Chapter 88: The Parade

CASSIAN’S POV

I did not expect to cry before we even started moving.

The float was barely rolling, the Cup was already in our hands, and the city had turned into one long wall of noise, color, and people yelling our names like they had been waiting their whole lives for this exact morning. Torin stood beside me in the middle of it all with one hand on the railing and the other close enough that our shoulders kept brushing every time the float shifted.

The streets were packed from curb to curb. Fans leaned over barricades, on signs, on each other, all of them shouting so loudly that the sound seemed to bounce off the buildings and come back stronger.

Torin turned towards me and caught the look on my face immediately.

“You are doing that thing again,” he said.

I looked at him. “What thing?”

“The thing where you are trying not to look emotional in public and failing.”

“I am not failing.”

He gave me a look that said he did not believe me for one second. “You are absolutely failing.”

I laughed once, but it broke halfway through because the crowd screamed louder when the Cup got lifted by the guys at the other end of the float. The sound hit me in the chest like a wave, I stared at the people on the sidewalks, at the signs, at the little kids on shoulders wearing our colors and waving both hands like they knew this was bigger than a game.

One sign near the front caught my eye.

‘THE ICE BREAKERS, ON AND OFF THE ICE.’

I froze.

Torin saw it the same second I did. His mouth moved, just barely, like he was trying not to smile too hard in front of everyone.

I stared at the sign a second longer, then looked away fast because my face had already started to go warm.

He leaned closer, one hand still on the railing. “That one got you.”

“Shut up.”

“It absolutely got you.”

I turned my head and glared at him, which only made him look more pleased with himself. The float lurched a little as we moved past another block, and his hand caught my elbow automatically to steady me. The touch sent a sharp little jolt through me, stupid and immediate, because that was the kind of thing I had not gotten used to yet, even now.

He noticed my reaction.

His expression changed by a degree, heat sliding into his eyes in a way that had nothing to do with the weather or the crowd. We had spent too much time together now for those looks to mean anything else. There were cameras everywhere, people chanting, confetti starting to drift through the air, and still he looked at me like we were alone for half a second.

That did things to me.

I had to look away before I got myself into trouble in the middle of a parade route.

The crowd along the route kept growing louder every block.

The chant rolled down the street and hit us all at once. It was not just a few people. It was entire sections of the crowd picking it up, feeding it back and forth until it became one long noise that followed the float for half a block.

I stopped breathing for a second.

Torin heard it too. His hand tightened on the railing, and when I looked at him, he had that same expression I always saw right before he gave in to something he had been holding back.

“You hearing this?” I asked.

He nodded once, eyes still on the crowd.

The chant got louder.

Cassian. Torin. Cassian. Torin.

A group near the corner started waving a giant banner with our team colors and the Cup drawn in the middle.

I felt something in my chest crack open all over again.

The float rolled forward, the crowd reached higher. People were yelling our names from both sides now, and I could barely process the fact that this was actually happening. That the championship we had spent all season chasing had turned into this.

I swallowed hard and tried not to let Torin see what it was doing to me.

“Cassian,” he said softly.

I looked at him too fast.

His face had changed.

He had the look that always got under my skin because it was never performative with him.

Torin shifted closer to me on the narrow space of the float until our shoulders pressed together more firmly.

His hand found mine for one second under the edge of the Cup stand. He laced our fingers quickly, hidden just enough from the cameras below the angle of the rail. It was an easy touch, but it still made my pulse jump because it felt like the most intimate thing in the world in front of all those people.

We had kissed in public before, we had held each other in front of the team, in front of cameras, in front of everyone. But this felt different somehow.

I squeezed his hand once.

He squeezed back.

The next block was worse in the best possible way.

People were packed so close together that the barricades looked like they were holding the city together by force. Confetti shot into the air from somewhere near the route and drifted around us in white and blue strips. I could hear snippets of shouted things, congratulations, cries, someone yelling that we had made them believe again.

Then the floats shifted and the Cup got lifted.

Everyone screamed.

The noise went up so fast I actually laughed through it, because there was nothing else to do with the feeling of being completely overwhelmed by this much joy in one place. Torin turned towards me when he heard it and laughed too, though his eyes were already wet.

The float slowed briefly as it turned a corner and the crowd got close enough for me to really see faces; the kids, the families, the old fans who had clearly been waiting for this longer than I had even been alive. People held up jerseys with our names on them, they wore our colors. People cried when they saw us.

My vision blurred before I had time to stop it.

I turned my face away fast, but Torin saw anyway.

He stepped closer so our shoulders pressed together and said quietly, only for me, “Hey.”

I tried to laugh it off and failed. “This is ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice soft in that steady way he had. “It is.”

I shook my head, still looking down at the crowd because if I looked at him too long I was going to lose it completely.

Then Torin did exactly what he always did when he knew I was one second from falling apart in public.

He kissed my temple.

The crowd roared when they saw it.

I let out a shaky breath and Torin’s hand moved from mine to the small of my back, steadying me as the float rolled on.

I looked at him finally.

His eyes were warm.

The parade kept going. The championship float moved through the streets like a victory lap through our own lives, and the whole time Torin stayed beside me with his hand at my back and his shoulder against mine like that was exactly where he belonged.

Which it was.

At one point, I looked down at the crowd again and saw the sign with our names on it one more time.

I laughed through another wave of tears because apparently that was just how the day was going to be.

Torin glanced at me. “You are crying again.”

“I know.”

“You are not helping your reputation.”

I gave him a wet-eyed look. “You are the one kissing me in front of thousands.”

His mouth curved. “I am not hearing a complaint.”

I stared at him, then laughed harder because there was no point pretending I was anything else.

He leaned in once more, this time just brushing his mouth near my hairline where nobody could mistake it for anything but affection.

I felt the heat of that kiss all the way down to my ribs.

The float rolled on, the city never stopped cheering, and I kept one hand on the Cup and the other on Torin’s back like I was trying to prove to myself this was really happening.

We had won the championship.

And now we were riding through the city with the Cup, the crowd, the chants, and each other.

That was the part I knew I would remember forever.