Page 191

“Your dad was my coach.”

“I know.”

“Your family⁠—”

“I know, Bishop.”

His jaw tightens. “Then you know why.”

Maybe. Except I suddenly know I was wrong about something much bigger.

He noticed me. All those years I thought I was invisible to him— I wasn’t.

I look down because I’m not sure what to do with that yet.

“Becks.” His voice is low.

I lift my eyes. He called me Becks. Not Baby Becks. Just Becks. The way his voice wraps around the single syllable does something to my pulse.

His gaze has moved past me to the clock and his expression softens.

“Eleven-eleven.”

I turn to see 11:11 glowing from the display.

My chest squeezes. He remembered. Of course he remembered.

“Make a wish,” he says, lifting the cake gently between us.

Usually, I close my eyes, But tonight I don’t.

I look at him across two little flames, barely still glowing over what’s left of the pink wax. The boy I spent years wishing would see me—the man who’s apparently been seeing me all along.

I lock eyes with him and blow out the candles. Smoke curls between us.

His mouth curves. “What’d you wish for?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Then it won’t come true?”

“Exactly.”

He takes the cake from me. Slowly sitting aside. My heart beats faster with every breath.

“That’s a problem.”

“Why?”

He leans in, his clean woodsy scent replacing the smell of chocolate and candle wax.

“Because how am I supposed to make it come true if you won’t tell me what it is?”

My heart may actually stop. “Maybe you already know.”