Chapter 40
THE BIG COMEBACKOWSKI
Declan
“You don’t have to clean your room for my sake,” I say to Ginny for the fourth time this afternoon. I pat the bed beside me. “The only space I care about is clear enough for my intentions.”
She plants her fists on her hips in a newly exposed area of the floor and shakes her head at me. “This isn’t for you. It’s like—it’s like my mess has served its purpose and now I need to clear it away. And look. Do you see this?”
I shake my head as she grabs an inside-out dress from the pile to her right. It’s ivory with spaghetti straps and looks vaguely like the kitchen curtains I remember from my grandma’s house. “I don’t think I see what I’m supposed to see.”
“I’ve been looking for this for two years.”
I grin, then try to pull it back in.
“Go on. Say it,” she says.
“You haven’t had any pets since you got here, have you? We’re not going to find their bones?”
“Ass.” She throws a magazine at me, but she’s smiling.
I’ve been ordered to not help, and I’m happy enough to watch.
She bends over, I see the backs of her legs and fantasize about her ass.
She squats facing me, and I get to see her cleavage.
It’s foreplay.
The kind where I’m already hard as granite and will be ripping her dress off her the moment she’s ready.
“Some people work better after sex,” I tell her. “Maybe we should see if that’s true for you.”
She ignores me, but she does turn around and bend over again, this time shaking her ass at me.
“I love you, you little tease,” I murmur.
She peeks at me from between her legs, a wide, pink-cheeked, sparkly-eyed, upside-down smile my reward.
“What’s that?” she says. “You love me being a tease?”
“I love you, even when you’re a tease.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it.
I’d rather watch Ginny watching me watch her shake her ass.
“All that blood’s gonna rush to your head and you’re gonna fall over into your mess and I’ll never be able to find you,” I tell her.
“Maybe this is a test to see if you’ll swim in and save me,” she replies with a grin, still upside down, now inching her dress higher to show me more of the backs of her legs.
My phone stops, but starts immediately again.
Her brows pinch together.
Mine do too.
Dammit.
“If Zander’s having boyfriend trouble, he’s on his own this time,” I mutter as I pull my phone out.
But it’s not Zander.
It’s my agent.
I sit straighter.
Ginny snaps back to upright and immediately sways.
I’m stifling a snort of laughter as I leap off the bed and steady her. “Told you so.”
“Dick,” she says without any heat while she stares distantly like she’s letting the dots clear from her vision.
She’s the best.
My favorite person in the universe.
Hilarious and full of heart like she always was, but with a readiness to call me out when I’m an ass.
On purpose.
To test her to see if she’ll keep calling me out.
I scoop her into my arms and make a show of stepping over her mess as my phone lights up against the sheet.
Ten missed text messages, and my agent’s calling again.
“I think you need to get that,” Ginny says.
I settle us both on the bed, her in my lap, and grab the phone. “’Sup, Yvette?”
“Are you sitting down?” she says.
My heart thumps hard. “Yes. Why?”
“Eddie’s here on the line with us.”
“Afternoon, Foxy,” my producer says.
“Eddie. You get the latest from Shade?”
“You’re terrible at wine-making.”
Ginny huffs.
I grin. “People love watching a guy make a fool of himself.”
“Initial testing suggests you’re not wrong,” Eddie says.
“My three million followers suggest I’m not wrong,” I reply.
“Be that as it may,” Yvette interrupts, “the Thrusters’ GM is banking on you not making a fool of yourself in your return to the ice.”
I choke.
Actually choke.
One minute, I’m breathing fine, my pulse humming in anticipation, and then the next, I’m wheezing through a coughing fit.
Ginny’s staring at me wide-eyed.
She heard that.
She crawls off me, barely missing my nuts with her knee, and dives for my water bottle.
Flow whines from the foot of the bed.
“If he’s coughing like that, you’re doing it wrong,” Dori calls through the door.
“Foxy?” Eddie says. “Did we lose you?”
“Give him a minute,” my agent says. “This is how he reacts to startling news.”
“Is it really?” Ginny murmurs to me while I gulp water.
I shake my head and put my phone on speaker. “I’m here,” I rasp out.
“Your latest Foxy Goes There video caught some attention in the Thrusters’ front office,” Yvette says. “The pottery disaster. It reminded them of their mascot.”
“We gave them a sample of the footage from the winery documentary,” Eddie adds.
“So if you’re still in shape—”
“I’m in fucking shape,” I interrupt.
I look at Ginny.
She’s staring at the phone, not looking back at me.
“They’d like to invite you to join them for morning skates for a few weeks,” Yvette says.
“With Shade documenting everything,” Eddie chimes in.
“Are you for real?” I ask.
Getting back on the ice—back in the show—pro hockey—this is what I’ve wanted.
What I’ve been waiting for.
Dream come true.
But Ginny—Ginny’s my other dream come true.
I don’t want to leave her.
Not when we’re in such a good place.
“We’re completely for real,” Yvette says. “You’d be on contract with the Thrusters and get a producer credit for the documentary as well.”
“I—” I start, and I have to stop.
Suck in air.
Breathe.
The excitement rushing through my veins is undeniable.
I want to be back on the ice.
I didn’t truly think this could happen, that I’d get a comeback opportunity, but it’s here.
Now.
“They want you immediately,” Eddie says.
“Health checks, skills observations, the usual,” Yvette says.
“If you make the team, we wouldn’t even have to air the wine stuff.”
I grip Ginny’s hand. “You’re fucking airing the winery documentary.”
“If you make the team, you won’t have time to be there for the rest of the scheduled filming,” Eddie says. “Shade either.”
“Teams don’t have tryouts in the middle of the season,” I reply.
Yvette and Eddie both start talking at once, but then Eddie’s voice cuts out like Yvette’s put her on mute.
“The Thrusters are down four D-men,” Yvette says. “Bringing you out of retirement could solve a major problem for them. Potentially sooner than a few weeks.”
I look at Ginny.
She’s watching me with a half smile, her eyes a mix of sad but hopeful.
I don’t need her to tell me what she thinks I should do.
I know what she’ll say.
It’s Ginny.
She’ll say I need to go for it.
“Let me sleep on it,” I say to Yvette.
“Need an answer tomorrow, Declan. This is relatively unorthodox, and while the Thrusters are the team I trust most in the league when it comes to unorthodox, they might change their minds if we don’t commit quickly.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll send you the details on the offers. Both offers. From the Thrusters and from Eddie.”
“I’ll get back to you first thing in the morning.”
I hang up, letting her handle whatever she needs to on her end, and I look at Ginny.
“You have to do it,” she says.
“I don’t.”
“Declan. This is your dream. You have to do it.”
Copper Valley’s in Virginia.
Clear across the country from Sonoma and Ginny.
And I haven’t talked to Alex yet.
He has a four-day break from games coming up in two weeks. I was going to fly out and talk to him in person about Ginny and me then.
I need to talk to him in person when it won’t affect his game.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I say to Ginny.
That’s the raw truth.
I don’t want to leave her.
Not tomorrow.
Not in two weeks.
Not ever.
Her eyes shimmer like she’s fighting back tears, but she’s still smiling at me. “I’ll come visit.”
“I can’t ask you—”
“This is what you do for people you love.” She crawls across the bed to climb into my lap again, straddling me and holding my face in her hands. “I love you. And I want—I want you to have all of your dreams come true. You have to do this, Declan. It’s your dream.”
“Maybe I have a new dream.”
“Then you can have both of your dreams.”
“Ginny—”
“Shh.” She puts a finger to my lips. “A month ago, I knew in my heart that my family here—Mabel and Pip and Olivia and Samantha and Heath and Cricket and Dori and Lav and Fluffy and the chickens—that they were all I needed to be happy. That I didn’t need a man to love me.
That I wasn’t capable of healthy love. That I wasn’t worthy.
But then there was you. And I—I love you, Declan. I love you so much it hurts.”
I grip her hips and pull her closer. “I’ve always loved you. You matter more than anything—more than hockey, more than friends, more than my family—”
“I used to think love was something you had to earn. But it’s not. It’s something you freely give. It’s a gift. It’s work. It’s an honor and a privilege. It’s a responsibility. And my duty, as someone who loves you so much it hurts, is to support you in your search for what makes you happy.”
“You make me happy.”
“I can’t be your only happiness.”
I swallow hard, my own eyes burning. “I’ve played hockey, Ginny. I have my memories. I have friends. I have the best family. I have you. I don’t need a comeback too.”
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The one thing you told me you wanted for yourself when you got here.”
I suck in a hard breath and drop my head to her breasts.
“If I weren’t in the picture, would you do it?”
“Unfair question. You are the picture.”
“Declan. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be here. And I’ll come see you.”
I hug her tighter. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” A soft whimper slips out of her lips, but she takes a deep breath and repeats herself. “No. Never. I don’t want you to go. But I can’t tell you I love you and then not do everything in my power to help see your dreams come true.”
“I love you so much.”
“We were never supposed to work,” she says.
“You were a dick. I was a mess. Then a bigger mess. You’re still best friends with my ex.
On paper, we’re a terrible match. But you—you make me feel seen and adored and valued.
Understood. Forgiven. Worthy. No matter where you are in the world, you’ll be my heart.
Go, Declan. Go do this. For you. And for us.
Because I’ll have regrets if you don’t.”
I can’t hold her tight enough. Show her big enough how much I love her.
But I try.
I kiss her and touch her and pull us both down, desperate to be as close to her as I can while we’re still together.
She’s not wrong.
Playing hockey again—it’s everything I’ve wanted since retirement.
I don’t know if I deserve both—both Ginny and hockey—but she believes in me.
She believes in me and loves me and she wants me to live my life to the fullest.
“I love you,” I pant as I help her pull her dress off.
“I love you,” she pants back as she strips me down to my boxer briefs and out of them.
She’s done it.
She’s bent time and space itself, both of them becoming meaningless as I make love to her here in her bedroom, this place that’s so Ginny, so comfortable, so right.
So home.
Where I belong.
Where I’ll always come back to.
For all eternity.