He gave a short laugh that didn’t carry any humor. “All it means is that getting replaced is gonna suck even more now.”
The machine gurgled louder, filling the tense space between us. I watched him instead of the coffee. The way the words sat in his mouth like they’d been there a while, just waiting for the wrong moment to slip out.
“You just won a game, Aiden.”
“That’s tonight.” His hand dropped, fingers flexing once at his side. “It’s always tonight. Tomorrow someone else is faster in practice, or Mason heals up, or Coach decides he wants a different look. When that happens, I stop being the answer and turn into the extra piece real fast.”
I turned back to the machine, more for the excuse than the coffee. Steam curled up past my hand. Something about the steady drip grounded the space, kept it from tipping into something neither of us could walk back from.
“So don’t enjoy it,” I said, reaching for two mugs from the shelf. “That’ll show them.”
A quiet huff behind me. “You’re the best when it comes to advice.”
I set the mugs down, poured, slid one across the counter toward him. Our fingers met for half a beat when he took it. “Yeah, well, serves you right for looking for advice on this in the first place, because that’s a shit plan.”
He looked at the coffee, then at me, something more open in his expression now that the words were out and couldn’t be stuffed back in. “It’s the only one that makes sense.”
“Only if you’re planning to be miserable on purpose.” I took a sip. It was way too hot, but I didn’t care. “Which feels like overkill when the league already does that for you.”
His mouth twitched, but it came to nothing. This was clearly bugging him in a way that couldn’t be joked into submission.
“I just…” He stared into the cup, thumb tracing the rim. “I don’t want to get used to it. The ice time. Being the answer. I’ve learned from experience the second that happens, it’s gone.”
And that did something under my ribs I didn’t have a neat label for.
I set my mug down, not sure what he needed from me but hating to see him like this. “So the solution is to stay half out of it?”
“It’s safer.”
“Safer,” I repeated. “Right.”
The machine clicked off behind me, and the quiet that followed felt more loaded than any sold-out arena. My gaze dropped to a faint nick in the laminate, and I tracked it with my nail, once, twice. Let the thought circle until it either died or came out.
It came out.
“Funny,” I said, keeping my eyes on that nick. “I had a version of that.”
He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t push me to go on. Just stayed there, close enough that I could feel the heat of him without turning. Part of me screamed to shut the hell up, but there was another part—one reaching for Aiden in the dim light of the tattoo studio—that wouldn’t be silenced.
“My dad spent his whole life chasing a break that never quite showed up,” I went on. It felt weird hearing the words out loud that I’d never spoken to anyone except Ramona. “Always the next thing, the next shot, the next reason to not settle. Which sounds great if you ignore what it does to the people waiting around for him to pick a place and stay there.”
I picked up the mug again, turned it in my hands, and watched the coffee settle.
“My mom…” A breath, far steadier than it felt. “She just… let it happen. Over and over. Like if she held everything together hard enough, it would eventually make him satisfied with the life he had, instead of intent on chasing a dream that was never gonna be his.”
I finally looked at Aiden. He hadn’t moved. His full attention was on me.
“He left,” I said. “But not all at once, because that would’ve been easier. He left us in little bits. Long enough that by the time it was obvious, there wasn’t much left to argue over. Long enough so it became my mom’s fault he didn’t make it.”
Heat pressed into my palm, something real to anchor to. Aiden sensed the tremor in me, and stepped closer, a hand touching my arm.
“And she stayed,” I added. “Stayed exactly where he’d left her. Same excuses. Same waiting. Like the ending might rewrite itself if she didn’t acknowledge it.”
The laugh that followed didn’t carry anything light. “So now every time I look at her, that’s all I see. Not my mom. Just… the woman who couldn’t hold the line. Who gave up on herself and her family for no reason at all. Not that there ever is one.”
The words hung there, heavier than anything I’d said all night. He’d cracked something open, and I’d walked right through it without checking the drop on the other side.
“Which is unfair.” My voice cracked. “And there’s a whole list of reasons why that’s not how any of that works. I’m aware. But still.”
