But I don't know how to be that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever and that thought sits cruelly in my chest because Rhys Callahan deserves someone who can look at him inthe light and say this. This is what you are to me. Out loud. Where people can hear it and see it andfeelit.
And I can't.
Not yet.
Maybe not for a long time.
And he deserves better than not yet. He deserves better than me standing in an empty locker room with my hand over my mouth trying to figure out how to be brave enough. The worst part — the part that makes all of this so much harder — is that I'm happy. Despite everything. Despite knowing exactly what I am and what I'm not and how much damage that gap is going to do to both of us.
I'm standing here in an empty locker room and I'm smiling like an idiot because yesterday he fell asleep on my chest. And I got to be the one who held him. And even if that's all I ever get to be — even if this is it, even if I never manage to be brave enough for anything more — it mattered for one night. I know it mattered. Not just to him. To me. In a way I'm not sure anything ever has before.
I can’t even remember the last time I was happy or had something I wanted just for me.
I grab my bag and walk out. And tell myself on the walk home that I'm going to figure it out. That I'm going to get there.
That he's worth getting there for.
I just need a little more time.
And I hope he gives it to me.
Chapter 43
Jamie
Hartwell University.
Nobody's heard of them. That's fine. They've heard of us — or they will by the end of the first period. The arena is packed in the way away games never quite are, a wall of noise from the student section that hits you the second you come out of the tunnel. Lights up. Ice bright. The particular electric charge of a game that matters running through every guy on this bench. It lands in my hands. In my legs. In the way my breath comes easier once my skates hit the ice. This is the only place I've ever felt completely like myself.
"Nash." Fitch at my shoulder, low and close. "Eyes up. Stay clean. We win this one we're talking about Eldridge next week."
"I know, Coach."
"Do you know or are you ready?"
I look at him once and then back at the ice. "I’m ready."
He holds my stare, assessing, then nods once and steps back. I look down the bench. Kowalski, already locked in, focused, reading the ice like a book before the puck even drops. Bennett bouncing slightly on his skates the way he always does before a game, too much energy with nowhere to put it yet, this little rhythmic thing like his body physically cannot contain itself. Cooper is talking. Obviously. Stick going, hands going, Bryce standing next to him slowly regretting his life choices, trying to lock in.
Rhys at the end of the bench. Helmet on. Gloves on. Eyes forward. He looks composed, absorbed in the game to anyone who doesn't know him. But I know him. There's a certain restraint carved into his expression that has nothing to do with Hartwell. I tap the boards once as I pass him and don’t say anything. He glances at me and I hold his eye for one second, trying to convey everything I want to say with this one look, and then look back at the ice. He exhales and his shoulders drop a fraction.
Good enough.
The first period is a fight.
Hartwell comes out harder than anyone expected — physical, fast, a defensive structure that clogs the middle and makes every rush feel like skating through concrete. We get two shots in the first ten minutes that go wide and Fitch is already on his feet at the bench making a noise that isn't quite a word.
Then Rhys gets the puck at center. He takes one look at the ice, reads it in the half second he has before their defenseman closes on him, and makes a decision that I follow without thinking because I know — I just know — exactly where he's going.
I cut left. The pass comes.
Perfect weight. Just perfect.
Like he knew where I was going before I did.
