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He shook hands with Mikko, and then stiffened and glanced at me. “You told them.”

I nodded. I didn't know what was going to happen now, where I would be, where Mom would be, or how Aarni would react, but everything I wanted was here in the hallway of my boyfriend's house. “I want to tell everyone. I want to be the real me. Is that okay?”

Cam hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. “God, yes.”

The call from Aarni came a week after Mom and Mikko had flown back to Finland, after Cam and I had promised we’d visit as soon as our seasons didn’t overlap and time finally belonged to us.

I’d just gotten off the phone with Mike, who was officially my new agent as of yesterday, and I’m sure the shit would hit the fan at some point. I was glad Cam was next to me when it did. He made me stronger.

He made me feel safe and able to deal with all of this.

I answered it curled into the corner of the sofa beside Cam, a bowl of popcorn balanced between us, the movie playing quietly in the background—one of those ordinary, easy nights that had started to feel like home. We’d had a meeting today with management about media strategy, and I made the most important requests of my entire hockey career.

I wanted my mom’s last name on my jersey and on the nameplate above my cubby, something that felt like mine for the first time. I wanted a new number too—anything but Aarni Lankinen’s. I didn’t care what it was, only that it wasn’t his. Cam wore 32, and I wanted to match him, to line up beside him in more ways than one, because yes, this was who I was now. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I hadn't said the L-word yet; it didn't seem right when Aarni was still the picture, and when my mom had so much to tell me. But he must know, because he told me he loved me every chance he got.

The press releases were going out in two days, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt at peace. It helped that the hardest part was already done. I’d stood in front of the team after yesterday’s win against Buffalo, still buzzing from my first goal as a Railer, and told them everything. About my name. About who I loved. About who I was. No hiding, no half-truths. Just me, standing there, waiting for the fallout—and finding none.

“Jari,” my father—no, Aarni Lankinen—said, his voice already loud, already crowding the space, as if shouting could force me back into place. He wasn’t my father. He was nothing to me. “Now listen here, boy, you need to send me money now. I’ve paid out for your goddamn mother for twenty years and⁠—”

“Turns out, Aarni,” I said quietly, cutting him off before he could build momentum, “that you used money my mom inherited, and stole the rest from me under false pretenses. Her money. My money. I understand from various sources that you are bankrupt and close to losing everything.” Sources being my new soon-to-be stepfather, Mikko.

There was a sharp sound on the line, breath dragged in hard, anger flaring hot and sudden. “That’s a lie,” he snapped.

“No,” I said. Calm. Certain. “It isn’t.”

“You ungrateful piece of shit,” he roared, rage spilling all over his words. “You wouldn’t be anywhere without me. I pushed you, molded you, I fucking made you halfway good enough to earn me money⁠—”

“Stop,” I said, still calm, still steady, talking straight over him. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to. “I don’t want to see you again, Aarni. I don’t want to hear from you again.” I paused, let the silence stretch, felt it settle into something final. “I will be here living with my boyfriend, with a career I might learn to love, as settled as a line that finally clicks. In spite of you and not because of you. I owe you nothing,” I said. “Not my career. Not my name. Not my life.”

His breathing was harsh. “You miserable little⁠—”

“You are nothing,” I said, and ended the call.

There was silence, Cam had stopped the movie, and he pulled me close, until I was on his lap, straddling him, burying my face in his neck.

“Jari?” he asked, worried.

I lifted my head and kissed him gently. “I love you.”

He grinned and deepened the kiss until we were both hard and needy.

“Sweetheart? I love you too.”