"Nash." He tilts his head again. "You said I was out of line twice in the same speech."
"I know—"
"That's not an apology." He tsks softly, looking far too pleased with himself.
And there it is — his mouth doing the almost-smile and his eyes going warmer underneath it and I'm standing here in this empty locker room having just survived the most painful thirty seconds of my week and somehow this is better. So much better than nine days of nothing that it makes me furious how much better it is.
How did I survive nine days without this?
"It was genuine," I say.
"I know it was." He says it simply. Like he actually means it. "That's not the problem. The problem is it was very you and very you is—" he pauses, "—not enough right now."
"What does that mean?"
"Say it properly."
"I just did—"
"No." His voice drops further. Just for me. "Not I was out of line." He holds my gaze and I can feel my resolve slipping with the intensity of it.
"Say it properly, Jamie. Apologize."
My name in his mouth does what it always does. I don’t fight it and just let it this time. I savor it. I’ll do whatever to get out of this hole I dug. "I'm sorry," I say, openly. The words sitting heavy in my mouth before I let them out. He's right. They costsomething. I'm not sure I knew how much until just now.
But I’ll give them to him anyway.
He doesn't move. Just watches me. Waiting.
"For what?"
I don't break eye contact. "For what I said on the ice. When you came over and I—" I stop. "I was scared and I took it out on you and you were just trying to help me and you didn't deserve it. None of it." A beat. "I'm sorry, Rhys. Really sorry."
He looks back at me for a long moment. The almost-smile still at the edges but underneath it something very real that I haven't seen in a while and have been missing without letting myself admit it.
"Okay," he says, finally.
"Okay?"
"That one was real." He picks up his bag and steps toward the door. Stops with his hand on the frame and doesn’t turn around. "I missed you, too," he says. And I can hear it — the smile fully there now, big and private, just for this room and these two people in it.
The door swings shut and I stand in the empty locker room for a moment, a smile on my face too.
I have him back.
Just like that.
Just that simple and that hard and that worth it.
I have him back.
Chapter 37
Jamie
I text him at eight thirty on a Tuesday night.
I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling, which has become my main hobby since the shoulder, and I’ve been thinking about the session we had before everything went sideways and how clean his release was getting and how much ground we’ve probably lost in weeks and it’s a practical decision that has nothing at all to do with the fact that I can’t stop thinking about him and hockey is all I can offer.
