I feel the question forming before he asks it.
"So, can we talk about why you really left Eldridge? For real."
There it is.
I set my fork down and look at my plate. He looks at me and says nothing. Just waits. It just — sits there. Opens up space. Gives me room I don't know what to do with. I’m purposefully prolonging the moment so I can decide how best to answer.
"The hockey was great," I say. "I don't have a complaint about the level of play I got. I was really good and learned a lot there." I pause. "But it was bad. For me specifically." I look at him sideways. "I was out. Or — I got outed. And the team decided to make that everyone's problem. Mostly mine."
He goes very still, concern etched clear as day in his features.
"The captain—" I stop. Start again. "There was a captain. Marcus. We were—" A vague hand gesture that covers months of something I still can't quite name cleanly. "And when it came out he made sure he wasn't the one who looked bad." The shrug I give comes out wrong. Too tight. "Instead, it fell on me. And the team followed his lead. Because it was his team."
Silence.
"And I had nobody there." Just a fact. "Zero people. My own fault — I wasn't letting anyone in. Or rather, they didn’t let me in. Soit was just hockey and Marcus and nothing else. And when it all went wrong I had nothing to catch me."
"Rhys, I'm so sorry," he says. His expression twists for a second, like the words hurt on the way out.
I grab my fork again and pick at my food. "Anyway. I left and found out I was capable of starting over as myself here." I glance at him. "Turns out I'm very good at new. Which is either a skill or a red flag depending on who you ask."
He's not looking at his plate or eating. He's just looking at me. Open. Unguarded. Like something got through without him noticing and now it's too late to close it back up.
"The guy," he says, carefully. The way he handles things he knows are fragile. "Marcus. Did he—"
"It doesn't matter what he did. He made a choice. I made mine." I meet his eyes. "I'm here now."
He holds my stare. "Yeah," he says. "For what it's worth," he continues after a minute. Eyes on his plate whenever he says something real. I wait. "It's their loss. Eldridge. I’m sorry for whatever happened, but I’m happy you’re here. They didn’t deserve you, him or the team."
Like he hadn't just dropped those words straight into the middle of my chest and left them there.
"Don't get soft on me, Nash."
"I'm not being soft."
"That was the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"It was a fact."
"It was a very sweet fact—"
"Callahan."
I smile at my plate. "Noted," I say. "Genuinely. I’m happy I’m here too."
He doesn't say anything else. Doesn't take it back either. And that's what I love the most about Jamie Nash that I keeptripping over no matter how many times I tell myself not to. He never takes things back. He says them flat and factual and eyes-on-his-plate like they're nothing. And they're never nothing. They’re so much more meaningful because he literally fights himself to be able to say these things. It doesn’t come easy to him at all. So I know when he says something, he really means it.
Chapter 39
Rhys — Past
I had nobody at Eldridge.
Nobody.
Not one person.
I was alone.
