First things first: not forgetting the words and ending up in the top ten of national anthem flops next to Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl.
“O’er the land of the freeeee,” I sing, crushing the high note like every true Broadway performer is trained to do. The deafening sound of cheering as I continue to hold the note makes it impossible to even hear myself.
One more lungful of air for the final line, my eyes falling shut of their own accord. “And the hooooome of the braaaaaaaaave.”
Opening my eyes, I see the massive American flag making its way around the arena over the heads of the screaming and whistling fans, popping against the backdrop of thousands of circling gray towels.
Hockey has always been my favorite sport to watch live, and playoffs and the subsequent Stanley Cup carry an electricity with them you can’t find anywhere else.
I finally chance looking at the players on the ice. Nate is wiping underneath his eye, but all thoughts of bringing my brother to tears with my performance fall to the wayside as a blur of black and gray rounds the line of Boston players.
Snow sprays over my boots as Jase breaks at the edge of the carpet unfurled on the ice.
It takes me a moment to work up the nerve to lift my gaze from his skates, but I remind myself like Maria when she leaves the convent in The Sound of Music: I have confidence in me. Because if I learned anything from the cast of Hairspray, it’s that life is surely lacking without love.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Cali’s gloved hand hooks around my elbow the moment Melody steps out to sing the national anthem, keeping me in place.
What is she doing here?
I shift on my skates to get a better look, but I can’t see much thanks to her short stature and the towering men in skates in front of me.
I must have fallen and hit my head on the ice because surely I’m hallucinating. How can she be here when she’s supposed to be on stage thirteen blocks uptown?
The melodic sound of her voice filling the arena is all the confirmation I need that it really is her—I would know her voice anywhere.
It doesn’t matter that the people filling the seats are rowdy hockey fans, most I’m sure already well on their way to being drunk; she has them as enthralled as the sold-out audiences who see her do her thing on stage.
It’s the longest two and a half minutes of my life, and I curse every pause the overwhelming applause causes.
Shrugging Cali off the second Melody finishes the last note, I don’t give a fuck that I’m about to delay the start of the game. I need answers, and there’s a better chance of the Storm forfeiting the game than me waiting until it’s over to get them.
Stopping in front of her with a spray of snow from my skates, I eat her up with my gaze. I need her eyes on mine immediately.
Committing a cardinal sin, I toss my stick to the ice, barely registering the clatter, and shuck my gloves off after it.
On instinct, I reach for my baby, and the screech of feedback from the mic hitting the ice when she drops it fills the area. I ignore it, cupping the back of her neck in both my hands and tilting her face to mine with a press of my thumbs under her jaw. Worried eyes blink at me, and she visibly swallows.
I tried to stay away, to keep my distance, not wanting to be a wedge between her and the assface behind me. There’s the thought that Nate might try to put a stop to our reunion, but it’s so fleeting it might as well have not existed.
Not a word is said as we stare at each other, my gaze eating up every detail about her like a starved man at a buffet. That’s exactly what I am—starved. The closest I’ve come to seeing her in over a month has been twenty rows away, and all those times she was Marilyn, not my Mels, my Sweet Potato.
Now she’s all long pink waves instead of platinum blonde, that freckle under her left eye I love to kiss isn’t covered by stage makeup, and there’s no drawn-on beauty mark to the left of her delectable mouth, which is painted with pale pink gloss instead of fire engine red.
As if I don’t think she’s breathtaking enough, when I get a glimpse of what’s happening below the neck, I almost wipe out on the ice like a rookie. She’s rocking a Storm jersey, and not just any Storm jersey either.
Mine. My girl is wearing my jersey, in front of me, the sold-out crowd of over eighteen thousand, millions more at home, and—most importantly—her brother.
This is her claiming me as hers, and I’m done not doing the same.
My hold on her tightens, her hair tangling in my fingers as she’s forced to take a couple of steps forward, closer to me.
“So you do know how to follow the rules.” I nod at the jersey.
Her lips tip up at the corners. “Well…I wasn’t given a dress code to follow or anything.” My own lips lift, remembering how she tossed the same sentiment out the night we met. “But I didn’t think my usual black and gold would help me get what I want.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“You,” she says with zero hesitation, and damn if that isn’t my new favorite pronoun.
“Mels—”
“No.” She shakes her head, cutting off any other objections. “You made your grand gesture, which you more than succeeded in. Now it’s my turn.”
I nod. Who am I to stop her?
“You love me.” Her hands come up, clutching the collar of my jersey, pulling me until the edges of my skates glide onto the carpet. “And despite you acting like a gigantic idiot more than once…” She levels me with a look that dares me to argue. I don’t take the bait. Yes, I may be an idiot, but even I have enough sense of self-preservation to not be that stupid. “I love you.”
Pressing onto her tiptoes, she shifts to look around me at Nate. “He may be my brother, and yes I love him too, but I refuse to give you up. If he doesn’t like it, that’s his problem.”
She moves back, using her grip on my jersey to tug me down until we are nose to nose. Our size difference has always made this position awkward AF and my skates aren’t doing us any favors, but none of that matters when having her close makes everything right.
“Will you kiss me and call me yours already? You have a hockey game to play, after all.”
Cheeky woman.
Instead of slamming my mouth on hers like every caveman instinct inside screams at me to do, I maintain my hold on her, keeping her in place with my thumbs underneath her jaw, and mold my lips to hers.
It’s slow and consuming, the kind of kiss that, if this were a movie, would make viewers be like, “Now that’s a kiss.”
Her tongue is the first to press against the seam of my lips. As soon as I grant her access, she wraps it around the barbell piercing my tongue.
On and on we kiss, little moans of pleasure escaping her throat as we do. If it weren’t for the cup protecting my junk, every person inside the Garden would see just how badly I want my girl.
“I’m all for happy endings and shit,” Cali’s voice breaks in as he skates up to us, “but maybe you should cool it before this turns into a not-safe-for-work scenario.”
We do as he suggests, albeit reluctantly. Mels circles her arms around me, smooshing her face against my chest as she looks at my pain-in-the-ass friend. I drop my own arms, keeping her close with a hand spread over the large number thirteen on her back.