The rink goes completely silent.
"I know I don’t deserve you, but I don't want you to stay away from me."
The truth sits between us.
Raw.
Terrifying.
"I want you everywhere, Rhys."
His face crumples.
Just for a second.
"I want your stupid comments and your terrible timing and the way you never leave anything alone. I want you in my room every day. I actually love the way you never ever shut up. I want you in my life. I want every tomorrow you keep trying to give me. Every morning I came here and told myself I was fine. I wasn’t. I didn’t feel anything at all until I met you."
My chest hurts.
"I love you."
The words echo in the empty rink.
"I love you, Rhys. And I'm done pretending I don't."
For the first time in my life, saying it feels less frightening than not saying it.
“Jesus Christ, Jamie." His laugh catches somewhere in the middle. "Took you long enough. I love you, too. I just needed some time," he continues. "After the game. I needed to think everything through without being around you, because I can't think when I'm next to you. But god, I fucking love you.”
The words stay there as we both soak them in.
I reach out and grab the front of his jersey and pull him in and kiss him right there at center ice and he grabs my collar with both hands and kisses me back and it tastes like two weeks and relief and peppermint and finally. When we pull back he's grinning.
We skate.
The team files in at eight.
The way they always do — Bennett first with too much energy, Cooper mid-sentence about something that started in the parking lot, Kowalski behind them both looking like he's already tired of them. The usual noise. The usual chaos of a bunch of guys and shared ice and Fitch somewhere behind them with his coffee and his clipboard.
Rhys skates up beside me at the boards. His hand finds mine. Just that. Easy and unhesitating, fingers lacing through mine, like it's the most obvious place for his hand to be.
It is.
He glances over at the team filtering in and then starts to pull back — old instinct, the reflex of someone who has spent too long making themselves smaller for other people's comfort, for my comfort — and I tighten my grip.
He looks at me.
I shake my head no.
Don't let go.
His eyes go slightly wide.
I turn toward the ice where the team is gathering, spreading out, noticing us the way the team always notices everything — Bennett first, mouth already opening, Cooper stopping mid-sentence, Kowalski at the boards with his arms folded and the expression of a man who has been calmly waiting for this since September.
"I’m gay. Callahan's my boyfriend," I say. Loud enough to carry. "It's not a big deal. If anyone has a problem with it they can fuck off."
Silence.
