Fuck, he’s probably starving.
Harper is still asleep beside me, curled into my side like she belongs there—which of course, she does—but I don’t wake her.
Not yet.
I sit up slowly and swing my feet to the floor, my body heavy but my mind sharp in that way it only gets when something matters. I pull on sweatpants and a hoodie, then step quietly down the hall. Connor is standing in the kitchen, shoulders hunched, staring out the window like he’s waiting for answers to show up in the dark. He startles when he notices me.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey,” he answers.
Neither of us speaks for a minute, the silence lingering painfully between us.
“You can’t sleep?” I finally ask.
He shakes his head. “My brain won’t shut up.”
I nod because I get it.
“Mine either.”
Something in his posture eases just a fraction at that.
“You hungry?”
He shrugs. “Not yet.”
“You want to get out of here?”
He turns his head, his brows pinching in confusion. “Where to?”
“There’s a place I always go when life is, well, life-ing, and I need a minute to think.”
He considers my proposal for a moment and I wonder if he’s contemplating wanting to get out of here or wanting to get out of here with me.
“Mkay,” he finally says, tilting his glass back and finishing his water.
I grab a pen and a sticky note off the counter and write quickly.
We went to the rink. He couldn’t sleep. Back soon. I love you.
—H
Then I text her the same thing, just in case, and then we slip out together, into the world that’s just starting to wake up.
The arena is quiet in a way that feels sacred. Connor pulls on borrowed gear in the locker room while I lace up beside him. Neither of us rushes nor says much. There are no crowds to work through and no music playing. I flip on a few lights. Not all of them, obviously, but enough. The only sounds we hear once we hit the ice are the hum of the refrigeration system coupled with the echo of our skates cutting into the cold surface.
I dump a handful of pucks onto the ice and slide one toward him.
“Shoot,” I say.
He does and it’s harder than I expect. The puck claps off the boards and slides away.
“Again.”
He shoots again.
And again.
