"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
I stared at him. "So when we were sitting in that bar..."
"I already knew what I was doing the next morning."
The realization hit me all over again. While I'd been worrying about turning twenty-one alone, Thane had been carrying around a secret big enough to change his entire life.
"How did you even decide?"
His gaze drifted toward the window. "There was a kid."
"A fan?"
"A hockey player. At least he hopes to be one someday."
Something in his voice made me pay closer attention.
"The message you mentioned?"
He nodded. "He wrote to me because he didn't think there was a place for someone like him in the sport."
The sadness in those words caught me off guard.
"Someone like him?"
"He's gay."
Thane rubbed a hand across his jaw.
"He told me he loved hockey. Told me he wanted to play professionally one day. Then he admitted he wasn't sure whether there was a future for him in the game if people knew who he was."
I remembered the emotion in his voice during the press conference. Suddenly, it made a lot more sense.
"And you realized he was talking about you, too."
His eyes met mine. "Yeah." Then asked quietly, "What about you?"
I frowned. "What about me?"
"Who do you call when you need to talk?"
For a few seconds, I stared at him without answering. Part of me wanted to laugh it off. Another part wanted to change the subject entirely. Nobody ever asked questions like that. Most people assumed there was somebody. A parent. A sibling. A friend. I looked down at the carton of fries sitting between us and picked up one I had no intention of eating.
"Nobody," I said finally.
The word sounded smaller out loud.
Something flickered across Thane's face, but he didn't rush to fill the silence. He didn't tell me he was sorry. He didn't try to rescue me from the answer. He just waited.
"My mom died when I was eight."
The words came easier than they once had. Time had sanded down some of the sharpest edges, even if it had never erased them completely.
"After that, I ended up in foster care."
Thane's expression softened.
