We end up on the balcony, alone for a second, the city spread out below. It’s cold, the air sharp and salty.
Ash leans on the railing, stares out at the lights. “You ever think about telling anyone?” he says, voice low.
I look at him. He’s nervous, picking at the label on his beer. I want to pull him in, to say “yes,” to say “fuck it, let’s just be real for once.”
But I say, “It’s not safe. Not yet.”
He nods, but I can see he hates it.
“I just…” he says, then stops. Starts again. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier to just get caught. Let the world sort it out.”
I almost laugh, but he’s serious.
“You’d be okay with that?” I say.
He shrugs. “I’m already the sub. The nobody. You’re the one who has something to lose.”
I hate the way he says it, like his whole life is an apology.
I step closer, just enough that our arms touch, careful in case someone’s watching.
“You’re not a nobody,” I say, and it comes out rough. “You’re the best thing I’ve got.”
He looks at me, and for a second I think he’s going to cry, but instead he just grins, crooked and true.
“You’re such a fucking sap,” he says, but the way he says it makes it a secret, a promise, not an insult.
We stand out there until the cold drives us in. Inside, the team is watching a YouTube clip on the TV, a compilation ofhockey fights with our own practice brawl spliced in for comic effect.
I see my own face, blood on my jersey, yelling at someone I don’t even remember. Ash is sitting on the floor, knees up, arms wrapped around them, watching the screen with a weird, sad smile.
I sit down next to him. The room is so loud nobody notices. But our knees are touching, and neither of us moves away.
———
The days blur. We practice. We run. We meet in the dark or the rain or the anonymity of the city.
Every time I see Ash, it’s like the air in my lungs doubles, like the world is letting me have something I never thought was allowed.
But the secret’s getting heavier, not lighter. Every time a teammate walks by, every time Coach Vasquez calls us into her office, every time a reporter asks about “chemistry” and “team dynamics,” my skin goes cold.
The final straw comes at the end of a brutal away game, the team half-drunk on the bus ride home, the city rolling past like a glitchy video game.
Raz is in the back, singing along to a pop song none of us have heard, and O’Doul is passed out in his own lap, but Tommy is wide awake, staring out the window.
He glances over at me, then at Ash, who’s two rows up, slumped against the glass, earbuds in.
“You two good?” Tommy says, voice low.
I freeze. “Yeah. Why?”
He shrugs, but his eyes are sharp. “Just seems like you got his back a lot, is all.”
I want to deflect, make a joke, but the words catch.
“He needs it,” I say.
Tommy nods, slow. “So do you.”
