When we finally left and climbed back into Étienne’s Jeep, I felt lighter than I had all day.
“One down,” Étienne said as he started the engine.
“Well… three down.”
The week ahead would be hard.
But romances always had a happy ending, right? Though things hadn’t gone great yet, they were looking up. We had Kinnunen’s support. We had Gia’s love and Alyssa’s fierce loyalty.
It wasn’t everything or ever after.
But it was a start.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Étienne
The days between telling our families and telling the team felt like both an eternity and no time at all.
Tuesday, we had practice in the morning—a light skate before the break. I taped my stick at Marco’s stall like always, and we joked with Kinnunen about his plans for Lilja’s first Christmas morning. Nothing different. Except Kinnunen’s eyes held something extra when he looked at us—knowledge, support, solidarity.
It felt strange, carrying this secret that was about to explode, while everyone else worried about holiday travel plans and whether their families would like their gifts.
That afternoon, Marco and I went to the big box hardware store to buy a Christmas tree. It seemed ridiculous—we were about to blow up our lives, our families had just rejected us, and we were picking out a Douglas fir like we were normal roommates preparing for a normal holiday.
But maybe that was the point.
“This one,” Marco said, pointing to a six-footer with full branches and a mostly straight trunk.
“You sure? That one’s taller.” I gestured to a seven-footer nearby.
“Our ceiling’s not that high. And this one’s perfect.”
Perfect. I looked at him standing there in his winter coat, snowflakes just starting to fall, picking out our first Christmas tree together, and my shoulders suddenly relaxed. We’d lost our families. We were about to lose our privacy and possibly my place on the team.
But we had this. We had each other.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
We brought it home, spent the evening setting it up in the corner by the window. We didn’t have many ornaments—I’d grabbed a box of assorted decorations and lights from the store, and Marco contributed a few things Gia had given him over the years. It looked a little sparse, a little makeshift.
It looked like ours.
We ordered Chinese food and ate it on the couch, watching the tree lights blink in the dimness, not talking about Monday’s family calls or Sunday’s looming revelations. Just being together in the quiet.
“I’m glad we did this,” Marco said eventually, his head on my shoulder.
“The tree?”
“All of it. Coming out to our families. Deciding to go public. Choosing this.” He gestured vaguely at the room, at us, at everything. “I’m terrified. But I’m glad.”
I kissed the top of his head. “Me too.”
Christmas Day, we slept in late—no practice, no game, nothing pulling us out of bed. The sex was sensual, unhurried, like the snow drifting down outside. When we finally got up, I made coffee while Marco scrambled eggs and dropped bread in the toaster
We’d put our gifts for each other under the tree the nightbefore. Nothing big—we’d agreed on that, knowing what the next few weeks would bring. But something meaningful.
I went first, handing Marco a small, wrapped box.
