behind the camera - fake dating sports romance (wlw)

Chapter Forty-Three

MILLIE

We won.

4–1. Three goals and an assist for me. My best game of the season. It was the kind of night that reminds me why I love this sport even when it exhausts me. But none of it—not the roar of the crowd, not the hat trick, not even Lia's squeal when she saw my name on the jumbotron—touches the part of me that lights up when I step into the apartment and find Harper barefoot in my jersey, messy hair, curled on my couch like she's always belonged here.

She's got a mug of something warm between her hands, the sleeves too long on her so she's tucked her palms inside the fabric, the number 13 stretching across her chest. The sight physically slows me down. Like my whole body hits pause just so I can look at her. Her legs are curled beneath her, pale against the dark throw blanket she dragged off the armrest. There's a camera on the coffee table, still on, like she was too distracted to turn it off. Her cheeks are pink—not from embarrassment, but from comfort. Her body loose, lips curved in that small smile she only gives me when she's not aware she's doing it.

God, she's beautiful.

"Hey, superstar." Her voice cuts into the quiet, soft and warm, full of something deeper than teasing.

I drop my bag by the door and kick my shoes off one at a time, still watching her. "I could get used to this. You, waiting for me, looking absolutely beautiful with my number and last name on the back."

Her smile deepens, and she lifts the mug to her lips like she's hiding behind it. "Lia told me I looked very cool. She said this jersey makes me faster. And then she made me do laps in the hallway."

I laugh. "Bet you didn't even fight her on it."

"Of course not. She's terrifying."

I cross the room slowly, letting the tension stretch. Her eyes flicker to me, then away, then back again. She does that when she's trying not to stare. I catch her every time.

"You were incredible tonight," she says, setting the mug down and shifting to face me more fully. "Like... I knew you were good, but seeing you like that again—on the ice—it's different. You look like you're flying."

"You make me want to fly," I say before I can think better of it.

She goes still. And red. Gloriously, devastatingly red. Her gaze drops to her lap, and she laughs under her breath, shy and breathless in a way that makes my chest ache.

"You're shameless," she says.

"I've waited a long time to flirt with you without pretending it's for show."

I lean in, palms braced on either side of her thighs on the couch, close enough to feel her breath catch. Her lips part just slightly, and I swear I could live in that split-second—her skin warm, her eyes wide, the way her fingers twitch like she wants to reach for me and doesn't know how.

"Are you gonna kiss me, Bennett?" she murmurs.

"Do you want me to?"

She bites her lip. Nods.

I press forward slowly, kissing her like I've got time—because I do. Because we do now. It's soft, slow, the kind of kiss that starts deep in your chest and works its way out through your fingertips. Her hand slips into the collar of the jersey she's wearing, tugging me closer until I'm half on top of her, one knee sinking into the cushion beside her hip.

Her breath catches in that little space between us, and I swear I feel it against my lips—warm and shaky and real. She blinks slowly, like she's waking up from something, like I kissed her into a different time zone and now she's reorienting herself. And god, if she isn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.