Chapter 84: The Night Before Game Seven

I knew Cassian was awake before he said a word.

His breathing changed first, the sheet shifted beside me, then his hand found my arm in the dark like he had been reaching for me before he even decided he needed to.

I opened my eyes and turned my head.

The hotel room was dim except for the sliver of light from the street outside. Enough to see him lying on his back, one arm over his stomach, jaw tense, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling like sleep had become a threat instead of a comfort.

Game seven.

The last game of the season.

No more adjustments or waiting or giving ourselves one more chance to get it right tomorrow. It was all down to one night now, and even in the dark I could feel it sitting between us.

Cassian had not slept much all week, neither had I. But, tonight was different. Tonight the silence in the room felt heavier.

He turned onto his side and looked at me.

“You are still awake,” he said softly.

I gave him a tired look. “You say that like it is a surprise.”

His mouth moved, almost a smile, but it faded before it fully formed. He had been carrying the game in his face all evening. I knew that look now, the one he wore when he was trying to keep the fear from showing itself too early.

I shifted closer and let my hand rest at his waist. He relaxed immediately under the touch, the tension in his shoulders easing by a fraction. That was the thing about him; he could be stubborn in every other room on earth, but in bed, in the dark, with me close enough to touch, he let some of it go.

He looked at me like he wanted to say something and did not trust the first words that came to mind.

I brushed my thumb once over his side. “What is it?”

He stared at me for a second too long. “Nothing.”

I gave him a look.

He let out a quiet breath through his nose. “That was not convincing, was it?”

“Not even a little.”

That earned the faintest smile, I had to take what I could get.

He rolled onto his side and moved closer until his knee pressed against mine. The contact was small, but it still made the air in the room feel different.

“I cannot sleep,” he admitted.

I already knew that. “I noticed.”

He gave me a dry look. “You noticed because I keep moving.”

“I noticed because you have been trying to pretend you are not moving.”

His mouth twitched again. He was tired enough to let the humor show around the edges. That was the only reason I was not pulling him closer and making him forget the rest of the night entirely. Tomorrow was too important, and he looked like he was one bad thought away from falling apart in silence.

I shifted and drew him into my chest until he settled there without resistance.

The room got quieter after that.

His head came to my shoulder and stayed there. One of his hands rested flat on my ribs. I could feel the tension still running through him, but it was less sharp now. He let out a breath and closed his eyes for half a second.

I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair once, slow enough to make him settle more. He always liked that even if he pretended he did not need it. Tonight he did not pretend much at all.

Outside, the city was moving on like tomorrow was just another night; it was not. Tomorrow was game seven, the last one. Win and we had a championship, lose and the season was over.

Cassian tilted his head back enough to look at me.

“Whatever happens tomorrow,” he said, voice low, “I want you to know something.”

I looked at him.

He swallowed once, and I saw the effort behind the calm. He was trying to say this right, that mattered. I could tell because his hand tightened once against my shirt before he forced it to loosen.

“This year,” he said. “has been the best of my life.”

“And it’s because of you.”

My throat tightened immediately.

I did not answer right away because I did not trust my voice to hold steady. Not with the weight of that sentence landing in the middle of the bed between us. He looked like he had decided to say the truth even if it made the room smaller, even if it made tomorrow harder; maybe because it would.

I held his gaze in the dim light and felt the ache of it build in my chest.

“Cassian,” I said quietly.

He waited.

My hand moved from his hair to the back of his neck. “Same.”

He watched me closely. “Same?”

I nodded once. “This year. You. Same.”

The room seemed to change shape around the words.

His eyes darkened a little, and I knew before he said anything else that he was feeling exactly what I was. That strange, terrifying thing that happens when you realize the person beside you has become the center of more than the season. More than the games. More than the daily habits and the quiet routines and the private moments stolen between media calls and travel and bad hotel lighting.

Cassian shifted closer. His mouth was near mine now, close enough to make my breathing change. The heat that always lived between us was there too, low and immediate, curling under all the fear of tomorrow. I could still feel it even with the championship sitting on the other side of sleep.

He looked at my mouth, then back up.

“I am serious,” he said.

“So am I.”

The silence after that carried something bigger than the game.

His fingers moved against my ribs once, absentminded and steady. He looked tired, but not empty. Just open enough now that I could see the thing he had been working up to. That line of tension around his mouth, the way he kept swallowing like the words were already trying to leave him before he gave them permission.

Then he said it.

“I love you.”

It hit so hard I thought for one second I had misheard him.

The room went completely still.

Not because anything changed outside of us. The city was still there. The next day was still waiting. The finals were still one game away from ending one way or another. But in the space between his breath and mine, the world stopped being the same.

Cassian held my gaze, not flinching, not pulling back, not giving me any room to pretend that I had not heard him.

“I love you,” he said again, quieter this time.

My chest went tight enough to hurt.

We had said a lot to each other all year. Too much to count. In locker rooms, hallways, kitchens, hotel rooms, on ice, off ice, in front of everyone and alone. We had said trust, we had said stay. We had said together so many times it had become a promise and a habit and a survival skill.

But this was different.

This was the word we had been circling all season without naming it.

I looked at him and saw exactly how hard it had been for him to say it first. How much of himself he had laid bare in that one sentence.

The kind that leaves you with no room to hide.

My hand tightened at the back of his neck before I could stop it. His eyes searched mine like he was bracing for the answer and refusing to back away from the need for it.

I kissed his forehead once, slowly and surely, because I could not speak yet and the need to touch him was too much to ignore.

Then I pulled back enough to look at him properly.

His face had gone soft in a way I had never seen on the ice.

I swallowed hard. “I love you too.”

His whole expression changed.

His mouth parted slightly, and the breath he let out sounded like it had been sitting in his chest all night waiting for that answer.

I touched his cheek with my free hand. “More than I knew I could love anything.”

The words came out rough around the edges because they were true enough to hurt.

Cassian stared at me for a second, then let out a quiet, shaken laugh that did not quite make it all the way to his voice. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to my chest, one hand gripping my shirt like he needed to make sure I was real.

I held him there instantly.

He breathed in once, then again, slower now. I could feel the emotion in him settle and break at the same time. He had said the thing he had been carrying. I had said it back. The room had not changed, but we had.

His voice came muffled against my shirt when he spoke. “You did not make that easy.”

I let out a breath that might have been a laugh. “You were the one who said it first.”

He lifted his head just enough to look at me. “I know.”

“You look shocked.”

“I am a little.”

That pulled the smallest smile from me. “Good.”

He huffed out a breath and shifted again, settling half against me now with the ease of someone who had finally run out of reasons to hold back. The tension in the room had changed shape. It was still there. It would be there in the morning. It would be there when we stepped onto the ice for game seven and every camera caught our faces and the world waited to see if we would finally win it all.

But tonight it sat under the new weight of what he had said.

I love you.

I knew I would hear it in my head tomorrow. In the tunnel. On the bench. On the first shift. Probably every time he touched the puck or looked at me from across the ice.

Cassian shifted up and kissed me then, slow and deep enough to make my pulse jump immediately. The kiss was full of the same feeling sitting in the room with us now. The kind that made sleep impossible and tomorrow feel too large to hold in one body.

When we broke apart, he stayed close, his mouth still near mine.

“Now what?” he asked softly.

I looked at him and felt my own voice go quiet in response. “Now we sleep.”

He gave me a disbelieving look. “That is your plan after that?”

“It is a very good plan.”

He laughed softly, the kind that settled something in me as much as it did him. Then he tucked himself back into my chest, one arm around my waist, the other resting over my heart like he was making sure it kept beating.

I ran my fingers through his hair again and stared up at the dark ceiling with him in my arms.

Tomorrow was game seven.

The last game of the season.

One night to win a championship.

One night to leave everything on the ice and hope it was enough.

Cassian shifted once against me and then went still, breathing evening out under my hand.

I held him tighter and let the quiet settle around us.

Whatever happened tomorrow, he had already given me the thing I had not known I needed to hear.

And when I finally closed my eyes, the last thing I felt before sleep came was his hand over my heart and his voice from a few minutes earlier, still warm in the dark.

I love you too.