I do not know what to do with that.
So, I look down at Jillie, who is bouncing in her matching jersey with the stuffed moose tucked under one arm.
"Happy?"
"Very."
"Good."
My voice sounds almost normal.
Almost.
The longer we are there, the more I start seeing Colby differently.
Not the way fans see him.
Not the way reporters write about him.
Not even the way Briar Cove has started looking at him, like a local boy accidentally starring in the town's favorite romance rumor.
Here, inside the Blizzards facility, Colby is something else.
Respected.
Known.
Needed.
A young player stops him near the hallway and asks about a play from practice. Colby listens carefully, then explains without impatience. An equipment manager teases him about finally bringing decent snacks into the building. A trainer reminds him about shoulder stretches. A receptionist waves at him like he is a nephew she has known forever.
He belongs here too.
That's what unsettles me.
Not because I thought he didn't.
Because I had started, selfishly, privately, dangerously, to think maybe he belonged mostly with us.
But this place has pieces of him I don't know.
Loyalty.
History.
Pressure.
People who care about him.
People who expect things from him.
And somehow, instead of making him feel farther away, it makes him feel more real.
The public version of Colby Reid is too famous to trust.
The bakery version is too kind to survive.
This version, the man moving through his own world with quiet patience and the easy confidence of someone who has earned respect, is harder to dismiss.
