“Thank you,” he said into my shirt. “For listening to me. For not hating me after everything.”
“I could never hate you,” I told him, and the words came out before I could stop them. They were honest and raw and more true than anything else I'd said all night. “Not even close.”
He pulled back far enough to look up at me with those damn eyes that had always been too expressive for his own good, and he smiled. “I'll text you.”
“You better.”
He climbed into his car and started the engine, and I stood there in the cold watching his taillights disappear down the dirt road until I couldn't see them anymore. Then I stood there a little longer after that, staring up at the stars that had watched us break open together, and I tried to figure out how the hell I was supposed to go home and sleep after everything that had just happened.
My phone buzzed in my pocket about ten minutes later.
Soren
Home safe. Thanks for tonight. I mean it.
I stared at the message for a long time before I managed to type back a response.
Rook
Anytime. I mean that too.
Soren
Goodnight, Rook.
I smiled despite everything, despite the exhaustion and the emotional wreckage and the cold that had settled deep into my bones.
Rook
Goodnight, Soren.
I drove home in complete silence because my mind was too full and too empty at the same time to handle music. The house was dark when I got there, and I walked inside withoutbothering to turn on any lights. I just went straight to my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed fully clothed without even taking off my shoes.
The ceiling stared back at me in the darkness, and I replayed the entire night in my head on loop. His face when he'd cried. The way his body had fit against mine like no time had passed at all. The truth he'd finally told me about his parents and his siblings and why he'd disappeared. The years we'd lost because he'd been too ashamed to ask for help and I'd been too hurt to keep looking harder.
It didn't fix everything between us. He was right about that.
But it was a start, and after years of having absolutely nothing, a start felt like everything.
CHAPTER NINE
locked in
ROOK
The puck dropped at center ice, and I felt the shift happen in my body before my brain fully processed it. I knew exactly where I needed to be. Two days after sitting under the stars with Soren and letting thirteen years of grief crack open between us, I was back on home ice for an exhibition game against some chippy Alberta team, and I felt more locked in than I had in weeks.
Coach stood behind the bench with his arms crossed, watching the first shift with that expression he got when he was evaluating rather than coaching. Jace was next to him, iPad in hand, tracking stats that didn't technically matter for an exhibition but mattered to him anyway because that was how his brain worked. The rest of the team was keyed up despite the “doesn't count” status of the game, because nobody on either bench was treating this like a casual fucking skate.
The Alberta center won the draw and sent it back to his defense, but I was already reading the play, already skating into the passing lane before he'd fully committed to the direction. I picked it off clean, chipped it ahead to Dmitri on the blue line, and drove hard toward the net as the cycle started. The Alberta defense collapsed in tight, overcommitting to the puck carrier, and I saw the space open up before anyone else did.
“Rook!” Dmitri's voice cut through the noise, and I snapped my stick down to the ice just as the pass came through. One-timer, high glove side, and their goalie barely got a piece of it before it rang off the post and bounced into the corner.
“Fuck,” I muttered, but I was already chasing the rebound because that was what captains did. You didn't get to sulk about missed chances when the play was still live.
Their winger got there first and tried to clear it up the boards, but Mason was waiting for him with the kind of hit that made the entire rink feel it. The puck came loose, and I scooped it up behind their net, scanning for options while their defense scrambled to recover. Benny was cutting toward the slot, stick on the ice, and I fed him the pass with enough velocity that he didn't have to handle it, just redirect it toward the net.
Goal. Fifteen seconds into the first shift.
