For the first time since Alycia walked out the door, I feel like I might be able to let the world know the truth.
We’ve rearranged my living room twice now. Michele insisted the lighting was “too serial killer.” Ramonasaid the background made me look like I lived inside a hockey documentary, not a cozy living room of someone who had a life outside of hockey. Alise just kept moving my houseplants like she was trying to Feng Shui my moral compass. Now, I’m standing in front of my kitchen island with a ring light pointed directly at my face—one I’m certain Ramona stole from the PR office this morning—while the three of them watch me like coaches trying to keep an injured player from taping himself to the ice.
“Should he sit?” Michele asks, arms crossed, studying me like I’m a puzzle with pieces in the wrong places.
“No,” Ramona says, adjusting the angle on my phone. “Sitting makes it look rehearsed.”
“It’s already rehearsed,” Alise counters. “He’s been practicing in the mirror for ten minutes.”
“I was not—” I catch myself, inhale hard, and scrub a hand over my face. “Okay. Maybe a little.”
“Nerves are good. It means you give a damn.”
I look between them, the three women I trust just as much, if not more, than my own brothers, and suddenly, the weight of what I’m about to do settles differently.
“All right,” Ramona says, taking her spot beside the island like she’s directing an emotional heist. “Remember to look into the camera like you’re talking to exactly one person.”
“Because you are.” Michele nudges my elbow.
My throat tightens as Alise lifts the index card shewrote in Sharpie:BE HONEST. BE SPECIFIC. BE YOURSELF.
Ramona gives me the cue. The red dot blinks, bright and merciless, and my usual polished smile and practiced tone try to surface, but I shove them back down. This isn’t for anyone but her.
“My name is Kyle Hendrix,” I begin, voice low, a rough scrape of breath, “and I’m done lying.”
The words slip through my lips like they’ve been waiting there for months. Behind the camera, I hear Michele inhale softly, the sound of someone rooting for you without needing to say it. I let my shoulders fall, just enough to let myself speak like a man in love, not a PR puppet.
“The relationship between Alycia Torres and me started as a PR decision,” I say, my gaze locked on the lens as if she’s standing inside it. “We agreed to it. We went along with it. And that part… was fake.”
I feel the tremor travel through me, but I don’t look away from the invisible version of her I’m speaking to.
“But somewhere along the way… between forced smiles and staged photos, I stopped pretending.” My throat tightens. “She never did. She doesn’t know how to fake it when it comes to her heart.”
Alise presses her hand to her mouth, wiping at her eye like dust is suddenly a problem. I take a slow, bracing inhale, letting the truth settle on my tongue.
“I fell in love with her. Not the polished version everyone sees. Not the girl framed by headlines or judged through a camera lens. I fell in love with thewoman who stays up too late rewriting press releases so no one else has to. The woman who apologizes, even though she has been hurt. The woman who will walk into a storm alone because she honestly believes she’s easier to sacrifice than to stand beside.”
Raw emotion twists through me, but I don’t fight it. I let them see how much I feel for Alycia. I let her hear it in my voice.
“She is the bravest person I’ve ever met, and she’s so used to being blamed for things she never did that she was willing to take responsibility for this, too.”
I lean closer to the camera, palms grounded on the countertop, breath shaking.
“But if someone is going to carry the weight of this mess, it’s going to be me. She’s spent enough of her life paying for other people’s mistakes.”
I swallow hard, letting the next words settle into the room with unbearable honesty.
“She doesn’t owe anyone an apology; I do. If the truth changes how people see me, that’s a consequence I’ll take. But leave her out of it,” I say slowly, deliberately, reverently. “She deserves better than to be turned into a convenient villain.”
I pause because the next words deserve space.
“And I need one thing to be absolutely clear: I love her. Not because it’s convenient or tied to some narrative. I love her because she’s the first person who’s ever looked at me and seen past my last name. I love her because she’s all fire and fear, and she doesn’t even know how extraordinaryshe is.”
“I love her,” I whisper, blinking against the pressure behind my eyes. “And I’m done hiding it.”
Ramona taps the screen to end the recording, and meaningful silence fills the room. Not awkward or uncertain, just heavy with everything that was said and everything still humming in the air.
Then Alise breathes out, soft and reverent, “Holyshit. You just ruined every man alive, you know that, right?”
