The words aren’t tidy, they come out uneven and unrehearsed, and I know I’m rambling. Still, I hope he can make sense of it.
“I don’t think it’s fate or reassurance or anything like that,” I say. “I’ve never believed in that stuff, because my career is defined by rules and logic and science. But every time I thought I couldn’t do it, or the world felt too hard, there it was. A rainbow.”
I swallow. “Not a fix, just… a nudge. Like he was lending me a bit of light.”
Reid’s arms tighten around me just slightly, just enough to let me know he’s still here, and I melt into him.
“I think there’s a part of me,” I say quietly, “that needed something gentler than certainty and logic to survive. And maybe he sends them, because he can’t send himself.”
It comes out like a secret, one I didn’t know I was actively keeping.
“I know it sounds stupid.” I shake my head, huff a little laugh.
He stays quiet for another beat, his arms solid around me. I think maybe we’re done talking, because there’s nothing left tosay. But a moment later, his voice breaks the silence, low and rough near my ear.
“You know I rinse my jockstrap in glacier water before every playoff round, right?”
I pause with a frown, then pull back just enough to glance at him over my shoulder.
“…What?”
“Dead serious,” he says, entirely unbothered. “Didn’t even make it to the third round last year, and I realized we’d changed the detergent. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
A stunned breath escapes me, part laugh and part disbelief. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” he says, too flatly for it to be a tease. “I’ve got three rolls of pre-torn stick tape in my bag right now. I bless each one in the order of our conference standings. Viktor has to tap my pads in the exact same rhythm before I go on. Logan’s banned from saying the wordshutoutwithin five miles of me.”
I blink at him. “You… believe in signs.”
“I’m a goalie,” he says, like that explains everything. “We invented signs.”
And I don’t really mean to laugh, but it bubbles up anyway, escaping before I can catch it. It shakes loose from somewhere behind my ribs, deep and warm and sudden.
His grin stretches against the shell of my ear. “So no, Havoc. I don’t think it’s stupid.”
I hum my amusement, then blow out an exhale as I close my eyes. When I open them again, the rainbow is fading in the sky, swallowed by light.
“I think I want to keep the baby.”
He stills, but only for a second. Then he nods against my hair, inhaling deeply as though he’s memorizing the moment. Holding me and allowing the weight of it to land where it needs to.
We sit in the hush that follows, and for the first time since I saw that test, I don’t feel like I’m carrying it alone. My chest still feels tight, like there might be too much inside it, but the words are out. The ache is out. And I’m still breathing.
His hand slowly glides over my stomach, just a single pass of his warm palm. Then he brings it back to my waist, brushing the inside of his thumb gently along my ribs.
He doesn’t speak until I’ve exhaled again, my head resting back against his shoulder, the bones of his collar pressing, steady and solid, beneath my cheek.
“We can go slow,” he murmurs, so softly I almost miss it.
I nod.
“And we don’t have to have all the answers right now,” he adds. “We’ve got time.”
His other hand finds mine where it’s curled in my lap, and his thumb runs circles across the back of my knuckles. It’s the gentlest thing in the world, but it breaks something open in me all over again.
“I don’t know what we are,” I say quietly. “But I know I don’t want to face this without you.”
“You don’t have to.”
