Declan peels out of the knot of bodies, skating alone toward my side of the boards. He ignores the cameras. He ignores the three stars selection.
His eyes are already on me.
He reaches the glass right in front of us and slams his stick against it, twice.
Clack. Clack.
Our signal.
End with me.
My palms are already flat against the glass. He presses the blade of his stick there, right under them.
My dad steps up beside me. He raises a hand, giving a sharp, respectful salute through the glass.
Declan nods at him—man to man, pro to pro—before his eyes lock back on mine.
He taps the glass once more. Then he’s gone.
Hours later, the noise has faded into a pleasant ache behind my eyes.
We end up on the balcony of the penthouse. It’s a warm night, the city humidity mixing with the cool breeze off the river. The skyline is a jagged cut of gold and white lights against the dark.
I curl into his side on the oversized outdoor sofa, my bare feet tucked under his thigh. His arm is around me, solid and heavy, hand splayed over my hip.
I’m in his hoodie, hood down. Nothing underneath but skin.
He traces the line of my jaw with his thumb.
“You quiet?” he asks. His voice is roughened by shouting over the crowd.
“Just thinking,” I say. “About where we started. The student union. The dorms. The panic attacks.”
He grunts quietly. “Feels like a different life.”
“It was,” I say.
I reach for his hand—the one resting on my knee. I lift it, turning it over in the dim light of the city.
His hand—the one that used to be bruised, cut, stained with ink and blood from the things he broke—is clean. The scars have faded to thin white lines. It’s steady. Strong.
It’s a hand that catches pucks at a hundred miles an hour, and a hand that holds me while I study.
“Every fracture led here,” he murmurs, breaking the silence.
I feel the words more than hear them.
He’s right.
Alistair. Beatrice. Jensen. The fear. The silence.
All of it cracked us.
All of it funneled us into this exact moment.
Me, a med student who knows exactly how to heal. Him, a pro who knows exactly how to protect.
“I used to hate that idea,” I admit. “That everything happens for a reason. But now…” I run my thumb over his palm. “I don’t feel broken. I just see all the places the light got in.”
