“Screw it,” I mutter to the empty hotel room as I swing my legs off the bed. I slide my feet into my sandals, grab my room key from the nightstand, and head for the door. I have a persistent, gut-level sense that Arthur is not okay, and I am done letting him retreat behind that closed, stoic wall. Not tonight.
The hotel is hushed at this hour. The carpet muffles my footsteps as I make my way toward the elevator. The only people I pass are two young women in glittering mini dresses,laughing softly, clearly on their way to a club. I watch them for a second longer than necessary, struck by the sudden realization that I skipped that entire phase of life. I went from being a teenager juggling two jobs to a girlfriend, then a wife, then a mother in what feels like a heartbeat.
Arthur’s room is three floors above mine. When I knock, there’s a pause long enough to make me question my choice to come. I lift my hand to knock again just as the door opens.
“Hey.”
His voice is flat. Controlled. Empty. He looks older than he did this morning when he kissed me goodbye in my doorway. The lines around his eyes are deeper, his shoulders heavier. He’s still wearing his suit, jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened, as if he never quite came down from the game.
“Hey.” I slip inside and he closes the door behind me with a quiet, deliberate click. “Your room is a lot bigger than mine.”
It’s an opening. A small, easy thread he could tug. A chance to tease me, to remind me that he is bigger, higher up the food chain, more important.
“Yeah,” is all he gives me.
Oh boy.
“Is this a rank thing?” I ask lightly, forcing a smile. “Because it seems a little elitist if you ask me.”
“I guess.”
I exhale sharply, frustration bubbling up.
“I don’t assign the rooms, Elliot. Tell Cal if you need something bigger.”
“I don’t need a bigger room,” I say, my voice firmer now. “I need you to talk to me.”
“I am fucking talking to you. This is talking.”
“No,” I snap, the words coming fast and sharp. “This is bullshit. If you don’t want to see me tonight for whatever reason, that’s okay. But do not gaslight me by pretendingeverything is fine when you know damn well you are shutting me out.”
The words hang between us, thick and undeniable. I turn toward the door, but he steps into my path, solid and immovable.
“I’m not trying to shut you out,” he says quietly. “I’m trying not to drag you down with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He gestures toward the bed. Reluctantly, I back up and sit, folding my legs beneath me. The mattress dips softly under my weight. Arthur drags the armchair closer, the legs scraping faintly against the carpet, and lowers himself into it across from me. He looks suddenly tired. Exhausted.
“When Austin went down, I thought…”
“You thought his Achilles had been sliced,” I finish gently.
He drags a hand over his face, rough and slow. “It’s common enough. It happened to a guy in Philly not two months ago.” His gaze drops to the carpet, jaw tight, and I wait. “But watching it happen to Crawford. Thinking that he was…” He exhales hard. “Austin’s a good kid. He’s a cocky, know-it-all, arrogant little shit, but he’s still a good kid. And he’s talented. He could have a massive career. He should have a massive career. And when I thought that might be taken from him, I just…”
“You didn’t want him to lose his career the way you did.”
“Yes. But it’s more than that.” He looks up then, eyes dark and unguarded. “The worst part wasn’t that he might never play again. It was the thought that he might turn into me.”
My chest tightens. Just when I think my heart cannot split any further, it finds a way.
“Hockey was my purpose,” he continues, voice low and stripped bare. “When I lost it, I didn’t just lose my job. I lost the only part of myself I ever liked. The only part I respected. I lost the thing that got me out of bed in the morning.” Heswallows. “I found another purpose eventually in coaching. But it was never the same.”
He leans forward until his elbows rest on his knees, shoulders slumped under the weight of everything he’s been carrying. The urge to reach for him is overwhelming. I want to climb into his lap, press myself against him, hold him together. But he is finally talking, finally letting the words out, so I stay still and let him have the space.
“I think I was watching it all happen again in my head,” he says quietly. “Only this time it was Austin. I saw him lose his purpose. I saw him shut people out. I saw him play through pain and never actually heal. And it fucking destroyed me. Because he doesn’t deserve that.”
“Neither did you.”
