Page 122 of Ice Princesses
She shifts, just a little bit, enough that I can see her expression properly.
“What?” I ask quietly.
Her fingers tighten once at my waist before relaxing again.
“I don’t really know how people do this part,” she admits.
I blink once.
“What part?”
A faint smile touches her mouth, nervous and terrified, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on Isabella Pierce before, even at the peak of her career when the stakes were high.
“This.” She lifts one shoulder, and it’s the least casual thing I’ve witnessed in my life. All the intention is put into that single muscle movement. “I think I need to find a way to introduce you that is not ‘the hot coach I’m secretly in love with.’ People are going to think I’m obsessed with you.”
I stare at her for half a second before a laugh escapes me. “You were secretly in love with me?”
Her expression immediately flattens. “Cecilia.”
“Oh my god.” I press a hand dramatically to my chest. “The Ice Princess had a crush on me.”
“You are making this significantly harder than it needs to be.”
I grin despite myself, because watching Isabella Pierce lose control of a conversation she initiated might genuinely be one of my favorite experiences on Earth.
“Sorry,” I say, still smiling. “Please proceed.”
“First,” she says on an exhale, visibly regrouping, “I would like to apologize for my reaction when you told me about the job. Honestly, I thought you would come work with me. Nina drafted a job offer to present to you at the Grand Prix in France in November.”
“I— What?”
“Let me finish.” She looks directly at me again, so steady it almost undoes me. “I want you in my life. In an actual way. It’s very convenient that you are incredibly good at your job, too. But that’s not why I want you in my life, of course.”
Every sarcastic thought leaves my body immediately.
“And I know we still have so many things to figure out,” she continues, softer now. “The jobs.Wyoming. The Olympics. All of it. But none of that changes the fact that I am very, very in love with you.”
Jesus fuck.
I can actually feel my heartbeat in my throat.
“And,” she adds, and now there’s the faintest hint of doubt under her voice, “I would like you to be my girlfriend.”
I stare at her for a second too long because this woman is standing in front of me after publicly detonating her family and still somehow looks more nervous asking me this than she did during any of that.
“Yes,” I say immediately. Then, because apparently I’ve lost all dignity permanently, “Obviously yes.”
Her entire face softens. Her impeccable posture falters, like something finally, finally unclenched.
I move before I really think about it, taking two steps until I’m tackling her onto the couch, my hands sliding up into her hair as I kiss her slowly this time, carefully, because suddenly this feels frighteningly precious.
When I pull back, she’s still looking at me with that same expression.
“What?” I whisper.
“You said obviously.”
I laugh softly against her mouth.
