Fitch is already there. I don't let him speak. "I know," I say. "Bench me, it’s fine." He looks at me for a long moment. His face — not just anger. Surprise.
"Sit down, Nash," he says, and calls out one of the other players to the ice.
I sit down. I pull my jersey off. Just that. I pull it over my head and I hold it for a second — Harlow across the chest, my name and number on the back, four years of everything I've been building — and then I reach down the bench and tap Rhys on the arm as he comes out.
I hold it out.
He looks at the jersey.
Looks at me.
His eyes go through about eight things in the space of two seconds. Confusion first. Then understanding — slow, dawning, the kind that moves through your whole body not just your head. His jaw goes slightly slack in shock. His eyes go bright in a way I've only seen a handful of times. The biggest smile I’ve ever seen on anyone. Or maybe it just feels that way because it means so much to me.
He knows what this is.
No words. No speech. No grand declaration.
Just my jersey. Just me handing him the thing that is the whole of my life and saying — without saying —I choose you. In front of everyone. On this ice. Right now.
I love you.
He takes it. His hand closes around the fabric and for one second his eyes find mine and everything we haven't been able to say to each other for weeks lives in that second completely.
Then he turns and pulls it on over his pads.
Skates back out onto the ice with a new sense of determination.
I watch the rest of the game from the bench.
Rhys with my number on his back.
He's different the second he steps back on the ice. Locked in, in the real way — not the mechanical going-through-motions of the first period but the Rhys I know. The one who reads plays before they develop and makes decisions that seem inevitable after and covers ice like it belongs to him.
He scores in the third period. Top shelf. The move I've been watching him perfect at six AM for months. Clean and precise and unhesitating.
He doesn't celebrate. He skates back to position and I see his hand come up for half a second and press flat to the number on his chest.
My number.
We win 3-2.
The bench empties onto the ice. Guys everywhere, noise everywhere, the chaos of a team that just beat their biggest rival and knows it. I'm off the bench immediately. Moving through the celebration, through the bodies, looking for my number in the crowd.
I find it.
Find him.
Except he's already moving the other direction. Through the chaos, cutting through the mob going the opposite way, and I push toward him but he's faster and the crowd is thick and—
He's gone. Through the tunnel. I stand at the edge of the ice with the celebration going on around me. His name on my lips.
Not loud enough.
Not in time.
The locker room door swings shut.
By the time I get there he's not in it.
