He pushes off the blue line and skates toward the exit tunnel, and with every second that passes, the rink grows quieter. I watch his shadow stretch and fade as he disappears into the dark. The door closes behind him with a muted thud that reverberates through the hollow space of the rink and me. Then there’s nothing but silence that leaves me nowhere to hide.
I stand there long after he’s gone, my breath dragging unevenly through my chest like it’s fighting its way out. The emptiness around me presses close, filling the places I’ve tried so desperately to outrun. I can feel the weight of every unsaid thing, every quiet truth I’ve shoved so far down I thought I’d buried it. But here, in the stillness Beau left behind, there’s no distance between me and the ache I’ve been refusing to touch.
My breath shudders out of me, uneven and ragged. There’s no audience here. No brothers. No teammates. No cameras waiting to twist the narrative into something palatable. There’s only the truth, rising from somewhere deep inside me like a tide pulled by something bigger than every excuse and lie I tried to use to keep myself safe.
“I love you.”
The words crack in the air the moment they leavemy mouth, as raw and exposed as the part of me I’ve been holding shut with both hands.
“I love you,” I say again, barely more than a breath. “God, Alycia… I love you.”
The confession pulls something I’ve been strangling for days, maybe longer. My throat tightens with it, an uncontainable pressure that climbs until a sound slips from me. Then I’m not holding myself up so much as leaning into the net, letting the cold threads dig into my palms while everything I’ve tried to hold in slips free.
The tears come quietly, but with just enough force to undo me and let the truth breathe. When the trembling in my chest eases just enough to let air in again, I lift my head and drag my sleeve across my cheeks. The rink is still empty, wide and quiet, like it’s listening.
“Alycia,” I whisper, her name catching on the remnants of a sob. “I’ll wait. As long as it takes for you to believe me… I’ll wait.”
It doesn’t feel like a declaration or some polished vow meant for someone else’s consumption. It feels like the completely unhidden truth holding me the way nothing else tonight has been able to. I glide back from the crease, the ache in my chest settling into something fragile but steady. A love that hurts, heals, and refuses to die, even when everything else around it feels like it already has.
And somewhere in that dark, silent expanse of empty stands, something takes root. It might break me or save me.
I’m not sure which.
But for the first time in days… I don’t run from the possibility.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alycia
It’s been a few weeks, but the building still feels like it remembers the moment everything cracked.
The charity skate is long over, yet the fallout refuses to die down. My desk is a graveyard of empty cups, scribbled notes, and printouts of articles that picked apart the charity event like it was game tape instead of a night I’m still trying to crawl out of. I’ve read every headline three times: speculation spun into story, footage looped and slowed and screenshot. Everyone has an opinion about the way we smiled, the way we stood, the way he walked away.
I keep telling myself it’s only optics, something I can counter with carefully crafted copy and distraction campaigns. That if I just keep rearranging narratives like puzzle pieces, I can hold the whole thing together long enough for the world to lose interest. I try to believe it. I try to sink into the comfort of strategy and structure and clean, controllable lines because that’s the only place where things make sense. In the neat,curated world of PR, feelings are optional. Mess is optional. Pain is optional.
But I’m not in that world tonight. Tonight, every headline hits like a bruise I can’t protect, every comment feels like someone pressing a thumb into a wound I didn’t realize was still open, and every paused video frame is another reminder that I’m losing the illusion faster than I can rebuild it. I keep refreshing feeds even though I already know what’s there. I draft statements I’ll never send, trying to find a version of the truth that doesn’t feel like a betrayal to either of us.
I hate that it matters this much. It shouldn’t. This should be easy. Something I can box up and slide onto a back shelf in the part of my brain that knows how to compartmentalize. But the more I fight it, the more it spills out in ways I can’t contain. There’s a pressure building beneath my ribs, something hot and frustrated and aching, and every time I blink, I see the moment he turned from me on the ice. The way I felt before I understood it, and the silence that followed.
I tell myself I’m only upset because the narrative is slipping, and I don’t want to lose control. I remind myself that this is what I’m good at—holding the line, shaping perception, keeping my heart out of reach—but none of it is working.
The longer I sit here, the more the truth pushes up through the cracks I’ve been pretending aren’t there. It’s not the press that’s getting to me or the speculation. It’s him. It’s the way I keep leaning forward at the faintest sound in the hallway, ridiculously hoping thatmaybe he’ll be there. I replay every conversation, every moment we might have done differently, trying to figure out where this all broke, even though I already know.
My eyes burn from staring at my screen too long, from watching and rewatching the same thirty-second clip until I can feel the energy in his shoulders just before he cuts away. That moment when the press smile cracks and the hurt slips through.
I did that.
My fingers hover over the trackpad, then I finally force myself to close the window before I spiral again. My reflection flickers faintly on the dark screen, skin dull under fluorescent light, lipstick smudged, hair frizzing out of its twist. I look like I’ve been holding my breath for days.
Maybe I have.
I gather my things with movements that feel clumsy in the quiet. Phone. Badge. Keys. The familiar weight of my bag on my shoulder. Every part of the routine is muscle memory, comfort in the repetition. I pull the office door closed behind me and stand for a moment in the empty hallway, letting the hush sink in.
I haven’t seen Kyle in person since that day at the rink. Not up close, anyway. I’ve seen him on screens, in photos, in video sessions where I pretended my pulse didn’t spike every time someone hit play. I’ve heard his name in meetings, listened to people talk about him like a brand I’m responsible for, a problem to manage, a narrative to redirect.
He hasn’t come by my office, and I haven’t sought him out. We’re orbiting each other as if something went wrong with gravity, and neither of us trusts what will happen if we get close enough to collide again.
I head toward the elevators, the ache under my ribs settling into a familiar, unwelcome weight. I could take the stairs, adding an extra few minutes of purposeless movement between here and my car. But my heels already dig at the backs of my ankles, and my brain is too fried to pretend this is about anything other than wanting the fastest route out of the building. I press the call button and watch it glow orange beneath my thumb. A soft mechanical hum stirs above as the car moves.
