Chapter 33
“How long have you been playing on this?” The team doctor, Craig, asks as he wraps my wrist.
Confetti is falling around us, everyone else is celebrating our first win without Coach Masters, and here I am, sitting on my ass, grumbling because I couldn’t hide my wrist injury any longer.
Kind of hard to do when my fingers are double the size they usually are.
Not that I care.
We won!
Fuck you, Coach Masters.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” I say to Craig, refusing to make eye contact with him. I don’t want to lie, but I also don’t want him to know the truth. “This just happened in that last tackle. Did you see the guy? He was a tank.”
He stops wrapping my wrist and slowly brings his gaze to mine.
I smirk.
He raises a brow in disbelief.
“Mhm, and is that what you’re going to say when they interview you in a second?” He nods toward the camera crew making their way over to me. Sienna, the reporter is right at the front, and I blow out a breath. I can’t even hide from her, she’s a damn pit bull.
At least it’s a win today.
“Yup,” I pop out, pulling my hand away and admiring his handiwork. He’s strapped it so well, I almost forgot how painful it is.
“Woah, easy there.” Craig jumps back as Dax barrels over and practically throws himself onto the turf beside me.
“Dax?” I stare at him. “Are you dying?”
“Potentially,” he pants out dramatically with his hands on his knees. “I haven’t run that fast since preseason conditioning.”
“Why? Did you want to meet Sienna since your chances with Whit are out the window?”
He grins shamelessly. “No. It’s because I wanted a front-row seat.”
“To what? Your cardiovascular collapse?”
“Nah.” His smile widens as he looks over his shoulder. “To this.”
I frown and turn slightly, confused by whatever weird, cryptic nonsense he’s talking about.
The camera crew is nearby. Players are still celebrating around the end zone. Reporters are swarming the field.
What is Dax talking—
Everything inside me stops.
“Honey?”
She's running toward me, wearing my Raptors jersey as a dress with a big red bow in her hair.
I blink once.
Then again.
She’s still there.
Slowly, I turn to Dax. “Am I concussed?”
His grin is wide. “Oh, no. It’s real, brother.” He slaps my shoulder, jolting me into action. “Go get her.”
I'm moving before I've consciously told myself to move, pushing off my hurt wrist without thinking. Pain be damned.
My Honeycomb is here.
“THAT’S MY QUARTERBACK!” Dax whacks my ass as I start running, his laugh echoing over the noise. I don't care. I'm not focused on him anymore.
Nothing exists for me now except her.
There's only one person here who has ever mattered, and she's running toward me, wearing my fucking jersey.
When our eyes connect, she slows down to a stop and holds her arms out wide, almost as if she’s giving me the choice.
Not a chance in hell I’m slowing down now.
I eat up the remaining yards faster than any play I’ve made all season.
The second I reach her, my hands are already on her face.
Honey grips my forearms, smiling at me through teary eyes as she takes me in with that perfect smile of hers.
My thumb brushes across her cheek, catching a tear before it falls. The second I feel her smooth skin, I smile.
Yup. This is real.
Her gaze drops to my hand. “Zach, your wrist? Are you okay?”
I laugh breathlessly. “Honeycomb, do you seriously think I give a fuck about my wrist right now?”
Before I know it, I'm kissing her, putting everything I feel into it.
I missed you. I've been patiently waiting for you. I love you. Why the fuck did you make me wait this long? I want to be where you are.
Starving. I've been so damn starving for her.
For a few perfect seconds, the stadium disappears. We aren't standing in the middle of a packed stadium celebrating a win; it's just us. It’s just her mouth on mine and the overwhelming realization that I finally have my girl back.
The loud collective aww echoing around the stadium is the only thing that forces me to pull away.
Shit.
We’re on the jumbotron, and Sienna is standing beside us, waiting for me. Doesn’t she realize she’s cock-blocking me right now?
I immediately shift in front of her so the cameras only catch my back. The most important thing to me is to protect Honey first. I can figure everything else out later.
Honey stills against me for half a second before the jumbotron lights up overhead. I already know what’s on it. Us. Right there in the middle of the field.
My stomach tightens automatically as I wait for her to tense up the way she used to at St. Michael’s. For her smile to disappear, and for the panic to creep in.
Only it doesn't.
Her thumb is brushing against my wrist, and if anything, she's giving me a small smile as though she knows exactly why I stepped in front of her.
Honey’s always known me better than anyone else on earth. Every ugly part. Every protective instinct. Every fear. That’s what made her impossible to get over and completely impossible to stop loving.
She looks past my shoulder, straight at the camera, then toward the massive screen above us before settling back on me again.
Then, gently, she moves me aside.
My hands drop to her hips as her face appears on the jumbotron again. The stadium cheers.
“Honey, I thought—”
She cuts me off by rising onto her toes and kissing me hard enough to steal the rest of the sentence straight out of my mouth.
If the crowd was loud before, they’re deafening now.
When she pulls back, she drops back onto her heels, breathless. “I'm sorry, Z.”
“What for—”
“No, let me finish.” She swallows, gathering herself. “I’m sorry it took me this long to get here. I’m sorry for every time I ran away from you when I should’ve been running toward you.”
My grip tightens slightly on her hips.
“I love you. I have always loved you, and I have been trying to become someone worthy of that instead of just—” Another stop. She's searching for the right words, and I know the feeling.
“I spent months trying to build this version of myself,” she continues softly. “And I’m proud of her. I needed to become her.” Her thumbs brush against my face. “But there’s always been a part of me that was missing.”
I open my mouth to talk, but she hushes me by gently resting her finger on top of my lips.
“I’m not finished,” she says teasingly. “You’re the part that’s missing.”
Then she drops her hand from my mouth and turns it over for me to see.
My eyes lock onto her hand, and every thought in my head immediately disappears.
My ring.
The gold honeycomb engagement ring is blinding me under the stadium lights, and suddenly, I feel like I’m standing inside one of those dreams that got me through the worst parts of this season.
My ring isn’t just in the box anymore. It’s on her finger, proving she’s fucking finally mine forever.
For a second, I can’t process it. I just stare at her hand, waiting for my brain to catch up to what my heart already knows.
I lift my eyes to hers slowly, and she’s already crying. Smiling, but crying.
“Yes,” she whispers.
That’s it. Just yes.
“Yes?” I say in complete disbelief. There’s no way this is happening to me.
A watery laugh breaks from her as tears spill down her cheeks. “Yes.” Her voice cracks around the word. “There’s nothing in this world I want more than to marry you.”
There’s nothing left to say.
I kiss her again, pulling her tight against me.
Confetti rains from somewhere above, red and white falling around her hair and my shoulders while fifty thousand people scream like we just won the championship instead of a regular-season game.
But none of it compares to this.
Nothing ever will.
We pull apart, and she presses her face against my chest for a hug. I've got both of my arms around her, and I just hold her there, breathing the moment in while fifty thousand people go completely insane around us.
She pulls back after a moment and wipes her eye with the back of her hand.
Looks down at her hand.
Looks up at me, and then back to her finger.
“I almost put it on a hundred different times.”
I look down at the ring again while she smiles shakily.
“Every time I missed you,” she admits quietly. “Every time you made me laugh, or I hung up the phone wishing I was wherever you were.” Her eyes meet mine. “Tonight was just the first time I stopped talking myself out of it.”
Words feel useless after that.
So I kiss her again instead.
Honey laughs against my lips, her hands sliding up into my hair while Dax audibly breaks down in real time.
I think Sebi just shouted, “FINALLY,” but it barely registers.
I pull away and rest my forehead against hers.
“Brother, pull yourself together,” Reese says somewhere nearby.
“I can’t,” Dax yells back. “Love is real.”
Honey’s shoulders shake with laughter, and I just hold her tighter, because through every version of my life—good, bad, messy, impossible—it’s always come back to this girl.
Always back to her.
“Congratulations, Zach,” Sienna, the cockblock reporter, is still at my side, shoving a microphone in my face. “I think the stadium would like to hear from their newly engaged, winning quarterback.”
I frown, side-eyeing the mic. I don't move. I don't want to go and be the Zach Evans everyone else gets. I want to be here, with my fiancée forever.
Fuck. Did I just say that? Is Honey Sanderson my fiancée?
Yes. She fucking is.
My fingers press into Honey's hip, and she leans forward and presses a kiss to my cheek.
“Go talk to them.” She pulls back just enough so we're looking at each other. “I'll be right here waiting for you.”
I raise a brow. “Promise?”
“I promise. I'm happy right here with you.”