“Ken,” he said, setting his mug down. “What happened?”
I froze.
The lie was already there, bubbling at the back of my throat, begging to be spoken before the truth could tear everything apart. He was two days out from a brutal away game—against Gary’s team, no less. I couldn’t drop this on him. Not now. Not when he finally seemed… okay. Focused. Steady.
“Nothing.” I forced a laugh that tasted like ash. “I panicked over those stupid headlines again. One of them said I wore the same boots twice. Twice, Nick.”
He didn’t smile.
Instead, he walked over slowly, that unreadable expression tightening with every step. His eyes scanned me—my face, my trembling hands, the way I hadn’t taken off my jacket. I felt seen in the worst way.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold,” I lied, even though I wasn’t.
He reached out and tugged me into his chest, anyway. And the second his arms wrapped around me, the dam almost broke. Almost. I pressed my face into him, breathed him in, and reminded myself that this right here—this—was worth protecting.
“If someone said something—if someone touched you?—”
“No one touched me,” I said quickly, voice muffled. “It’s just been a long morning. I wasn’t expecting to… see things from my past.”
His arms tightened like he didn’t believe me—but he didn’t push either.
I let him hold me, eyes squeezed shut, pretending for one more moment that I hadn’t just been followed, cornered, and threatened. That my ex wasn’t trying to burn my life to the ground just because he’d lost control of it.
I couldn’t tell Nick.
Because if I did?
He’d burn the whole damn world down. But guilt gnawed at me like a splinter beneath the skin—small but persistent, impossible to ignore. Every time Nick wrapped himself around me like I was something precious, something worth protecting, it dug a little deeper. He deserved the truth. About the texts. About Gary. About the man in the café who looked at me like I was prey.
But what would telling him change? It would only shake his focus—just days before he had to face Gary on the ice. I couldn’t be the thing that threw him off balance. Not when he’d worked so hard to steady himself.
So instead of speaking, I just held him tighter. My arms looped around his waist like they could anchor me to this version of reality—the one where he smelled like warm skin and cedar, where his chest rose and fell in time with mine. This bubble we’d built felt too delicate to pop with something so ugly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his shoulder, the words brushing against his skin like a secret.
His hold tightened in response, fingers splaying across my back like he could fuse me to him. “You’re not worrying me—you’re scaring me,” he said, voice steady but fraying at the edges.
That broke something in me.
Because he wasn’t supposed to be scared.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and let the silence speak for me—let it stretch long and thin between us until it felt like a lie all on its own. I couldn’t bring myself to confess. Not yet.
Not when he looked at me like I was still whole.
So I leaned in, hiding from everything I couldn’t say.
And when he murmured, “I’ll handle it,” into my hair, I wanted so badly to believe him. To believe he could fight shadows without knowing what they were.
But eventually, the truth would have to come out.
Because even the strongest shields couldn’t hold forever.
Chapter 26
Nick
