And I carry that with me into the worst game of my life.
Chapter 53
Jamie
The locker room before the game is the loudest silence I've ever been in. Guys talking, gear going on, music playing — all of it present and all of it somewhere behind glass. I move through the pre-game routine on autopilot. Jersey. Skates. Tape. The muscle memory of too many years taking over because my head is not here.
My head is on Rhys.
All I am, everything I have, is Rhys.
He's across the room at his stall and he hasn't looked at me once and I've been counting the hours the way you count something that's running out. Too many hours of existing in the same space and being nowhere near each other and tonight we have to get on the same ice and play the game that has been coming for us since September.
I look at him.
He's sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head down and his hands gripping his helmet and he's very still in a way that has nothing to do with focus. I've seen Rhys focused. I know what it looks like. This is not it. This is a person holding themselves together with both hands. His knuckles are white around the helmet. Every few seconds his eyes move to the door and then back to the floor like he's calculating exits. Like some part of him is still trying to find a way out of this room and this game and this night. He probably looks like the kid who showed up at Eldridge with a corner locker and a chemistrytextbook and nobody.
I cross the room. I don't think about it. I don’t think about the silence or what I did at the bar or whether he even wants me here. I just cross the room and crouch down in front of him until I'm at his eye level and he has to see me.
He looks up at me and his eyes are raw. Not crying — Rhys doesn't cry where people can see. Just — raw. Stripped of everything. The armor gone and underneath it just a person who is terrified and exhausted and has been carrying this for too long and is now being asked to walk out that door and face it all over again.
"Rhys," I say.
"Don't." His voice is tight.
"I'm not—" I stop. "I'm not going to say anything about last night. Or us." I hold his gaze. "Just this."
"You're ready," I say. Light touch on his shoulder.
His breath catches.
Just that. Just my mother's words, the only truly good thing I was ever given, offered up in this locker room to the one person I know needs them right now. His eyes do something familiar, a reminder of what we had.
"You're ready, Rhys," I say again. Just for him.
He holds my gaze for a long moment. Then his shoulders release. Not all the way. Just enough. He nods once.
I stand up and walk back to my stall, leaving him to his pre-game prep.
The arena is packed. The noise hits when we come out of the tunnel — both teams, both student sections, the electric charge of a rivalry game that has been building since the schedule dropped. The ice is bright under the lights. I can see Eldridge already on their side, moving through warmup, and my eyes find Marcus before I tell them to.
He's at center. He looks the same as last night. Same easy way of moving. Same way of owning whatever surface he's on. He's warming up and going through his drills and every few passes his eyes drift to our side of the ice.
To Rhys.
The cold and the pressure behind my sternum build.
I redirect. Focus on warmup. Focus on the game plan. Focus on the things I can control. That's what you do. That's always what you do. Except I keep finding Rhys in my peripheral vision.
He's moving. Going through his drills. Technically present and technically focused and if you didn't know him it would look fine. If you didn't know the way he moves when he's locked in versus the way he moves when he's somewhere else inside himself — the fraction of a second too long before he makes decisions, the way his feet are slightly off the rhythm he usually has — you'd never see it.
I see it all.
He's still spiraling. He's out here on the ice and his body is going through the motions and his mind is somewhere in the past at Eldridge and Marcus is forty feet away and I can see the effort it's costing him to stay in this moment.
Marcus drifts closer on a warmup drill.
His eyes find Rhys and stay there.
