I shifted, propping myself up on one elbow so I could look down at her. Her hair was splayed across the white pillowcase like dark silk, her eyes wide and searching in the shadows. I reached out, my thumb tracing the swollen line of her lower lip.
"If we’re going to do this, Kayla—really do this—I want to do it the right way," I said, taking the lead for the most important shift of my life. "No more half-truths. No more hiding behind mentorship and friendship because we’re afraid of the mess."
She looked at me, a flicker of fear crossing her face, followed quickly by a resolve that made my heart ache. "The right way?"
"Yeah," I nodded. I leaned down, pressing my forehead against hers, closing my eyes. "We tell him. Together. We tell Gabe that I’m not just around for the season, and I’m not just around for the hockey."
The silence stretched between us, thick with the reality of what that meant. It was the end of her life as a solitary unit, and the beginning of something much more complicated. And infinitely better.
"Okay," she whispered, her hand coming up to cup my jaw, her fingers sliding into my hair. "We’ll tell him."
30
Kayla
The drive to Northside High should have been a victory lap. The sun was beating down on the hood of my car, the San Antonio sky a relentless, mocking blue, and my son was sitting in the passenger seat amped with the kind of caffeine-fueled energy only a fifteen-year-old post-sleepover could possess.
"I’m telling you, Tyler’s older brother has the insane rig," Gabe was saying, his hands moving animatedly as he described the gaming marathon I’d missed while I was counting lemon crates at the bar. "We were up until three. The frame rate on that space sim is actually buttery. I didn't even know graphics could look like that."
I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white. My skin still felt over-sensitive, the ghost of Michael’s touch lingering on my thighs, my neck, my soul. He wasn’t the only one who barely got any sleep last night, and it was beginning to catch up with me. My brain was sludge.
"That sounds fun, honey," I said, my voice sounding tinny to my own ears. "But you know what Michael says about those sims. If the physics don't match the friction of the ice, it’s just pretty lights. It ruins your muscle memory for the real thing."
The silence that followed was instantaneous. It wasn't a quiet pause; it was a vacuum that my heart lurch.
Gabe stopped mid-gesture. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his dark eyes narrowing behind his messy bangs. "What?"
My heart performed a slow, sickening roll in my chest. "I—I just meant, he’s mentioned it before. About the training apps and things."
"No," Gabe said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all that boyish excitement. "He didn't mention it before. He told me on the ice that sims were fine as long as the refresh rate was high. When did he say that other stuff, Mom? When did he tell you that?"
I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. I searched for a lie, a quick, easy exit, but my brain was a scrambled mess of copper-river salmon and hotel sheets. "He... we were talking. About your training. It’s whatever. It’s nothing."
We had agreed to tell him together. We had a plan. A sit-down, a rational conversation, a right way to do this. But the lack of sleep and the weight of the secret had made me sloppy.
"When?" Gabe pressed. He shifted in his seat, squaring his shoulders toward me. "I was at Tyler’s last night. You were at the bar doing inventory. When did you talk to Michael?"
I turned onto the long stretch of road leading to the school’s athletic complex. My blinker clicked rhythmically, sounding like a ticking bomb. I couldn't do it. I couldn't look him in the eye and layer another lie on top of the ones that were already suffocating us.
"He came by, Gabe," I said softly, my voice trembling. "After I finished up. We... we went out."
"You went out," he repeated. The words were flat, toneless. "Like, to get a burger? To talk about my grades?"
"No," I breathed, pulling into the school parking lot but keeping the car in motion, circling slowly toward the rink entrance. "Like a date. We’re dating, Gabe. Michael and I are seeing each other."
I expected him to lose his shit, or go completely silent and shut me out. I didn't expect the laugh that erupted from him—a sharp, ugly sound that made me flinch.
"Oh, man," he said, shaking his head, staring out the windshield with a look of profound disgust. "I am such an idiot. I’m a total loser."
"What? Gabe, no—"
"No?" He turned on me then, and the raw fury in his expression stole the air from the car. "The extra coaching? The fake-ass mentorship at the arena? The help with my science project and the 'just be yourself' crap with Maya? None of that was for me, was it? He was just playing the long game. He was just being the nice guy so he could get in your pants."
"That’s not true!" I pulled the car into a space and slammed it into park, twisting in my seat to face him. "Michael cares about you. He’s been so careful, so intentional about making sure you were okay with him being around—"
"Of course he was intentional!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "He’s a pro, Mom! He knows how to work a play! He manipulated me. He used me to get to you, and you were stupid enough to let him."
“Hey—”
