Page 68 of Top Shelf

I dislike the word more every time she uses it. Especially when she is standing in our bedroom with my number across her chest and my ring catching the light on her finger. I have seen thousands of people wearing this number in the stands over the years, but it has never meant anything beyond hockey.

On her, it feels much different, and I have to keep reminding myself it is still only a number.

She catches me staring and lifts an eyebrow. I should be careful. I still haven’t put my tie on, and I’m ten minutes behind the schedule I keep religiously on game days. But I also have Heidi Grant standing in our bedroom, wearing my number after I’ve spent four nights imagining her mouth and her hands all over me.

She steps closer and takes the tie from my hand. “You’re gonna be late.”

“I know.”

“Then stop looking at me like you’ve forgotten there’s a hockey game.”

I have not forgotten. I simply do not care.

Her fingers slide beneath my chin, adjusting my collar while her ring brushes my throat as she loops the tie into place.

“Hold still,” she murmurs.

“I am still.”

“You’re breathing at me.”

“Yes. I am alive.”

Her mouth curves, but there is color high on her cheeks now, and I know she feels it too. The apartment is too quiet, filled with our confessions from earlier, and I keep my hands at my sides because if I put them on her waist, I will need a better reason to remove them than being late for warmup.

She tightens the knot, then smooths the tie down the front of my shirt.

“There,” she says softly. “Devastating.”

I catch her wrist before she can step back, and her pulse beats faster beneath my thumb.

“Thank you.”

Heidi stares back at me, and I’m a second from tugging her closer when my phone buzzes on the dresser with the alarm I set for myself to leave by.

She blinks and pulls in a breath. “You really are gonna be late.”

With a nod, and my eyes still burning into hers, I release her wrist.

***

At the arena, people notice her beside me. Staff, security, and a junior admin near the entrance whose eyes drop to her ring before he pretends they haven’t. We have kept the marriage private, but not hidden. Anton and his family need to believe it’s real, just like my side of the family blindly believes it so strongly, they’re still messaging me plans about a celebration in Sweden.

Heidi’s shoulders stay relaxed, but I see the way her fingers touch the edge of her jacket, the small flex of her hand with the realisation she’s being watched. I walk her through the family entrance with my hand at her back and say nothing to the reporters calling my name.

The family area swallows her into noise and light. Zoe is there, and Lulu, and Tamara, already half-laughing over something on Lulu’s phone. Heidi glances once toward the small merch station set up near the lounge, then back at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

It is never nothing with Heidi, but I leave before I can find out.

Warmups come with cold air, arena noise, and the clean snap of pucks off sticks. I circle once, take a pass from Eli, shoot, then turn toward the glass where the friends and family section is.

Heidi has changed. She is no longer wearing the cropped top from the apartment. She has put on my jersey. My actual Colorado Storm jersey.

KARLSSON stretches across her shoulders in white block letters, and the loose blue and burgundy sleeves of it swallow her arms. Her hair is down, curled against her shoulders, and she stands between Zoe and Lulu looking far too pleased with herself.