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His blue eyes flare when they meet mine.
“Hunter Lacey.” His smile widens. He has a sharp Quebecois accent, and the upriver French cuts through his spoken English like a melody. “Bonjour.” Holy shit, he knows my name.
“I have watched you play for two years. C'est bon de te rencontrer enfin.” Bryce is still smiling.
I could faint. I could also puke, right onto the ice, right between his skates. “Hi,” I squeak. “I wear your number.”
“We’re the NHL, dude. We don’t get Zendaya.”
Bryce: You are the best player I have ever shared the ice with, Hunter. Tonight was merveilleux.
And he is— Calisse, he is everything I have been searching for.
I fell in love with my hope, and I hoped for him.
“You are éblouissant. I wanted to meet you because you are an amazing, talented player, but as soon as I did, I knew I was in trouble. I could not tear myself away, and every minute we were together felt like… perfection. I wanted to ignore everyone else and be only with you. I tried to play it cool, but…”
This is the man I have been missing. Not my hero. Not the man from the posters on my teenage walls. The real Bryce, the man from midnights and empty drives and lonely rivers, and the man who looked me in the eyes and dared to risk everything because, somehow, I made his heart beat faster.
A static-choked hockey game—Boston versus Winnipeg—is tied in the third period.
Firelight curves around Hunter like a caress. He's heartbreakingly beautiful, and try as I might to push this away, I can't.
“How could you fall for me?” “How could I not?”
“I am head over heels for you.”
He looks too much like he does in my dreams when my imagination of him whispers, “Je te desire. Mon coeur bat la chamade pour toi.”
“I didn’t know then, but I think I do now. I think we were meant to find each other, and I think we were meant to do this all together. Everything. Play this game, live our lives. Be us. That’s what I want, Bryce. I want you. I want to be with you, on the ice and off. I’ve held you after a goal, but now I want to hold you like this. And… more.”
“Kiss me again,” Hunter whispers. “Please, kiss me, Bryce.”
Les rêves deviennent-ils réalité?
And then my lips are on his, and we are kissing.
This time, Hunter’s lips part beneath mine, and his hands slide into my hair. He pulls me into him like he needs this kiss to keep him alive.
“I’m learning.” A kiss to my shoulder. “I want to speak French with you.” Another kiss. “I want to do everything with you.”
“You’re beautiful.” His voice is an octave deeper than before. The sound burrows into my bones. I want to arch into him, purr and close my eyes and let him carry me away. I have never felt beautiful until he said the words.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” I confess. “So many times.” He pushes his forehead against mine. “So have I.”
This is happening. Tabernak, it’s happening. Hunter is making love to me.
He’s everything I see and everything I feel.
It’s every game I’ve played. It’s every goal I’ve scored and assisted on, every win I’ve shared with my team. It’s skating across the ice and saying bonjour to Hunter and seeing him smile at me for the first time. It’s my dreams coming true.
I die the first of what I hope will be a thousand deaths in his arms, and he follows me over the edge, burying his face in my neck as we shatter.
My heart is beating for him.
He grins, and it's all I can see. I kiss him, then kiss him again. I can’t stop smiling. I can’t stop this bubbly feeling, either. This lightness, merging with a feeling that’s so solid and right it grounds me even as I’m heady with exhilaration. Certainty is building inside of me. This moment. This man. Hunter said I think we were meant to find each other
Non, nous étions fait l'un pour l'autre. We were made for each other.
Bryce and I spent the night entwined, our arms and legs around and between each other's, even our toes curling together. He pillowed his head on my bicep and I held his hand and traced my thumb over his knuckles and the length of his delicate fingers. We whispered like time had stopped, like there was nothing beyond that saggy air mattress, those old sleeping bags, or our bubble of darkness lit by the fading fire.
There was just enough light to catch on his open eyes. They looked like shooting stars.
“Je suis à toi.”
“Alors, I am walking out with all of this,” Bryce says as he joins me. He waves to the pile of our sleeping bags, the busted air mattress, the shovel and scrapers I just used, the empty sacks of salt I'm throwing into the trash, and the snacks that could feed our entire team for days. “And I am not a thief. So, here is my money.” He lays at least five hundred dollars more than what everything he's buying is worth on the counter in front of Guy.
“Tout ira bien, mon capitane.” “Oui. Oui, tout ira bien. Je marquerai pour toi, monsieur.”
Outside, the storm has remade the world. Inside, we have remade what lies between us.
How this man thinks I am worthy of his inexhaustible heart, I will never know.
I want to spend an endless amount of days and nights with him. I want every morning to begin with him in my arms, and every night to end with him in the same place.
Bryce and I, together, mean something. There is something between us, something that maybe has always been there, waiting to be discovered and unearthed. Is this what falling in love really is? Discovering pieces of yourself inside another person? Finding that half of your heart lives within another? Having all your questions and wonders and worries from before answered through the shape of someone else's smile?
My eyes are open. He is my North Star.
Kissing him is like a first morning skate on fresh ice, or a perfect shot on goal that bends the net. It's a rush, jolts of perfection sliding up my veins and burrowing into my brain.
Every moment we're together is another answer for me, and, hopefully, for him. Yes, this is right. Yes, this is what I want. Yes, he is who I adore. Yes, I could fall in love with him.
If we can hold on to this, then he'll be all of my tomorrows and my forever.
Besides, the only warmth I need is his.
“Je t'appartiens.”
“I love your smile,” I whisper. “It's the first thing that took my breath away when we met.”
He's still smiling. I'm still dying.
“The truth is, Hunter, mon coeur… you are my strength.”
It feels like coming home. Like I've been away—lost at sea, lost in the world—but I've found my way back to my brothers.
