“Girl, for the health and safety of your hair, I think I need to zip tie your hands behind your back.”
I smirked at Riley, who just blinked at me with her hair half-braided over her shoulder. This was at least the fiftieth time she’d unbraided it just to braid it again as we all waited for the bowl announcements.
Her little eyebrows tugged in together as she released her grip and let her brunette waves tumble free. “My stomach is in knots.”
“It’s going to be us,” Giana said reassuringly, smoothing a hand over Riley’s back. “We’re almost undefeated and have been in the top four for weeks.”
“We were number five before the game against Maine,” Riley argued.
Giana’s lips flattened. “For one week. One week, Riley. Just… breathe.”
Riley nodded and let out a sigh, her eyes flicking to the television screen that we were all gathered around. It was a mad house at the Pit, the entire team sardined into the living room. There were guys piled on the couch, the beanbags, and all over the floor. My dad and the rest of the coaching staff stood along the back wall where I was with the girls.
Holden was in a recliner off to the left of the television, laughing at Leo as he did some sort of celebration dance with an invisible football tucked into his side. I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the astronomical noise, but I loved how easily he smiled, how while Riley was nervous, Holden seemed to be nothing but confident and sure that they were about to be announced as one of the teams in a playoff bowl game.
He was still smiling at something when his eyes drifted to mine, and he winked, making me blush before I tucked my hair behind my ear and casually looked toward the television and then back to the girls.
We were almost too good at hiding now.
“Is Mary at work?” Giana asked.
I shook my head. “Nah, not today. She usually has Sundays off.”
“How come she didn’t come with you?”
I snorted, folding my arms over my chest as I leaned against the wall. “I only got her over here for that party earlier this semester because I physically dragged her ass and promised tequila. No way would she come willingly during the daylight, sober.”
“What’s her problem with the team, anyway?” Riley asked, almost like she was offended.
I shrugged. “All I know is she’s made off-handed comments about Leo being an asshole. Maybe they have history and she’s made up her mind about the rest of the squad based on his behavior.”
“Well, if Leo is our rep, then I can’t say I’m surprised,” Giana teased. Then, her eyes darted to where she had one of the cameramen from the team set up near the front of the TV. She had him here to catch the team’s reaction to the news. We were seconds away from announcements now, and he was tapping away on his phone, not paying attention. “Excuse me,” she muttered, and then she weaved through the crowd.
“God, I’m going to be sick,” Riley said when she was gone.
I chuckled, rubbing her shoulder as the noise in the room died down a bit, everyone tuning in to the analysts on screen.
I glanced at Holden, who rocked sightly in the recliner like maybe he was a bit nervous. Maybe he was just so good at hiding it that he even had me fooled.
I kept my eyes on him, and right when Zeke stood up and hushed everyone, cranking up the volume on the television, Holden angled his head.
All the commotion faded to the background when that man looked at me.
There was playfulness in his gaze — a tease, a dare — but there was also something more. Something… weighted. My heart stopped in my chest before galloping back into rhythm, and Holden swallowed, as if he sensed my pulse even from across the room.
Cheers erupted in the house, but they were muted, distant. My eyes stayed locked on Holden as everyone jumped up from their seats around us, hugging and clapping and running around the room in a celebratory frenzy.
They’d made it.
They’d made it to the playoffs.
The corner of my mouth ticked up, and Holden’s mirrored it. It felt like hours that we watched each other across the room, though I knew it was only seconds, because in the next breath, Riley was hugging me, and Holden had been picked up onto two of his teammates’ shoulders.
Sound and sight rushed back to me at once, the level of it deafening as the team carried on. Riley ran from me to Zeke, crashing into him and nearly tackling him to the ground with a kiss that some of the other teammates booed and hissed at in jest. I laughed when Clay tried to one up him by dipping Giana back in a dramatic fashion. She flushed so hard I thought her face would combust into flames, but she didn’t push him away, didn’t even pretend like she didn’t want him all over her.
JB tapped me on the shoulder, and then we briefly hugged, his smile wide. “Looks like we’re off to the races,” he said.
“Looks like it.”
Dad was right behind him, clapping Coach Hoover on the shoulder in a fierce hug. When they released, I held up my palm.
“Nice job, Pops,” I said as he clapped his hand against mine.
“Not bad for my first year as coach, eh?”
“Not bad at all,” I agreed.
He was pulled away by a member of the staff a second later, and I smiled, happier than I realized to see him so happy. After all we’d been through, he deserved it.
When the immediate people around me had gone on to other teammates to celebrate, I stood against the wall, watching Holden as he high-fived and hugged the entire team.
Clay jumped on top of the coffee table — which made a cracking sound that had everyone gasping and then laughing when he made a dramatic show of standing perfectly still as not to break it — then, he launched into a speech.
He held the team’s full attention, and as he spoke, Holden looked at me again. This time, he nodded subtly toward the back door — the one that led to the garden. Slowly, he made his way out, and I waited a bit before doing the same.
My ears were ringing when I stepped into the chilly afternoon air, shoving my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie. I made sure no one inside was watching me before I rounded to the right of the house where the bench was.
Holden sat there waiting for me.
It was bright and sunny, but freezing, and his cheeks were already red as he grinned up at me. A puff of white came from my lips when I sat down beside him and said, “Congratulations, Cap.”
“We did it.”
I chuckled. “You did.”
“No, we,” he corrected, pulling me into his arms. I was instantly warmer — body and soul. “I couldn’t have survived this season without you. I thought I was done when…”
He stopped, and I nodded. “I know.”
Holden shook his head, his eyes flicking between mine as he pulled me closer. “You were the last thing I expected this season.”
“Sorry to disrupt your plans.”
“Feel free to disrupt the rest of my life.”
A breath of a laugh found me as my cheeks heated, something about the permanence of that joke making my stomach erupt with butterflies.
“Come here,” Holden said, and he tilted my chin with his knuckles until I lifted my gaze to his. Those knuckles brushed against my cheek then, his green eyes a brilliant hue of emerald in the bright afternoon sun overhead. He swallowed, opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, and then closed it again.
“What?” I breathed.
His jaw was tight, but then he let out a little breath, shaking his head. Instead of saying another word, he lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me as his brows furrowed like it pained him to do so.
I didn’t know what he was going to say, but I felt it, too — whatever it was. The heaviness, the weight of something both of us were a little afraid of, just as much as we were enamored by it.
But it didn’t need to be put into words right now.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in closer, my fingers tangling in the hair at his nape. He crushed me to him, both of us sighing contently at the connection.
Kissing him felt natural, inevitable, like it was the one thing in this world I was always meant to do.
And on a freezing cold day in early December, on a little bench in a garden his hands built, Holden Moore claimed me in every way there was to be claimed. I melted into him, surrendering, letting the unfamiliar, all-encompassing joy wash over me and take me under.
My eyes fluttered shut, mind clearing and body desperate for the hour when the party would be over, and everyone would be gone, and I could sneak into his bedroom — the same way he had snuck into my heart.
For that moment in time, in Holden’s arms, everything was perfect.
Until I opened my eyes and found my father standing behind him.
