Page 358 of Faking the Goal

"So go to Boston," she continues softly. "Win your game. Help your team get to the championship." Her eyes find mine again, glistening now. "Then come home to me."

A lump forms painfully in my throat.

"...Because when this is over," she says, her voice trembling ever so slightly, "I don't ever want us to pretend again."

My heart stops.

She searches my face for one long, quiet moment before her smile softens into something so achingly tender I feel it in every corner of my soul.

"I love you, Kentaro Azuma."

Those four words settle over me like the first warm sunrise after an endless winter, thawing every fear, every doubt, every sleepless night I've carried since the hospital. I feel them everywhere at once—in my chest, in my lungs, in the frantic beat of my heart that suddenly seems too small to contain everything she's just given me.

I laugh.

Not because anything is funny.

Because if I don't, I think I might actually cry.

I cup her face, memorizing every inch of it as though I could somehow carry this moment with me to Boston.

"I've been waiting so long to hear you say that," I whisper, my voice breaking despite my best efforts.

A watery laugh escapes her.

"I know."

"No..." I shake my head, smiling through the sting in my own eyes. "I don't think you do."

I press a kiss to her forehead.

"I love you too, Trouble."

Then another to the tip of her nose.

"And when this is all over..."

I rest my forehead against hers once more, my thumb brushing away the tear that slips down her cheek.

"I'm taking you on the first real date we've been trying to have for weeks."

Her lips curve into that smile I would spend the rest of my life protecting.

"And this time," I murmur, "nobody's going to interrupt us."

CHAPTER 45

TAYLOR

I have been edgy all day, but the closer the clock creeps toward seven, the more impossible it becomes to pretend I am holding myself together.

At six forty-three, I wipe my palms against my jeans for what has to be the hundredth time.

They are clammy again almost immediately.

I pace from the kitchenette to the narrow strip of space beside my bed, then turn around and make the same pointless journey back. Fourteen steps in one direction. Fourteen in the other. My apartment has never felt particularly spacious, but tonight the walls seem to have edged closer together, shrinking around me with every minute that disappears from the clock.

Seventeen minutes.