Page 126 of Playing Her Game

"You didn't have to do this."

"I know."

"Then why did you?"

He pulls me closer, "Because I know what it's like to not have a place to call home.”

I can't speak.

He brings my hands to his chest, keeping them there while he studies my face. "There's something else I need to tell you before I leave."

The words make my stomach dip. I’m not ready for him to say he won’t be here. “You’re leaving.”

"The season isn't over." His thumb moves across my knuckles. "But before I go, I need to say something, and I need you to listen to all of it."

I nod.

"I love you, Anna."

Everything around me seems to go quiet.

He doesn't rush to fill the silence. He doesn't ask me to say it back. He simply stands there, holding my hands, giving me the time to understand what he's told me.

"I love you," he repeats, more quietly. "And I want a future with you. Not just the next couple days. Not just until the season ends or until things get complicated. I mean the forever kind of future."

My eyes burn.

"But I need you to think about that," he says. "Really think about it. I don't want you saying it because you feel the same way right now, because we've been together every day, or because I've given you something you didn't expect. I don't want a promise you feel you owe me."

"Rez—"

"Let me finish."

I close my mouth.

"If you tell me you love me, I need you to mean it. I need you to know what you're choosing. I'm not asking you to promise me forever because I'm standing here telling you I want it. I want you to decide that for yourself." He exhales, his jaw tightening briefly. "And I need you to wait until the end of the season before you give me an answer."

I blink at him. "You're asking me to wait?"

"I'm asking you not to decide yet."

"Why?"

"Because I know myself." His mouth twists, but there's no humor in it. "If you tell me you love me, I'm going to want to hear it every day. If you tell me you don't, I'm going to spend every day trying to figure out how to change your mind. Either way, I'm going to be thinking about it when I should be thinking about hockey."

Despite everything, a small laugh escapes me.

He doesn't smile. "I'm serious, Anna. The season matters. My team matters. I can't afford to have my head somewhere else every time I step onto the ice. And I don't want you feeling like you have to give me an answer just because I'm asking for one."

I search his face, looking for the part of him that might be afraid of what I'm going to say.

I find it anyway. "You think I'll say no?"

"I think you should be free to say whatever you mean." His grip on my hands tightens slightly. "And I want you to have the time to figure out what that is."

I stare at him, my heart aching with the effort it takes not to tell him everything I feel. Because I could say it now. I could tell him that I love the way he makes room for me without making me feel small. That I love how he can be furious with the world and still handle me gently. That I love the man who bought me a house not to keep me, but to make sure I could always have a home without strings attached. I could tell him that, for the first time in my life, the future doesn't look like a list of obligations waiting to be fulfilled. It looks like a choice. And I want him in it. But he asked me to wait. So, I do.

I rise onto my toes and kiss him, pouring everything I can't say yet into it. His hands settle at my waist, and for a moment he holds me against him as though he's fighting the instinct to ask me again.