"I promise."
He kissed me like he was claiming me and being claimed in return. Like love was something you built together through showing up and staying and choosing each other in both the ordinary moments and the electric ones.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, breathing hard.
"The chair approves," Pickle said into the silence.
I listened. Sure enough—one soft creak.
"Your grandmother has opinions about our sex life."
"She always did." He pressed his face against my shoulder. "She'd like you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You make me better. Not different. Just—more myself."
I kissed the top of his head. "You do the same for me."
We fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other.
I woke at 2 a.m. Distant traffic muffled by snow. Pickle's steady breathing.
My mind was still. Not empty—just present.
Pickle's arm rested across my chest, warmth radiating from his skin.
Tomorrow we'd wake up together. Make breakfast. Pickle would go to practice, and I'd go to work. Later, we would both come home.
The routine was ordinary. It was everything.
I'd spent a decade mistaking urgency for purpose. Building a career that required constant proof that I was worth the space I occupied.
Quiet had always felt like failure, until now
Lying in the silence in Thunder Bay—in an apartment that smelled like burnt toast and hockey gear—I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Pickle shifted in his sleep, burrowing closer. He mumbled something unintelligible—probably a hockey term, possibly "love you" again, definitely nothing that required a response.
I kissed his forehead.
The Storm had a game in two days. I'd go. Sit in my usual seat. Watch Pickle play without filming.
Then we'd come home.
This life I was building—local work, domestic chaos, love without conditions—wasn't extraordinary.
It was better.
The haunted chair creaked once more. Approving.
I closed my eyes, matched my breathing to Pickle's, and stayed.
Epilogue - Pickle
The noise hit my chest before it reached my ears.
Packed house at the arena—every seat full, standing room crammed, and the sound bouncing off the rafters. It wasn't music. It wasn't organized. It was Thunder Bay being Thunder Bay: loud, loyal, and slightly unhinged.
