"Harder than what?" I pushed off the door, closing half the distance between us. "Harder than standing in a parking lot listening to you tell me this doesn't mean anything?"
"I never said that." His voice went rough. "I haveneversaid that."
"You don't have to. You show me every time you walk past me in the hallway like I'm a stranger. Every time you put three seats between us in the locker room. Every time—"
"I'm terrified." The words burst out of him. "Every fucking day I'm terrified that someone will see the way I look at you and know. That our teammates will figure it out. That management will decide I'm not captain material anymore. That I'll lose everything I've spent a decade building."
I knew he was scared. But hearing it laid bare like that—the raw fear in his voice—hit different.
"How long?" I asked quietly. "How long have you been carrying this?"
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he moved to my threadbare couch and sank down onto it, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
I followed. I sat beside him, close enough to feel his warmth but not touching.
"I was fourteen." His voice was barely above a whisper. "First year playing elite hockey. There was a kid. Sam. We were..." He swallowed hard. "We liked each other."
My heart clenched. I knew where this was going.
"Someone saw us making out. By the next morning, everyone knew."
"Jesus, Luca."
"I learned fast. Keep my head down. Don't look at anyone too long. Don't let anyone close enough to figure it out. By the time I made it to juniors, I had the mask perfected. Intense. Focused. Married to the game. No distractions. No complications. No risk."
He lifted his head. The look in his eyes gutted me.
"I've been that person for sixteen years, Theo. I don't know how to be anyone else anymore."
I wanted to touch him. I wanted to pull him close and promise it would be okay. But I needed him to finish this first.
"Then I showed up," I said softly.
"Then you showed up." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "With your smile and your complete inability to pretend you're someone you're not. And from the first day, you've been cracking me open."
"Is that why you pushed me so hard in training?"
"I was trying to make you hate me." He shook his head. "I thought if I was enough of an asshole, you'd keep your distance. But you just smiled at me and asked if that was all I had."
I felt my mouth curve. "You're going to have to work harder if you want me to hate you."
"I know." He turned toward me on the couch. The distance between us felt like miles. "The thing is, I don't want you to hate me. I want..." He stopped, something crumbling in his expression. "I want things I can't have."
"Like what?"
"Like touching you in public. Like taking you to dinner where people might see us. Like introducing you as..." He trailed off, looking lost. "I don't even know what word to use. What are we?"
It was the first time either of us had asked the question out loud.
"I don't know," I admitted. "We are something, though. Aren't we?"
"Yeah." His voice went rough again. "We are something."
The apartment was quiet except for the distant sound of traffic through the thin walls. My building wasn't much—peeling paint, unreliable heat, neighbors who played music too loud. But it was mine. And more importantly, it was private.
"I came out when I was sixteen," I said. "Made it to college hockey because I was good enough that scouts overlooked the fact that I was openly bi. But I lost friends. I had teammatesrefuse to share a locker room with me. Got benched by coaches who didn't want to deal with the 'distraction.'" I met his eyes. "When Chicago drafted me, I promised myself I wouldn't hide anymore. That I had earned the right to be myself."
"You did." Luca’s hand moved like he wanted to reach for me, then stopped halfway. "You're everything I've been too afraid to be."
