I looked down at the latest letter from Jackson tucked into my pocket, the paper warm against my thigh. “Must be nice to have that waiting for you.”
“You have it too, you idiot,” Brody countered, his voice softening, shedding the bravado he used for the rest of the unit. “I see the way you look at those letters. I see the ducks, Ry.You’re scared, but Jackson… he’s the real deal. When we get home, you’re going to meet him. No hiding. You deserve to be seen by someone who isn’t just your spotter.”
I didn’t answer, but for the first time, the idea of a life after the sand didn’t feel like a fairy tale. It felt like a promise. Yet, the fear was a physical weight. As long as Jackson was just ink on paper, he was safe. He was a beautiful, funny ghost I’d created in my mind—a sanctuary that couldn’t be bled on or blown apart. Putting a face to the words meant making him real, and in this world, real things were targets. If I saw him, the distance between us wouldn’t just be miles; it would be the terrifying reality of everything I had to lose.
“Here,” Brody said, his grounding presence cutting through my spiral. He suddenly shoved his phone into my hand, the screen glowing bright against the darkness. “I pulled up the Tidal Teals roster. Go on, look him up. Stop falling for a ghost and start looking at the man you’re completely gone for.”
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the glass. A sharp spike of anxiety shot through me, making my heart race. I wanted to hand the phone back, to keep my secrets locked in their reinforced vault. But Brody just leaned back, his steady, unconditional loyalty a shield against my own panic. The need to see the man who sent me double-chocolate cookies and told me I was worthy of a home crowd became an overpowering hunger, stronger than a decade of military conditioning. I tapped the screen.
The image loaded, and the breath left my lungs. Jackson Hayes wasn’t just a hockey player; he was… everything. He was grinning at the camera, a wild, infectious energy in his eyes and a strong, square jaw that looked like it was made for laughter. He looked like sunlight, a stark, breathtaking contrast to the grime and grease of the valley. My chest tightened with a sudden, overwhelming heat. He was real. He was breathtaking. And forsome reason, he was writing to me, offering a lifeline out of the dark. I looked at Brody, who was watching me with a knowing smile, and I finally understood. The ghost was gone, and the man was worth every bit of the terror. “Fuck… Wow”.
28
Jackson
The away locker room in Detroit smelled like stale sweat and industrial-grade disinfectant—a scent that seemed to haunt every visitor’s stall in the league. It was cramped, the benches were narrow, and the lighting was a harsh, unflattering fluorescent that made everyone look like they’d been awake for forty-eight hours straight. I hated being on the road. It wasn’t just the cramped quarters; it was the transient nature of it all. Hotels were the worst—sterile, identical boxes where the pillows were always too firm or too soft, and the silence of a high-rise room felt like a physical weight. It was a far cry from the quiet pond Splash talked about.
“Hayes, quit staring at the floor and get your skates on!” Logan shouted, already half-dressed and vibrating with pregame energy. He bumped my shoulder, nearly knocking me off the bench. “You’re in your head again. What’s the matter? The hotel coffee not up to your elite standards?”
I didn’t answer immediately. My phone was face down on the bench, but the words from the morning’s news cycle were burned into my retinas. A veteran winger for Detroit had given an interview yesterday, calling the league’s Pride initiatives a “performative circus” and stating he wouldn’t “validate a lifestyle” he didn’t agree with. I braced for the heavy, pointed silence I usually dreaded, but Logan immediately moved in front of me, putting his stick across my knees like a barricade. “It tasted like piss, Logan,” I muttered, pulling my jersey over my head. “The room was so quiet I could hear the guy three doors down snoring.” Donovan sat down next to me, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut through the tension. “Listen up, Jackson. That asshole on their team is irrelevant. We are one team. We have your back on that ice and off it. You are our teammate, period. The road is a grind, and tonight’s designed to wear you down. But once we hit the ice, none of that matters. The noise of the crowd will drown out the silence of the hotel. You focus on the shift, and we’ll focus on making sure nobody touches you.”
I nodded, grateful for the Captain’s grounding presence. “I know, Cap. Just ready to be back in Seattle.”
“We all are,” Donovan agreed, finally looking at me with a knowing glint in his eyes. “But we have a job to do here first. Let’s go give them a show.” I tapped the latest letter from Splash. I needed some of his strength to get through this game today.
29
Ryan
We were running a routine supply escort through the valley—the kind of long, boring patrol where you get tunnel vision staring at the tailgate in front of you—when the IED went off fifty meters in front of the lead Humvee. The sound was a physical wall, throwing me back against the door panel. My ears instantly started ringing.
I scrambled up, the world tilting on a nauseating axis. The air was a thick, gritty curtain of pulverized earth and the acrid, chemical stench of burning plastic from the vehicle’s interior. Every breath tasted of dry dust and the unmistakable, sharp tang of copper. “Contact! West flank!” Brody screamed. His voice was a jagged blade cutting through the high-pitched ringing in my ears, the only solid thing I could grab onto in the white noise of the blast. I locked onto that sound—my lifeline—as the adrenaline hit my system like a lightning strike, sharpened by years of drills. We didn’t think; we moved.
I ripped my rifle off the mount, my movements crisp and mechanical despite the tremors. “Covering fire! Push, push!” I barked. We flowed into the practiced, deadly choreography of a firefight, our responses controlled and synchronized even as rounds kicked up spurts of sand around us. The chaos was absolute, but the bond between us was tighter, a silent, unbreakable rhythm forged in the heat of a thousand patrols.
We scrambled out of the vehicle, moving low behind the blast crater. Brody slammed down next to me, spitting dirt. “Close one, Ry. That was our morning commute.”
“No time for jokes, Brody. Clear that tree line. I’ll take the roof.”
We moved in sync, using the familiar choreography of controlled chaos. It was just another Tuesday. Another patch of bad luck we walked away from, joking about who owed who a beer when we got back.
30
Jackson
The memories of the vile comments online still stung, a sharp contrast to the peaceful gold of the Pacific. I thought about the sports bloggers and the faceless trolls who called me soft, who said I didn’t belong on the ice because of who I loved. For a moment, the weight of their hate felt like it might pull me under, but then I felt the familiar weight of the letter in my pocket. I can’t and won’t let them win. Their ignorance is loud, but my feelings for Splash are stronger. Every goal I score, every shift I take, is a silent middle finger to bigotry. I will focus on the man who sees the real Jackson, not the distraction the media wants me to be. To overcome the hate, I only need to remember the quiet pond we’re building together—one shift at a time.
I sat on the deck, the wood warm beneath my palms, staring out at the stretch of sand that led down to the ocean. The afternoon sun was beginning to dip, turning the Pacific into a sheet of muted gold. I closed my eyes, letting the steady,relentless sound of the waves take over. It was a constant, low roar, a reminder of the quiet I was searching for.
Waves crashing around you?Splash had written that in one of his first letters. It felt like a lifetime ago. I opened my eyes, scanning the empty beach, wishing I could look up and see him here, standing on the edge of my world. I wanted to hear his voice, to see the man who drew ducks and loved triple chocolate cookies, without the distraction of a noisy bar or the confines of a hotel room.
Did he want that too? Did he imagine us sitting here, side by side, watching the tide go out? I’ve never felt so strongly towards a person, even a person that I haven’t met; it feels like we’ve written countless letters talking about everything, from deep to mundane things. Fuck, I think I love him, yeah, I just said, and yeah, I’m crazy because I haven’t even met him, but the connection to the person in these letters is so strong!
I leaned back, letting myself fall into the fantasy. In my mind, Splash wasn’t the soldier fighting in the desert anymore; he was home. He was sitting right next to me, maybe tracing the patterns of the waves with his finger, his body relaxed, the tension finally gone from his shoulders. Maybe he would be drinking that corrosive coffee he complained about, or maybe he’d be teasing me about my messy kitchen. I imagined a life where the biggest concern was whether he wanted to go to the game tonight, or if he wanted to stay in and finally try to make that complicated espresso machine work. A quiet life, away from the noise, anchored by the man who made me feel entirely seen, and fuck did I want that life with him.
31
Ryan
