Not even for my life—for his. For his life that could still be beautiful if he’d just let it.
For the apartment we have together and the beautiful views of the Sound stretching out, sparkling and endless, like all the plans we had he doesn’t seem to want anymore.
Things we could still have: minutes and hours and days and years together.
He’s here, living and breathing and still the love of my life even if he never gets to lace up another pair of skates.
But it’s not enough.
I try not to blame him. Maybe that’s what happens when a cut makes you bleed, and it takes your dreams with it.
Bohdan
I’m on my seventeenth lap around the ice—the same number I wore my entire life until I wasn’t in the business of wearing numbers anymore—when I hear the banging of a hand on a plexiglass board.
It’s not a sound most people could recognize instantly, but it’s as intimately familiar to me as Sloan’s voice is.
Talon whistles loudly, a smile painting his face, popping both his dimples, and he bangs on the boards again when I stop, sending a spray of ice towards them.
Jay gives a jerk of his head before holding out both his arms to me. “Jesus Christ, you’re still so fucking fast, man.”
A brow lifts on my forehead. “Doesn’t really do me any good anymore, though.”
I hug him anyway, Talon joins in, and the same way it did with Sloan out on this ice earlier—it feels a bit like I’m back in time.
“Once-in-a-generation kind of talent,” Talon offers, pulling back in consideration. “Could skate away from a serial killer pretty fucking quick, if you needed.”
“When would he need?” Jay presses his tongue to his cheek.
Talon doesn’t answer and glances towards the desk, hooking a thumb towards me and the somehow still empty ice. “Can we join him?”
“Knock yourselves out.” Enrique waves a hand, eyes glued to his phone and feet propped back up on the desk again, before his gaze snaps to us. “Not literally. That’s a lot of paperwork.”
Talon claps both his hands around my shoulders, giving me a small shake. “Don’t worry, he’s pretty familiar with that concept, don’t think he’ll be giving a repeat performance.”
“Rough,” I tell him flatly.
“Brutal.” Jay nods.
Enrique doesn’t bother asking if they need help with the skates.
Talon takes way too long deciding on his, weighing the merits of a pair of CCMs that look like they’ve seen better days and a pair of Bauer’s that look like they haven’t been broken in.
Jay grabs a pair at random, even though out of the three of us, he should take the most care, and we’ve done two lazy laps around the ice by the time Talon hops over the boards and takes off like it’s a race.
It does turn into one.
It turns into multiple.
It turns into stupid drills and jumping over pylons on the ice and generally more dicking around than Jay should probably be doing. His legs are still worth something, after all.
Some families come in, looking at the rink like they might want to use it or test it out for their kids, take one look at us—three grown men behaving like the eighteen-year-olds we were once upon a time—and they change their minds.
I don’t really have it in me to feel bad.
It’s one of the only times I’ve felt free in over three years.
It’s not possible for me to forget what happened with Sloan earlier—every single interaction I’ve ever had with her is categorized neatly in my brain. The absolutely fucking mind-blowing, the wonderful, the good, the mundane, the painful, and the outright bad.
