Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 102607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Gio makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, like he’s actively fighting the urge to launch himself into the sun.
“I didn’t sprint down here in full gear for this bullshit. I have a baby at home,” he mutters, flipping through the guard’s clipboard with the energy of someone who’s barely holding onto his sanity. Clicks the pen three times. “I came to sign her release, but I can see I’m too late.”
I roll my eyes. “You are so full of shit. You knew he was down here.”
The guard doesn’t move. “Sir, can you autograph my water bottle first?”
“Can you sign my bra?” Hailey calls sweetly from the back, ogling my brother.
Gio doesn’t even dignify that with a response. “Open the damn door.”
Luca holds up his hand. “Ah ah—not so fast.”
All eyes turn to him.
“Not before she admits she’s madly in love with me and she’s my girlfriend.”
The room collectively gasps.
I gape at him. “You are unbelievable.”
“Say it, Starshine,” he insists, smug as hell, arms folded like he didn’t just bleed through three shifts and run a mile in skates. “Sing my little jailbird.”
I want to murder him.
Hailey swoons onto a folding chair, practically melting onto the floor. “Say it, Nova. He stormed the basement of an arena for you.”
“I’ll say it when you admit you’ve been in love with me since you saw me at the ESPY Awards,” I fire back.
“Pfft,” he counters. “I’ve already admitted that to your brother.”
Oh.
Oh…
He has?
“Shoot me now.” Gio curses, stabbing the clipboard with his pen. “This wait is worse than childbirth.”
“Fine,” I announce defiantly, grabbing the bars with both hands. “You want a declaration?”
He lifts his chin. “Hit me with your best shot.”
The entire holding cell holds its collective breath. Someone dims the lights (unclear how or why), and it feels like we’re the only two in the room, despite the audience.
“I, Nova Montagalo,” I shout, like I’m breaking a curse. My curse. “Am hopelessly, stupidly in love with Luca Babineaux—and I want to spend the next few weeks making everything up to him. And making up for lost time.” I suck in a breath. “You are the most amazing man and I’m sorry.”
I can’t say sorry enough.
The security guard sniffles. “This is better than Bridgerton.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “For freaking out. For not saying I love you back the first time—and for taking so long to realize that being scared doesn’t mean I don’t feel everything in my body when I look at you.”
Luca holds his breath.
“Also.” I clear my throat. “I’d very much like to kiss you again. And maybe other things. Later. Not in here.”
Luca grabs the bars like he might bend them open with sheer emotional willpower.
“Nova,” he says, voice low and shaking. “You just made me fall in love with you all over again.”
Gio slaps the clipboard onto the guard’s desk. “For the love of Christ—if someone doesn’t open this door in the next thirty seconds, I’m filing a grievance with the League and you’ll all be watching recaps from your couches for the rest of the season.”
“Why are you such a buzzkill?” the drunk asks, breaking the stunned silence. “Dude, I thought you were cool.”
The guard jingles her keys at Luca.
He nods. “Guard. Can you please let my girlfriend out of her jail cell?”
His girlfriend.
The guard, who’s openly crying into her sleeve, finally unlocks the gate and steps aside with all the flair of a game show host.
“You’re free to go,” she whispers, sniffling. “And also, please get married and also, invite me.”
I laugh, overwhelmed—probably delirious—and definitely still riding the high of hearing him say my girlfriend.
Luca doesn’t wait.
The second the lock clicks, he pushes the gate open and steps inside like he’s crossing a finish line—like nothing else matters except the girl standing in the middle of a stadium holding cell.
Me.
His eyes are locked on mine, glassy and full of something so raw it steals the breath right from my lungs. Closing the space between us in two long strides before I can even process it, arms coming around my waist, lifting me clean off the ground as if I weigh nothing.
I gasp, hands flying to his shoulders, my feet dangling in the air as he buries his face in my neck. His chest is heaving.
His voice is husky when he says, “God, I missed you,” into the nape of my neck.
My fingers twist into the collar of his wrinkled shirt. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” He pulls back, enough to look me in the eyes. Kisses the top of my nose. “You meant it, didn’t you? Everything you said?”
“I meant all of it,” I whisper. “I love you, Luca.”
He exhales like those words have just stitched his heart back together.
“Say it again.”
I brush my nose against his. “I love you.”
He kisses me—soft at first. The kind of kiss that says I found you again. And then it deepens, his hand cradling the back of my head, my legs wrapping around his waist without thinking, like my body has already decided it’s done letting him go.