I sighed with a satisfied hum. "That we do."

We had only been sitting on the couch all but twenty minutes when Ami giggled beside me, looking over at me. "Do you have some kind of team ritual you do to get rid of this?" she asked, running her fingers over my jaw which was covered in a thick beard from the playoffs. I could grow one h.e.l.l of a beard when I needed to.

"No ritual." I chuckled, pulling her closer so I could tickle her neck with it a few more times. "I just usually shave it off some."

"Can I watch?"

"You want to watch me shave?" I asked, amused and curious as to why she would want to do that.

"Yeah, why not?"

I shrugged and stood. "All right, come on." I motioned with a nod to the bathroom. Ami followed.

With her sitting on the counter in front of me, I reached my hands behind my head, grabbing the neck of my shirt, and pulled it over my head, tossing it to the floor.

Ami's eyes went to my chest and then to my stomach.

My lips twisted into a smirk, knowing she was probably not far from the thoughts that I was having since she was wearing my jersey and not a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing else.

She watched as I pulled out the clippers I used. I never did a complete shave. I always liked to have a little scruff. When my arm lifted, Ami caught the tattoo on my ribs that I knew she'd been eyeing for a while. Though she never asked, I knew she was curious as to why I had it and one on my shoulder. I had a few more on my forearms, but she'd gotten to know those ones pretty well over the months.

"What does it mean?" she asked, her fingers ghosting over the black markings, tracing over them with the lightest touch. It had no meaning. It was a symbol of some sort, but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what the h.e.l.l it meant. I was drunk when I got it.

"Nothing that I know of," I teased, remembering that night I started out in Pittsburgh and woke up in Orlando.

"Why'd you get it?" Starry eyes found mine.

"I was drunk and fifteen and really stupid. Sometimes, I don't always think," I teased playfully, rolling my eyes. "I have my moments of weakness." My hands moved to her thighs, trailing up them ever so lightly. She shivered, her legs wrapping around mine. She b.u.mped the clippers beside her when she did so, sending them into the sink.

"Hmm...you always seem so level headed to me."

"Nope..." My lips found hers. "Not always."

I did have another tattoo, well a few. Nothing really meaningful. One tattoo was of a pair of hockey gloves and stick on my shoulder, surrounded by the logo of the team my dad played for when my mom got pregnant with me. That was meaningful for me because he gave up everything for me.

I picked up the clippers, and Ami reached for them. I glanced at her in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Mind if I try?"

"Are you serious?" I asked, c.o.c.king an eyebrow. "I don't know, you might slip and cut my hair. Leo did."

"Why the f.u.c.k would you have let Leo shave your beard?"

"We were drunk. s.h.i.t happens when you're drunk with a group of hockey players."

"Well..." Ami reached for the clippers again. "I'll be careful."

"I don't know. I saw your stick skills."

"What? Fine." She crossed her arms over her chest; a pouty look came over her.

"Here." I handed her the clippers.

She refused to take them. "No. I don't want to anymore."

"Ami." I lowered my voice and my head, trying to catch her eyes, placing my hands back on her thighs. I spread them wider, stepping closer. "Please? I trust you," I whispered. I held the clippers in my hand against her thigh, begging her to believe me.

What started out as playful and teasing was suddenly very intimate when those starry blues found mine. With my chin raised, her hands on my jaw angling it the direction needed, she brought the clippers to my face and made the first swipe. Intently focused on her, I watched carefully, feeling the love penetrating from every part of her.

My eyes drifted closed, reminded of how different this year had been from the last time I shaved this beard. Never did I think it would have gone this way.

By the time she made the last pa.s.s over my jaw, my heart was pounding from the memories over the year, including the ones I tried to forget.

When she finished, she traced her fingers along my jaw, removing the tiny hairs that remained. I hummed softly at the touch, leaning into her palm before pressing a lingering kiss there.

When her eyes found mine, they were dark with pa.s.sion. I didn't have to wait long before she leaned forward, hungrily possessing my mouth.

I knew, without a doubt, this, Ami, being with her, would forever be the best goal I'd ever snagged.

Celly A celebration when a goal is scored.

On the surface, Evan wanted to have a good time and be the twenty-one-year-old kid that he was. When people really needed him, he was the most dependable guy. What I loved about Evan from the very beginning was that he wore his heart unabashedly on his sleeve. He didn't play games with my heart or my head.

He was gentle in ways you would have never expected a guy like him to be. When the darkness colored my mind, he was with me, bringing with him the light I needed.

His sense of humor, his kindness, his warmth, his courage, and his quiet confidence inspired me. There was only one side to Evan. Through his family and friends, I learned it was the same side he showed everyone. If he was mad, you knew it. If he was happy, you felt it and lived it, and if he loved you, he showed it and you believed it.

When you thought about it, our presence in the world was actually very small. It was our presence in the lives of others that made the world what it was. Every word we said, every gesture we made, every detail connected you to that presence you made whether you knew it or not.

When bad things happened, they happened. There was nothing you could do about it.

You tried to prepare and tell yourself you'd be okay, but the truth was you were never prepared. You had to keep in mind that there was an end to everything. There was a beginning, a middle, and eventually an end, whether you wanted there to be one or not. It was all about surviving it.

"What do hockey players do during the off-season?" I asked, sitting next to him on the couch. Leo, Remy, and Callie were over, all sitting around drinking beer and eating pizza.

Evan cleared his throat, obviously wanting to say something dirty, but he hesitated with his boys around, not wanting to embarra.s.s me.

Instead, he nodded to his bedroom with a wink. As discretely as I could, I got up and walked down the hall to his room. He followed along with me, screams and whistles coming from the living room.

I wasn't sure how long it lasted, two, maybe three minutes, but I'd never felt as desired as I did when Evan clutched at me so desperately, gasping my name over and over again.

He held me there against the wall, both of us panting.

"What is it that they do?" I grinned with a mischievous smile.

"They have s.e.x, Ami. Lots of s.e.x." He chuckled, knowing I wouldn't let it go.

Evan was right. They had lots of s.e.x. Lots. The other thing they did was enjoy some much needed time off. I wasn't working. Evan didn't want me to just yet, so instead we went on vacations. We spent a lot of time with his parents, and then finally, Evan asked if I wanted to go to Oregon for the weekend.

The truth was, I was scared to go back, but I knew eventually I'd need to. I hadn't been back to Lebanon since November. I used to think our small town, buried in the middle of nowhere, had everything I ever needed. It was a place where nothing happened and nothing would change. But things did change.

The hometown hero, that would put this small town on the map for making it big, died in a plane crash, just as his dreams were taking off.

Then I remembered that despite this, despite the tragedy that took my family, despite the brutal attack on me when I was trying to move on, the sun would still rise and set over this small town because it was here where I was born and raised. It was here where that hometown hero was raised, and it was here where I finally realized that just because you ran away from home didn't mean that all of you left.

As soon as I saw my old house, I felt my heart clench at memories I tried to keep hidden.

They were woven into everything I did.

I knew that eventually I needed to go back for closure. That happened late that summer when Evan wanted to come with me.

"So this is Lebanon, Oregon, eh?"

"Yes. Nothing but farms and a race track," I said, trailing off a little when I thought about what else was here. "And a baseball field."

"I'd like to see it, if you want me to."

"The baseball field?"

"Yes," he whispered with a low exhale. "If it gets me a little closer to knowing you, I want to see it."

"You already know me."

He shook his head, scrunching his nose from the cow s.h.i.t smell that seemed to always settle here. "I know the Chicago you. I don't know the small-town girl who was born and raised in the town. I want to know her, too."

I wasn't sure what his reaction would be, but he surprised me.

I gave him a watery smile as my unsteady fingers wiped away the tears.

"Ami..." he breathed, his voice nearly silent. I stared at him, waiting for him to say something more. "They'll always be with you." His fingers touched my cheek, sweeping the tears away, and then trailed down my neck, over my collarbone to my chest where he tapped right below my locket with his index finger. "They'll be right here, always."

People have told me that my description of my family was bare and that my voice got a faraway tone to it. Maybe it did, I wasn't conscious of it; the memory burned hot and deep. I knew that. When I talked about them, the memory was a very vivid one, to me at least. It didn't feel faraway.

"When did you know you were in love with me?"

He nodded, staring down at our hands as his fingers laced with mine. "When I walked into that hospital room and you looked at me for the first time, I was done." He looked up at me then, and I knew exactly what he meant because when I saw him that night, I couldn't breathe having heard that voice before and seeing that face in my mind. "Then you smiled and wrecked me."

The warmth of his touch through my tank top served as a reminder that I wasn't alone. Never again, I was sure of that.

"The night I left for Chicago, this was the last place I went," I said, pointing to the ball field where I'd spent nearly every day with Andrew growing up. I looked up at the sky and felt it for the first time. They were watching over me. They brought me this all-heart boy to show me I still had someone to live for. I had enough heart for all three of them right here in Evan Masen.

"There's times when I feel a shiver, and suddenly I remember every detail about them. Then there's times where I can't remember what they look like, and it scares me to think someday their memory will be gone."

"It won't." He tapped my chest again and winked. "They're right there."

Evan was right. It wouldn't. They would forever be in my heart.

I took Evan around Lebanon and visited my grandmother, my only living family besides my aunts and uncles that I avoided. After my parents died they all wanted me to live with them, forced it actually, but it wasn't what I wanted. Legally speaking, my grandmother was my guardian until I turned eighteen. When I told her I needed to leave, she understood and never asked questions. It had to have been hard for her that I left, and she didn't know what happened to me, but she understood why.

Evan enjoyed her. They talked for a while. She was a huge San Jose fan and asked about the fight between Evan and Dave.

Calmly and better than I expected, Evan told our story to her. He told her about finding me and staying with me and falling in love with me. The entire time he was telling the story, I just stared at him, entranced in the voice, yes, but captivated by the heart he put into the detail of how he remembered everything.

Until then, I had never heard him talk in detail about how he found me, what he witnessed and why he stayed. Now, hearing him tell it, I don't think I could have possibly loved him more after knowing what he did for me.

When we got back from Oregon, we went back to Pittsburgh to spend some time with his family. After the trip back to my hometown, I realized that wasn't where my family was any longer. I promised to keep in touch with the ones I had, but it was here, at this table in the Quaker Steak and Lube in Pittsburgh, surrounded by hockey players and Evan's family. That was my family now.

It was the middle of summer, late July, and I really shouldn't have been wearing a jacket but I was, intending on teasing Evan. I was wearing shorts and had this long gray jacket on over that. It looked odd now that I thought about it, and Evan noticed.

"Take your coat off," he said, looking over the menu. "It's hot in here. Aren't you hot?"

"Nah, I'm cold." I grinned coyly, keeping my eyes on the menu.

"Why's that? What you got under there?" he asked suspiciously, playfully pulling at the collar of my coat.

I unb.u.t.toned the first b.u.t.ton and then smiled. "Nothing..." I wasn't lying, I had nothing but the jacket and shorts on. No bra.

"Keep that f.u.c.king coat on." He smirked and shook his head, shifting in his seat and then draping his arm over the back of my chair. "This is almost as bad as you sleeping in my childhood bed."

"Why, are you turned on, Mase?" I felt like I had just scored the winning goal in overtime from the look on his face "h.e.l.l yes I'm turned on," he informed me as he wrapped his arms around me and stroked the outside of my jacket, bunching the material between his fingers. "We need to leave." He went from telling me to keep the coat on to trying to rip it off.

I was pretty sure I choked on my own tongue, but I kept my cool. "Nah, I'm hungry."

Evan groaned, his head falling forward to rest against the table as his family showed up.

Evan seemed very agitated because of what I had done, so I decided I was going to be brave and try what Callie had said. Public indecency.

"We only have a few minutes," I whispered. "There's a bathroom down the hall."

"And I only need a few seconds."

His kiss was intoxicating as ever, lips moving so softly over mine with just the slightest hint of tongue. I felt my head spinning in a way that made me feel breathless, dizzy, but also just right.

"That's all, huh?"

Laughing, he bent to kiss my cheek. "What can I say, you do things to me. Good things. Dirty things." He looked at his dad who'd just walked in. "We'll be right back."

"Yeah, sure." Sam said, rolling his eyes.

We found a bathroom down the hall in the restaurant. Evan turned and locked the door. The look in his eyes gave me no doubt that he was going to hold true to his promise. Or threat for that matter.

"Well look at that!" Evan quirked his brow and leaned forward, pushing me against the wall. "You weren't lying about nothing being under this coat."

"Nope."

The coat was removed quickly. It was another one of those times when my hockey player showed me about his sprinting speed and his endurance to get the job done in a penalty kill situation. He was on his game, and I could now understand Callie's remark about Evan making her scream in a matter of seconds.

His slow, even strokes grew slightly more forceful as I felt myself getting there. Broken moans and quiet sighs filled the bathroom stall as he hunched over me, releasing my hips to move his hands to the door of the stall, gaining the exact angle I needed.