Page 179 of Wild Card 13

Ty Burns had always looked at the ice like it owed him nothing but might give him everything if he was fast enough, strong enough,brave enough to take it. He did not see danger where I saw distance. He did not see leaving where I saw being left.

He saw a door opening. And because I loved him, I wanted him to walk through it. Because I loved him, I wanted to stand in front of it with both hands out and ask where I fit in his new life.

The selfishness of that thought made my throat ache.

“That makes sense,” I said.

He looked over quickly. “Yeah?”

“It does.” I turned toward him more fully, gathering my skirt so it wouldn’t catch beneath my heel. “You want the NHL. You’ve always wanted the NHL.”

His eyes flicked to mine.

I smiled because I needed him to see it. Because I needed myself to feel it. “You should take the chance.”

Ty lifted our joined hands and kissed my knuckles, quick and warm and entirely too sweet for the ache beginning beneath my ribs. “Boston and Fargo,” he said.

I laughed a little because the alternative was feeling too much too soon. “Very glamorous.”

“Extremely. We’ll be insufferable.”

“We already are.”

“True.” His grin flashed. “We can do it.”

There was no hesitation. No doubt. No space left for fear to enter because he had filled all of it with certainty.

I wanted that certainty so badly. I leaned toward it the way plants leaned toward windows. “We can,” I whispered.

The truck slowed at a red light. The world outside glowed with brake lights and streetlamps and the soft blur of spring evening through old glass. Ty looked over at me, and for once there was no joke waiting on his mouth.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I sighed happily.

His smile came back slowly, but the emotion stayed in his eyes. “Then we’ll figure it out.”

I nodded.

I believed him.

Not because the plan made sense. Not because either of us understood the weight of flights and schedules and missed calls andlonely nights and the way dreams could ask for more of a person than love knew how to give.

I believed him because he was Ty.

Because I was eighteen.

Because I was wearing a green dress on prom night with his hand wrapped around mine and a future waiting in two different directions, and for that stretch of road, hope still felt stronger than fear.

We reached the Lakeside Pavilion twenty minutes later, late enough that cars already lined the lot and music pulsed faintly from inside the building. Strings of lights glowed along the roofline, reflecting against the dark surface of the lake beyond the lawn. Girls in bright dresses crossed the walkway in clusters, laughing too loudly, lifting their skirts away from the damp grass. Boys stood near the entrance pretending they were not nervous.

Ty parked at the far edge of the lot.

Inside, prom waited. Noise. Friends. Pictures. Dancing. The kind of night people told you to remember because they did not understand that memory chose for itself.

Ty turned off the engine.

The sudden quiet wrapped around us.