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You can tell me what’s going on

No beer I've had enough to drink

Fucking fuck fuck fuckity fuck

I’ll kill him

Don’t bother

I should call Henri

Is that a good idea right now?

You’re drunk and upset

It’s like midnight in Quebec

Evers??

Dylan?????

Fuck

Henri jerked awake. He was disoriented in the pitch-black, unsure where he was or what had woken him up. Then he heard it: the faint sound of his phone vibrating on his nightstand. He stretched out a hand and patted around until he found it. The screen was too bright, blinding him so that it took a few seconds to make out the name on the screen.

Incoming Call: Dylan

Rubbing his eyes, he fumbled to answer the call.

“Ah, Dylan?” The sounds tasted too French, so he paused to give his brain another second to turn on. “What is it?”

There was a long, drawn-out moment where all he heard was breathing. Then a small, pained, “Henri.”

Instantly, he was fully awake. “What’s wrong?” He sat up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp. He was facing the decade-old poster of Dylan, so young.

“I’m not having a good night.” He sounded drunk, which wasn’t unexpected given his All-Star win and the general party atmosphere he’d described at the hotel. But the words made no sense.

“Why? What happened? Tell me.”

“I did something dumb.”

Henri’s breath caught.

There were moments when two possibilities stretched out before him, and before either of them landed, he briefly lived them both. Shots that both scored and went wide, checks that landed and didn’t, penalties called and ignored, phone calls that kept him on teams and sent him away. The second before the reality hit, when he could viscerally feel both until one was snatched away while the other became more solid. Permanent.

Henri was in one of those moments now. Dylan’s next words shattering him; Dylan’s next words buoying him. Part of him wanted to hang up and delay things. The longer he waited before he heard, the more time he could exist in this gray space. Not ideal, not a place he could thrive, but a place that couldn’t wreck him.

I slept with Alexei.

A worst-case scenario. One he couldn’t believe, but a fear he couldn’t fully suffocate.

Henri closed his eyes and waited. He lived in the world that those words created. Heard them, tasted them, hated them.

“Alexei wanted to talk.” Not a good start. “Said we couldn’t do it at the bar. I should’ve known better, but I went upstairs with him. Ended up in my room. Shared some vodka.” A worse continuation.

Henri changed his mind. He hated living in this unknown world. He wanted to hear the truth so he could start building around his new reality.

“And?” Henri asked, mouth dry. “What happened?”