The adrenalin started pumping again. “Wh… what do you mean?”
He stood up, moving me out of the way and walked from the room, returning a minute later with a piece of paper, which he handed me.
FAO: New York Rangers, Chairman, Members of the Board, General Manager, Coach Campbell.
Please accept this official announcement of my intentions to retire at the end of the 2021/2022 NHL season.
I want to express my greatest thanks to this team for supporting me throughout my entire hockey career. I would not be the man I am today without it. However, it is now time for me to move on and allow the next generation of players to be built up in the way I have been.
Even though I will no longer be playing, I’ll always be a Ranger.
Sincerely,
Felix Cleverly
“You’re retiring?”
“I am.”
Horror pushed away all the adrenalin, my head shaking hard. “No, no nooo. You don’t have to retire because of me. That’s not what I want.”
He sat back on the chair and pulled me into his lap, brushing away the hair that had come loose from my hair tie. His arms wrapped around me, and I melted into him, into his strength and warmth.
Into the place I belonged.
“I’m not retiring because of you. I love hockey, it’s been my life for as long as I can remember. It connected me to my grandparents, and it saved me from my parents. It brought me to you. I love hockey, but I don’t love it as much as I love you. My accident shook me up, but it also brought me you, and I don’t know how long it would have taken us to find each other without it. And that shakes me more. I’m not retiring for you, it’s just time for me to retire, but that doesn’t mean I’m not also doing it for us.” He picked up my hand and kissed my palm. “It’s always been you, Mol, since the first time I saw you standing outside the locker rooms twelve years ago. And maybe we’ve been doing this all wrong, or I’ve been doing this wrong. Maybe you didn’t trust us to get through things or trust me to stick around because you thought I needed to catch up with your feelings, I don’t know, but I was already there. And now I know for certain where the rest of my life is headed, I want it to start right now. Hockey’s not my future, you’re my future. So no, we don’t need one of those charts after next year, because I’ll just fit around your schedule.”
I hadn’t realized I’d started crying until he wiped my face.
“I hope you’re gonna earn good money at the end of this Fellowship, because you’ll be the breadwinner. We’ll be down to a one income family, and I’m not cheap.”
I laughed through my tears. “I think we’ll manage.” I cupped his face. “I’m so sorry, I really am. I’m so sorry for everything, for how I’ve behaved from the beginning. But I need you to know, I never not trusted you. I didn’t trust myself to be good at everything or let you help me be good. I just needed a push, but I’m here now. Lex, you’re my future too. You’ve always been my future. I love you so much. I love love you so, so much.”
The smile I adored made an appearance, his face creasing up in happiness, soothing my aching heart and drying up my tears like sunshine after a storm. Because the storm had passed and we’d survived. And were stronger because of it.
All was becoming right again.
“I know, now shut up and kiss me.”
He didn’t need to ask twice.
EPILOGUE
Fourteen months later
The buzzer went a split second after the puck smashed into the back of the net. My assist for Drew’s goal hit the mark, and I jumped on him as he skated over to me.
“We fucking did it!”
Drew knocked his helmet against mine. “We fucking did it, buddy!”
Red, white and blue streamers shot across the ice, sparklers flaring throughout the arena. The noise from the crowd was deafening. The rest of the boys jumped on us and we moved as one against the boards where our fans were banging hard on the plexiglass. It was our last home game of the season. Our last game. And while we hadn’t made the playoffs, we’d won our last ever game at home, scoring the final goal between us.
And nothing could beat New York’s fans.
After the accident, I’d worked even harder over the summer so I could start in the first game, knowing it would be my lastseason. Nora had pushed me through acupuncture and rehab, and once I’d been given the green light to start workouts again, I’d gone all-out with the trainers and come back stronger than ever. My knee hadn’t bothered me once. Hunter Reyes really had done an excellent job.
And I’d kept up the acupuncture. Coach had finally manage to persuade Nora to take a position on the Ranger’s doctors and therapists team, and now acupuncture was a normal part of our routine, and injuries were down because of it. All except for Huck, because he still ran in the opposite direction every time he saw her.
