Page 109 of Making the Save

That’s all. Just my name. No declarations of beauty or anything else. It just wasn’t his style.

But I understood what he wasn’t saying.

I was beautiful. Special.

With his eyes on me, I felt that way.

“The limo is here,” Beatrice said. “We’ve got about an hour to the Staples Center, then at least another forty to fifty minutes in the queue.”

“The queue?” Wyatt asked. “What queue?”

“You have to wait in line for each of the attendees to get out and do their red-carpet walk.”

“We can’t just park somewhere and make our way over there on foot? Or even better, I know a short cut through the visitors’ locker room.”

“You’re not suiting up for a game,” Beatrice said. “We’re staging an arrival.”

“It’s so fucking fake,” he said, although at half volume, so I was pretty sure I was the only one who heard.

I reached over and grabbed his hand. “It’s just for tonight. Then it will be over.”

He squeezed my fingers gently in his oversized hand.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “It will be over soon.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to smile.

By the timewe navigated our way through traffic, we were cutting it pretty close.

“You’re up for an award, Sydney,” Wyatt said, when he noticed my knees starting to jiggle under the dress. A sure sign of nerves on my part. He reached over and laid his hand over one knee and immediately I felt his sense of calm. “They’re not going to start the show without you.”

“That’s not how it works,” I said.

There hadn’t been much chatter during the drive down, or while waiting after each limo arrived at the center and thecelebrities emerged to the clicks of what seemed like a thousand cameras. We’d both been locked in on our separate thoughts.

“Is it always like this?” Wyatt bent low to ask in my ear, looking out the window of the limo. “A circus?”

He hated it. Further proof he didn’t want me in his life and he didn’t fit in mine.

I nodded. “Yes. What’s it like on game day for you?” I asked him, trying to distract myself from thoughts of who was going to be here tonight and what I would do with my face when they didn’t call my name as the winner. “Do you have to dress up?”

He nodded and squeezed my knee, like he knew that I was trying to distract us, and he appreciated the effort. I’d missed the way we could read each other’s minds sometimes. The last few days I hadn’t been able to read him at all. Only last night, when we said what we needed to say with our bodies.

“I have two suits. I just rotate them out. I don’t have to worry about the cameras because absolutely nobody cares what a defenseman is wearing. Usually, it’s only a thing if I’m playing Liam. Then they like to build up the whole brother rivalry and how we’re so different. Oh, that reminds me, he texted me to tell you good luck tonight.”

“Wait, he’s not going to be here?” she asked. “He’s supposed to be presenting.”

“He had to cancel. He asked me to take his place and I said no fucking way. So their goalie is doing it. Should be good, the guy has a French Canadian accent so thick no one is going to be able to understand him.”

“Where is Liam?” I asked, as our limo inched up the line.

“Still in Calico Cove,” he said. I wanted to ask him if he was going to join his brother there when we were done, but what would be the point?

“Okay, we’re next,” I said. The limo stopped and I took a deep breath, gathering myself for the gauntlet. Wyatt reached for the door on his side.

Irrationally, I had this fear he was trying to escape. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out, so I can open your door,” he said.