"You want to be here for me? Then be here, Beck. Actually be here." Her voice shakes but she doesn't flinch. "I spent my whole life trying to carve out a little space that wasn't about your hockey career. I moved to a different sport just to have something that was mine. And the whole time, something was happening to me that you didn't see. That Mom and Dad didn't see. Because nobody was looking."
Beck's expression shifts. "I saw the TikTok, Mollie. I know what Savard did."
"You saw the version I could say to a camera." She wipes her eyes. "I'm telling you the parts I couldn't."
His jaw loosens. He waits.
"He didn't just comment on my body and stand too close. He tried to kiss me. He grabbed my breast and told me he'd been waiting for me to want him like a woman." Her lip quivers, but she pushes through it. "He put my hand on his… dick… and tried to make me touch him. I froze. I just stood there and let it happen, because I didn't know what to do."
“Hey. That’s not fair,” I say softly to Mollie. She grabs my hand and squeezes it.
The color drains from Beck's face. “Fuck. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
"He sent me a letter from his lawyer after Nationals. An NDA, buried in the coaching paperworkI'd signed as a minor. He threatened me into silence." Her voice cracks. "I've been carrying this for years because I was ashamed and scared. I didn't want to see the look that's on your face right now."
Beck sits down on the curb, hard, his elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair. For a long time, he doesn't say anything.
"If Savard thinks he's hurting now," Beck says quietly, "just wait."
"Alex already hurt him." Mollie sniffs and wipes her face. "And I launched that video. His professional life is over."
Beck looks at me. The betrayal is still on his face. The anger about the lying and the sneaking, and the months of deception from his co-captain, his best friend. “I’m still mad at you, Thorne. But I can see that this is… complicated.”
“It is.” I offer Mollie a hand and she takes it. “Just because it’s complicated doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.” I tug Mollie’s hand, bringing her closer so I can kiss her cheek. She glances up at me, her eyes filled with emotion.
Today has been hard for her.
“I think you’ve had enough for right now.” I kiss the top of her head. “We can argue about this again later, Beck. But I don’t see the outcome being any different. You’ll have to just deal with Mollie and me being together.”
“Fuck off,” he shoots back. “And Mollie… I’m mad at you too.”
She looks down and my arm tightens around her. “You don’t get to be mad at her. You wanna be upset with someone? Be angry with me.”
“Alex.” Mollie presses a hand against my chest and turns to her brother. “He wanted to tell you, Beck. I didn’t. Because I was worried that you’d react poorly. And here you are, acting like a fucking caveman.”
“Ouch.” He looks at Mollie for a long moment, then at me. He nods once, slow and heavy. Then he gets up, walks to his car, and drives away without another word.
She blows out a breath. “Well, that sucked.”
“He’ll get over it. He’s your brother and he loves you. This is just his fucked-up way of telling you that.”
She gives me a squeeze. “Let’s go home and get some ice on that lip.”
At home, she sits me on the edge of the bathtub and cleans the split on my lip with peroxide that stings like a motherfucker. She checks my splint, adjusts the wrap, and presses a bag of frozen peas against my jaw.
"Hold that there." She tilts my chin up, examining her work. "You look terrible."
"Your brother has a decent right hook."
She smiles. "He’s played hockey for twenty-odd years. I would hope so."
I catch her wrist with my good hand. "Mollie."
She stops fussing and looks at me.
"I'm proud of you. Telling Beck?" I rub my thumb across her pulse. "You're the bravest person I know."
Her eyes fill again but she doesn't cry. She just looks at me with an expression so unguarded that it makes my chest ache.
