Étienne’s room was identical to mine—two beds, standard hotel furniture, the impersonal feeling of a space designed to be temporary. He moved to the far bed, the one by the window, and sat on the edge.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said quietly.
My stomach dropped. “Can’t do what?”
“This. All of this.” He gestured vaguely at the room, the hotel, everything. “Pretending we’re nothing. Playing together like that tonight and then acting like we’re just best friends. Sharing a bed at home and then coming here and sleeping in separate rooms.”
“Étienne—”
“I love you.” The words came out raw, desperate. “I’m in love with you. And I can’t keep pretending I’m not. I can’t keep swallowing it every time I want to touch you the way I really want to. Every time I have to make sure a look is friendly instead of intimate, make sure sitting beside you doesn’t look like anything more than friendship. I can’t keep pretending we’re roommates when you’re everything to me. It’s suffocating me, Marco.”
Everything in my chest seized. He loved me. He’d said it. And the way he was looking at me—like he was drowning and I was the only one who could save him—made my hands shake.
“I love you too,” I whispered, and watched something crack in his expression. “You know I do.”
“Then why are we doing this? Why are we living like this?”
“Because we have to.” I moved closer, needing to be near him, but afraid of what that meant. “Because the alternative?—”
“Is what? Being honest? Being together openly?”
“Is losing everything.” The words came out harder than I intended. “My family, Étienne. Your father. Maybe being separated by a trade.”
“That might happen anyway.” His voice broke. “But I also know that I can’t keep living like this. I can’t watch you get hit into the boards and not be able to react. Can’t go home to our bed and then come here and sleep alone and pretend it doesn’t tear me apart.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t know either.” He dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes wet. “I’m not asking you to come out tomorrow. I’m not even asking you to make a decision. I just… I needed you to know. That I love you. And that this is slowly killing me.”
I crossed the space between us and sat beside him on the bed, close enough that our shoulders touched. “I’m sorry. God, Étienne, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” His voice was low, small, unsure. “Just tell me there’s an endpoint. Tell me we’re not going to hide like this forever.”
I wanted to. Wanted to promise him we’d figure it out, that we’d find a way to be together openly without losing everything else. But I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t imagine standing in front of my mother and telling her I was in love with a man. Couldn’t imagine the locker room knowing, the media coverage, the constant attention.
And worst of all—couldn’t imagine the front office deciding we were too much of a distraction and trading him away.
“What if they separate us?” I asked quietly. “What if coming out means they trade you to Boston or Toronto? I can’t lose you, but I can’t—I don’t know how to choose between loving you and losing everything else.”
Étienne turned his head and his eyes searched mine. “I’m not asking you to choose tonight. But eventually… Marco, eventually we’re going to have to figure out how to live. Really live. Not just survive.”
He was right. I knew he was right. But knowing it and being able to act on it were two different things.
“I need time,” I said. “To think. To figure out?—”
He leaned against me, his weight familiar andcomforting. “I can’t tell you what to do. But something has to change.”
The words hung in the air like a threat and a promise.
We sat there for a long time, not talking. Eventually, Étienne’s breathing evened out, and I realized he’d fallen asleep against my shoulder.
I shifted him carefully and laid him back on the bed. I pulled the duvet over him and tucked it around his shoulders. He murmured something in his sleep and rolled onto his side.
I stood there for a moment, just watching him, then forced myself to move. I checked the hallway through the peephole—empty—and slipped quietly back to my room. When I closed my door behind me, relief flooded through me.
I’d gotten away with it. I climbed into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come.
He loved me. I loved him.
