My heart stuttered. "Which part?"
"All of it, really. And I'm still terrified." He met my eyes, unflinching. "But I realized something today, watching you face down Gavin like it was nothing. Like protecting me was the most natural thing in the world."
"It was," I said simply. "It is."
His throat worked as he swallowed. "No one's ever done that for me before. Stood up for me like that. Not my parents, not Gavin, not anyone." He laughed, the sound brittle. "Which is pathetic, I know—"
"It's not pathetic." I let my hand rest palm-up between us. An invitation, not a demand. "It's honest. And it makes me want to kill everyone who should have protected you and didn't."
His eyes dropped to my hand, lingering there for a long moment. Then, slowly, carefully, he placed his own hand in mine.
The contact was electric—his warmth against my cold, his pulse fluttering beneath my fingertips. My dragon surged forward, pressing against my ribs with something that felt dangerously close to hope.
"You're cold," he murmured, and I went to pull away, but his fingers wrapped around mine and stopped me.
"I know. Does it bother you?"
"No." His thumb traced a slow circle against my palm. "It should, probably. Medically speaking, it's completely impossible. But..." He looked up, meeting my gaze with something raw and wondering in his expression. "It just feels like you."
The words broke something open inside me—something I'd kept locked away for years, convinced that no one could ever accept the parts of me that didn't make sense.
"There are things about me," I said carefully, "that I haven't told you. Things that might change how you see me."
"I figured." He didn't flinch, didn't pull his hand back. "We all have things, Taz. I'm not expecting you to be uncomplicated."
"This is more than complicated."
"Then tell me when you're ready." His grip tightened slightly on mine. "I'm not going anywhere."
The promise settled into my chest like warmth spreading through frozen ground. I wanted to believe him. Wanted it so badly that my dragon practically keened with it.
"Okay," I said, my voice rough. "Okay."
We sat there in the noise and the dim light, hands clasped across the table, neither of us quite ready to let go. Around us, the team laughed and drank and existed in their easy camaraderie, but in our small booth, something new was taking shape.
Something fragile and terrifying and absolutely worth protecting.
"I should warn you," Cinder said, a hint of his earlier humor returning, "I'm a disaster. I have a car that's held together by rust and optimism, I work too much, and I have approximately zero family who speak to me."
"I'm a goaltender who runs at sub-hypothermic temperatures and hasn't let anyone close in decades," I countered. "I think we're evenly matched."
His laugh was startled, genuine. "God, we're a mess."
"The best kind of mess," I said, and meant it.
He smiled at me then—really smiled, the kind that reached his eyes and made my cold heart feel like it might actually be capable of warmth.
"Yeah," he agreed softly. "Maybe we are."
The rest of the night passed in a blur of warmth and noise and stolen glances across tables. I watched Cinder laugh with Nancy, watched him roll his eyes at something Max said, watched him navigate the chaos of the team with a quiet competence that made my chest ache.
He fit here. Whether he realized it or not, he belonged.
Around midnight, the crowd started thinning. Seph had achieved whatever mysterious goal he'd set. Ash was definitely talking to the goalie coach—now, their heads bent close together in a way that suggested Nancy's theories might have had merit—and the energy in the bar had shifted from celebration to the comfortable exhaustion of people ready to head home.
Cinder found me near the door, his jacket already on, cheeks flushed from the warmth of the bar.
"Walk me to my car?" he asked, and something about the way he said it—tentative, hopeful—made my dragon press hard against my ribs.