Page 169 of The Lies We Play

I told her I loved her.

I think I told her three times.

I hope I did.

Then later, the memory changes texture. Halston’s apartment.

The elevator closing behind us. His hand at the back of my neck. Neither of us speaking because words would have made the night too fragile. My jersey on him. My suit jacket is somewhere near the door. My body sore in that specific exhausted-celebratory way of a body that has been hit twice in the third period, drenched in champagne, photographed, hugged, shaken, praised, and then touched by the one man who knows exactly where not to press.

I remember him in bed, above me, with his shirt off.

That small, concentrated face he gets when he is doing something for me that requires his full attention. Halston can make tenderness look like a legal strategy. All focus. No wasted motion. As if pleasure is a problem he plans to solve either correctly or not at all.

I remember his mouth on my shoulder.

The sound he made there.

I remember his mouth moving lower.

The heat of it. The focus. The way Halston went quiet when he wanted to take me apart, as if making me lose control required the same attention he gave a closing argument. I remember my hand in his hair and the brutal, embarrassing speed of my own surrender. I remember not lasting as long as I usually do, which would bother me if he hadn’t looked at me afterward like I had given him something rare and dangerous.

Like my body giving out from want wasn’t failure.

Like it was proof.

My face gets hot now, along with the memory and the noon light and his arm across me.

That’s ridiculous.

I won the Cup last night.

I should be thinking about the parade. My parents. The team. The ring. The image of the captain lifting silver over his head while twenty thousand people lost their minds.

Instead, I am thinking about Halston’s mouth.

About Liv’s voice through a screen.

About the fact that everything I wanted most last night was split between two people who weren’t both in the room.

I turn my head carefully, just enough to look at him.

Halston’s lashes rest against his cheek. There is a faint mark low on his neck where I put my mouth and forgot to be careful. He’ll be annoyed when he sees it. He’ll say something dry about evidentiary negligence. He’ll button his shirt too high for two days. He’ll let me see it anyway.

My hand lifts before I decide to move.

I stop an inch from his hair.

This is always where it gets me. The pause before touching. The small permission that no one else sees. Halston gives me his body with more trust than he gives me his thoughts. Liv gives me her thoughts so fast and furious that I sometimes have to catch them with both hands, then guard the soft places beneath them until she’s shaking from the effort.

I love them differently.

I love them the same amount.

That should scare me.

It fucking does.

Halston’s fingers flex once against my chest.