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“But why?” he asked, his voice small and broken.

It was in that moment that I understood Cally genuinely couldn’t grasp why anyone would look at the wreckage of his life and choose him. Why I would willingly stand at his side and fight his demons right alongside him.

Much the same way I couldn’t fathom why he had chosen me. Why, when he was unable to trust anyone, he’d trusted me. Why, when life had taught him that love was pain and betrayal, he’d recklessly decided to love me anyway.

Against all logic and reason, we’d looked at each other and said, “Him. That one. He’s mine.”

I probably wasn’t equipped to handle Cally’s trauma, and he would never be able to understand what it was like to go to bed hungry, not knowing where your next meal might come from. But in that moment, despite our differences, I knew he was it for me. I hoped I was it for him.

Cally was the yin to my yang, the peanut butter to my jelly, the Bert to my Ernie.

“You’re mine, Cal,” I told him, reaching out to cup the side of his neck, feeling the steady thud of his pulse under my thumb. “And I’m yours. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is. No take backsies.”

Cally blinked, a final tear slipping free to track through the trails of dried salt on his cheek. He let out a shaky, wet breath and leaned forward, burying his forehead into the hollow between my neck and shoulder.

“You’re an idiot,” he muttered into my skin, his warm palm cradling my ribs, right over a healing bruise.

“Yeah, well,” I said, wrapping my arms around his broad back and squeezing him tightly. “You told me you love me, so you’re stuck with me now.”

“God help me,” he groaned with faux despair.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” I teased. “I was just fine being a mediocre hockey player with bad conditioning when you decided, nope, that wasn’t good enough. I simply had to make the team.”

His shoulders shook in my embrace, and I realized he was laughing.

“I get it, though,” I continued, needing him to keep laughing. “Shitty-ass grinder with terrible hair up from the AHL? Of course you had to have me. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

He slid his fingers into my hair, gripping it tight. “Shut up. I fucking love your hair.”

“I know you do,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You were destined to fall for me.”

He pulled back to look at me, his eyes flicking between mine. “I really think I was,” he said, his voice fully earnest.

I nodded slowly. “Me too. I mean, you turned me queer, Cal. If that’s not destiny, I don’t know what is.”

“Holy shit,” he whisper laughed, shaking his head. “You’re the absolute worst.”

“Nope. We’ve already established that I’m the best. Say it. ‘You’re the best, Michael Jeremy Porter.’”

His lips twitched to the side. “You’re the best, Michael Jeremy⁠—”

He was cut off by the alarm on his phone blaring.

My shoulders hiked up toward my ears as it continued to scream at us.

“Holy crap. Has it always been that loud?”

“No,” he grunted, swinging his long legs over the edge of the mattress and pushing himself up off the bed to grab his phone off the credenza, pressing the button to silence the alarm. The room dropped into sweet, merciful quiet. “I changed it yesterday. Wanted to make sure we didn’t oversleep.”

I rolled off my side of the bed with a groan, my knees cracking as I stood and stretched my arms over my head, my shoulders and ribs protesting. “Smart.”

While I’d been sleeping in Cally’s bed pretty much every night since his first nightmare, when we were away on roadies, neither of us had wanted to risk being seen coming out of the other’s room in the morning. Cally typically got the better room, so I’d sneak out in the middle of the night—late enough not to run into any of our teammates sneaking in after curfew, but not so early that I’d see anyone going for an early workout either.

Last night, leaving him hadn’t been an option, but it did create some difficulty now as I still had to go back to my own room and pack up my shit.

“You see my socks?” I asked, as I gathered last night’s clothes from the floor without finding them.

He shook his head, then started rummaging through his bag. “Here. I packed extras,” he said, tossing a pair my way.