He’s at Liz’s tonight.
It’s the first time he’s stayed over since she got back into town. She picked him up after practice like it was normal, like she hadn’t disappeared for months and years at a time before this, or bailed on half of her promises while here. Jamie was excited but cautious—his bag already packed, helmet swinging from his arm like a badge of honor.
I said it was fine. It is fine. Or close enough to it.
Jamie’s old enough to figure out his own way with his mother. He has to be the one to decide what he wants there. I’ll back his play — whatever it is.
Roe’s game has already started by the time I sit down.
Boston. Third game in the series. He’s played in all of them—solid, smart, calm under pressure. Everything they said he wouldn’t be again after the injury. Everything he was before.
He’s on the screen again now, skating backward, reading the play like he’s still got NAPH instincts in his bones. He blocks a shot without flinching. Dumps the puck clean. Gets a pat on the shoulder from his line mate as they head to the bench.
I’ve been wearing his jersey since game one. Jamie made me, said it was bad luck not to. So I wore it beside him on the couch, both of us yelling at the screen like we had any business coaching from here. I played the part. Cheered when Roe did well. Teased Jamie when he got too into it. Smiled through all of it.
I teased Roe after his first game, easily enough sending us in the way of physical connection—even through video.
Tonight, I run a thumb along the edge of the stitched letters of his Iceguard jersey, same number 18 he’s wearing for the Knights. My exploration is slow, careful.
The announcers are talking about Roe again. About how he’s surprised them . . .
“Hasn’t missed a step.”
“Good depth option if Chicago needs to extend their bench.”
“Could be a late-season call-up again if his team’s out of playoff contention.”
The other guy agrees.
“I think we can look for that as the season moves forward and have a good idea of the Knights’ intentions with Roe Monroe.”
My jaw tightens.
He’s coming back. I know that. He told me.
He also said we transcended where he was playing. Hell, he said that like a damned promise.
But watching him out there, sharp and fast and sure of himself, it’s hard not to wonder how long that promise will hold once someone else offers him something bigger.
The commentators move on to someone else, some rookie winger with “explosive potential,” but I’m not listening anymore. Roe’s off the ice. The camera cuts to the bench, and I catch a glimpse of him leaning forward, helmet pushed back, jaw clenched in that way he does when he’s trying not to fidget.
He looks like he belongs there.
I drop my head back against the couch, eyes drifting to the ceiling, the beams above. I should be relieved. He’s played well. They’ll send him home, and it won’t be because he failed. It’ll be because he was solid, dependable—everything a team needs when they’re short on bodies and light on experience.
He’ll come back here, to the Iceguard, to Fox River Falls, to—
To what?
To this couch? To my shop? To late nights and early mornings and a bar still half imagined?
To me? To be mine for at least a little while?
I close my eyes, and for a moment I can still hear his voice in the kitchen, that lazy, teasing drawl. The way he talks to Jamie like the kid hung the moon. The way he touches me without thinking—shoulder to shoulder, hand on the back of my neck, warm breath at my ear like we’re not two grown men who should have given up on romance a long time ago.
You let him in,I accuse myself.Goddamn it, Gabe. You let him in.
I didn’t mean to. Swear to God, I didn’t.
