His gear is on the bench, half-pulled off, left where it fell.
My jersey is folded on top of it.
Neat. Careful.
Left there like something precious.
Like something he couldn't keep.
I pick it up and just stand there holding it.
The celebration is still going on around me and I am standing in the middle of it holding a jersey with my number on it that Rhys Callahan wore and then left and I don't know what that means.
I don't know what any of it means.
But I know this.
I think part of me would let Rhys destroy my life.
And I think I’d thank him for it.
Because I’m finally free.
Epilogue 1
Jamie
Two weeks.
I've been at the rink at six AM every day for two weeks and every day the ice has been empty and I've skated alone and done the work and gone home and done it again the next day.
Not because I expected him.
Because this is where I go when I don't know what else to do with myself. This has always been where I go. The ice at six AM, before the world starts, before anyone needs anything from me — this is the one constant I have ever been able to count on.
Today I come down the tunnel and the lights are already on.
I slow down.
Rhys is at center ice. Fully geared up. Stick in hand. Moving through a slow, unhurried drill like he's been here long enough to already be warmed up. He sees me come through the tunnel and stops. We look at each other across the ice.
He looks good. Tired, maybe. The two weeks sitting somewhere around his eyes. But here. Present. Looking at me with those eyes that don't miss anything and never have.
"You're late," he says, with his signature smirk.
I step onto the ice.
"You're about two weeks late," I say in between my smile.
His mouth moves. That real smile. The crooked one with the laugh lines that I have been thinking about every single morningfor fourteen days.
We skate toward each other slowly. Meeting at center ice. The rink is empty and bright around us. The cold air. The silence of this place at this hour that has always felt like mine and now feels like ours.
His smile softens.
For a second neither of us says anything.
I spent two weeks trying to figure out what to say.
