Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
The entire room registers this at once, and someone gasps loudly before all conversation drops dead silent.
Because Locke Donovan does not get on stages.
Locke Donovan does not voluntarily stand in front of rooms and sing.
Locke Donovan barely grunts at people.
He just stands there, all eyes pinned on him.
He taps the microphone and it produces a thumping echo. He dips his head. “I’m not doing karaoke, so don’t get excited. I just need your attention.”
Nobody moves.
He looks around the room. His teammates, the coaching staff, the various people who have populated this season and this team. He finds them one by one with those beautifully expressive eyes. “I owe this team an apology. I’ve been on the roster for over three months, and I’ve been playing like I’m alone on the ice. Like none of you are there.” He pauses, glances at Van. “That’s not about this team. That’s about something that happened a long time ago, on a different team, when I was seventeen. Someone I trusted completely turned on me and I never let it go. And I brought it here and put it on all of you, and that wasn’t fair.”
It’s like everyone is holding their breaths. I’m stunned he’s admitting this, and in such a public way.
“The point is,” Locke says, and his voice has shifted—still level, still him, but with an openness I’ve not heard from him before—“you always show up for me. And I was ready to use every reason I had to not let that mean anything.” He pauses, his eyes moving to me. “Someone helped me see that it did. That it meant everything.”
Locke stares at me, and it has nothing to do with professional frameworks or ethical boundaries or any of the hundred things I’ve used to manage the fact that Locke Donovan got past every wall he ever built.
“Livia,” he says. To the room. To me. Both simultaneously. “I’ve been punishing you for something someone else did to me. That was wrong and I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t look away. “You told me once that I don’t have to manage it alone, and I was afraid to trust that. But you were right. Hell, you’re right about most things, which is one of the reasons I—” He stops, clears his throat. “Which is one of the reasons I love you.”
The room inhales a collective gasp.
I press my hand briefly to my mouth.
Birdie makes a sound beside me that I would describe as a squeak.
Locke is still looking at me. “I know I don’t have the right to ask you to take a chance on me,” he says softly. “I know I walked out and I went cold and I made you feel like you didn’t matter and you did. You do.” He pauses, glancing around, then back to me. “I’m standing up here in front of everyone because this team was willing to give me a chance even after everything I put them through—”
“We forgive you, man,” someone shouts from the back, and everyone laughs in solidarity.
Locke looks at the room, then looks back at me.
“If they’re willing to give me a shot,” he says with a sheepish smile, “you should too.”
Birdie nudges me hard and whispers, “Bitch… you better go get him before I do.”
I look at Locke Donovan standing on a karaoke stage, a man who doesn’t make speeches, who doesn’t stand in front of rooms, who spent years keeping everyone at the exact distance he needed to stay safe, now choosing to be exposed in front of every person who matters because he decided I was worth it.
I slide out of my chair and cross the room.
He steps off the stage, handing the microphone back to Boss, and meets me at the bottom. I don’t think about whether it’s tidy or resolved or whether we’ve said all the things yet because we haven’t and we both know it and none of that matters right now.
I put both hands on his face and bring his mouth to mine.
He kisses me back immediately and completely, one arm around my back pulling me in and the other hand coming up to my hair. The room detonates with cheering and catcalls. Boss whoops into the microphone at full volume.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing hard and his forehead drops to mine. Locke’s eyes are closed and I feel the release move through him, the sign of a man who’s been holding a weight for a very long time and has just been allowed to put it down.
“I owe you an apology too,” I say quietly so only he can hear. “What I did in that session—I pushed past the line. I used what we were to get you to open up. I knew I was doing it and I still did it.” I hold his gaze. “I was doing my job and caring about you at the same time and I let the job win. That was wrong.”