck it, I came here to do this. I did not get where I am today without being prepared to go for the vital buzzer-beating clutch play.
And this is the most vital clutch moment of my life.
But none of the players are where I’d planned for them to be. I’d planned for the audience to be leaving by now, for me to be standing alone on the ice with Natalie. I need to pivot, adapt to the new circumstances. Fast.
I turn toward Aunt Lou. “O Mayor of Warm Springs,” I say in a loud voice. “I am here to declare how taken I am with your beautiful niece. And though, lo, I have been an idiot of epic proportions, I am here to beseech her to forgive me.”
There’s a warm laugh from the audience. But a quick glance at Nat finds her staring at me like I just climbed out of a spaceship and she’s not sure if I’m friend or foe.
There’s no backing out at this point, not without looking even more of a fool than I already do. “Do you, O illustrious mayor,” I ask, “grant me the privilege of permission to try?”
Nat glares at her aunt and shakes her head.
Aunt Lou claps and bounces a little at the knees like this is the most exciting thing she’s seen in a very long time.
“O, dear Gabriel, Knight of the Sticks, King of the Pucks, I grant you all the permission you need to put a smile back on my beloved Natalie’s visage.”
Excellent improv from Aunt Lou. I couldn’t have planned it better.
Natalie widens her eyes at her aunt, giving her a hard stare that clearly displays her distress that Lou is not only playing along, she’s doing it with gusto.
I take Nat by the elbows and turn her to face me.
“Then here, in front of this gathering of townsfolk, I ask you, Natalie of Bourne, if you will hear my plea. My grovels, if you will.”
She digs her teeth into her bottom lip for a second, then meets my eyes. The spark I saw for the first time when I ripped off that bunny head is back.
“This had better be good,” she says, barely moving her lips and at a volume for only my ears.
The claps and chants start up again, but this time it’s “Grovel! Grovel! Grovel!”
With the sexiest of her mischievous smiles, Natalie takes a step back and joins in. “Grovel! Grovel! Grovel!”
Nicely played. I have never appreciated a challenge more. A challenge to bring my best game. A challenge to play to win.
But no season opener or playoff decider could make me as nervous as this. I have way more confidence in my odds of winning the cup than I do of winning Natalie right now.
It doesn’t help that I’m in front of her home crowd. This is like playing an away game against a team with the most ardent and loyal fans imaginable. I don’t only need to turn Nat around, I need to get her whole town on my side too.
I take a deep breath of the cold evening air. What the hell was it that I’d prepared to say?
“Okay, here goes.” It’s time to drop the weird play language and be myself. And that’s possibly the most terrifying part of all this.
“I knew from the moment I pulled off your bunny head that you were different.” There are mutterings of what? accompanied by puzzled looks and shrugs. “Those blue eyes hit mine and woke up something inside me that had been lying dormant my whole life.”
Now she digs her teeth into her top lip but never takes her eyes from my face.
“I’m like Wendolyn,” I continue, finally remembering this first part that I rehearsed over and over on the drive up here. “My heart was closed and frozen. Until that moment when you thawed it in an instant. I’ve been trying to ram it back into the freezer ever since. But goddammit, it just keeps melting every time I so much as think of you, picture your face, or recall the scent of your hair.”
I have to stop to clear my throat before I can continue.
“And you are Sir Percival,” I tell her, “with a heart that’s wide open and generous with its love. ”
I’m all out of rehearsed speeches now.
“Just look at all this.” I gesture to the kids, their parents, and the gathered locals. “None of this would have happened without you. At least not in this way. Not in a way that creates the atmosphere I could feel even when I was hiding right at the back over there. And don’t you dare try to give me credit for it. This is all you. You did this. The credit is all yours because of that indefinable special spirit you have inside you.”
Good God, the smile on her face, the shine in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks all make me want to grab her right now. But I have a plan and, goddammit, I’m going to see it through.
“I know I was a total—” I look around at the kids. “Well, let’s just say I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory with the way I left.”
Natalie shakes her head. “You were a total buttface.”
A ripple of snickers runs through the kids.
“Is it okay to say that?” I ask in a whisper out of the corner of my mouth.
She nods.
“I am here to make up for being the ugliest, hairiest buttface anyone ever did see. And I have only this one chance to win your heart, not the three that Sir Percival had because, frankly, if I blow this one, I’m toast.” More snickers as I look over the first couple of rows of the audience, most of whom are nodding.
Yup. There’s no coming back from failure under these dramatic circumstances.
“So, I’m pulling out all the stops. Bringing my A game right from the drop.” I unzip my jacket and she raises her eyebrows.
I wink at her instinctive flirtatious response as I put my hand inside my jacket. “I come bearing a gift. A gift that I hope will win your heart. I know I’m not worthy of you. I truly do. But I made a mistake. A really foolish, thoughtless, selfish mistake. But I think your heart is so big that it could forgive someone who realizes they are a total buttface and promises to never partake of any buttfacery ever again.”
She’s trying so hard to keep a straight face, and I fucking love her for that.
“Please, take this, and tell me you’ll be mine.” And I pull out of my jacket the plush pink piglet she won at the Christmas festival and left at my place.
She immediately covers her face. And since her glove is about twice the size of her hand, all that’s left for me to see are her eyes peering over it.
They shimmer in the lights, bluer and richer than ever. And, I think, on the brink of tears.
My heart hangs in the silent air between us alongside the pig I’m holding out to her.
Come on, Nat. Come on. Take it. Please, take it. Take the fucking pig.
The crowd is quiet now, just the odd crunching of snow as people shuffle on the spot. It’s like the whole town is holding its breath.
Her eyes lock onto mine. And, as a full fat tear slowly creeps over the brim of one eye, she slowly reaches out and takes the piglet.
The roar that bursts around us would rival thousands of fans cheering an overtime goal.
Instinctively I spread my arms to scoop her up.
But she holds out her hand and takes a step back.
A shiver runs over me from the top of my head to my feet, dragging my stomach down with it .
Did she just take the pig to be polite? Does it not mean what I, and the rest of the town, think it means?
She removes her hand from her face and brushes away the tear in one swift motion to disguise what she’s doing.
Then she looks at the pig and smiles.
“Okay, Woods. Here’s the thing.” She sniffs, snapping herself back to reality. “Like you told me. I need to appreciate my worth. I need to stand up for myself. Fight my corner. Not worry about people liking me.”
Jesus, where is this going? “Yes, but not when I’m telling you I’m in love with you in front of the whole town.”
Her eyes snap up from the pig to me.
“You’re in love with me?” She says it in such a breathy whisper I doubt even the front row could hear her. In fact there’s a definite muttering of “What did she say?”
“Yes,” I whisper back. “I’m in love with you. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have given you the pig if I wasn’t.”
“Okay, anyway,” she says louder. “If I need to put a higher value on myself, then I think I’m worth a whole lot more than you skipping town without talking to me and just leaving me a note.”
“It was a good note though, right?”
She’s trying to stop herself from smiling now, nodding as she sucks in her lips.
“The pig’s undeniably cute,” she says once she’s got a grip. “But what else have you got?”
I glance around the locals, and back to Aunt Lou and Mrs. B. Every one of them is nodding.
“You are a tough crowd.” I rub my forehead and rack my brain. All the amazing things I’ve been dreaming Nat and I would do together in a future life have now flown from my head as I try to squeeze out some ideas of how I can sweeten this pot.
“I’ll let you decorate the house with as many lights and bonkers Christmas ornaments as you like every year.”
She shrugs. “I’d do that anyway.”
“Oooh.” I can use a plan I’ve already partially thought through. “I’ll take you to Italy and we’ll go eat the Amoroso Gelati ice cream at the actual shop where it’s made.” She looks impressed, so I soldier on with this one. “While we’re there, we’ll go to Rome and Venice and the Romeo and Juliet balcony in Verona.” If she wasn’t with me already, surely Shakespeare will get her.
“That sounds like a truly amazing trip.” She strokes the pig from nose to tail. “But, like Wendolyn, I’m not into flashy gifts. I prefer things that are small, meaningful, and are special because only you would have thought of them.”
I lower my voice. “You’re killing me here, you know that?”
She nods. Painfully slowly.
And she’s right. I was a total fucking shit to her. She should make me work for it, make me grovel, make me prove how I appreciate every bone in her body, every hair on her head, every beat of her heart.
I put my fingers to my temples, wishing I could wring a winning idea out of my gray matter, an idea that would show how much I love and adore her.
“Okay.” My voice silences the crowd’s mutterings. “Every day we’re apart, and there’ll be plenty of those with games and stuff, but on every single one of them, I will write you a letter.”
An aw ripples through the audience from what sounds like every female voice out there .
“Better than the one you left behind at the house?” she asks.
“Yes. Much better. Because every single one of them will say the opposite of goodbye.”
“You’d do that, even though writing love letters would show that you’re all squishy and vulnerable and not the big tough hockey guy?” she asks.
“I just gave you a toy pink pig in front of an audience, for fu—” Oops. “For goodness’ sake. If that hasn’t trampled my fear of vulnerability into the ground, I don’t know what would.”
I take her non-pig-holding, giant-gloved hand in mine. “ I might be the hockey tough guy on the ice, but that’s not who I really am. And I think you saw that. And that’s terrifying. But I will be squishy and vulnerable for you every day for the rest of my life if you’ll let me. I know that’s fast. It’s all been very quick. But, as sure as a pig is a pig, I’m certain I love you.”
As her eyes finally overflow, she reaches up to fling her arms around my neck. I bend down to let her, wrapping my arms around her waist as cheers erupt around us.
She buries her face in my neck, her breath warming my cold skin.
“I’m sure I love you too,” she says.
I thought she’d already unfrozen my heart, melted it and turned it to slush, but now it swells to a size I never imagined, making itself large enough to both love her and accept all the love I know she has to give.
I straighten and take her face in my hands. “I have no idea how it’ll work with you in New Orleans, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Oh,” she says as I thumb away her tears. “I’m not going. I have nothing to prove to anyone. Not even to myself. I’m staying here. I love it here.”
What?
“Warm Springs is where my heart lies,” she adds. “And now it lies with you too.”
A giant wave of relief washes over me as I drop a kiss between her eyebrows. Jesus, that makes everything so much easier. I’ll get to see her so much more than I thought. This really could not have gone better.
Another chant is gathering steam in the crowd.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“Shall we?” I ask. “Can I be the Sir Percival to your Wendolyn?”
She nods.
And our lips meet, creating a tiny spot of warmth in the cold Christmas Eve air of a small town with a giant heart.