Day nine.
I know it's day nine because I've been counting and I hate that I've been counting and I cannot stop. Nine days of standing at the boards watching Rhys skate like he owns every inch of ice he touches and not once — not once — having those dark eyes come anywhere near where I'm standing.
Near me.
I've never had to try with him before. That's the thing. He was always the one who showed up, who pushed, who closed the distance before I had to decide anything. He put his mouthguard in my mouth before a game and told me to be a good boy and walked away like he hadn't just dismantled me completely. He showed up at my shower stall. He cornered me in a bathroom at a bar and said things I couldn't unhear.
He was always the one willing to move. And I spent the whole time backing away. Running from the locker room. Running from the party. Running from his house. Running from the shower. Running and running and running and calling it self-preservation when really it was just —
Fear.
Simple. Stupid. Ordinary fear.
I watch him pull up at the far end of the ice, chest heaving slightly, pushing his dark hair back under his helmet. He says something to Fitch and Fitch nods. Rhys nods back and skates away.
Still doesn't look at the boards.
The thing is — and I'm just going to let myself think it, just this once, standing here where nobody can see my face — I don't want him to stop. I don't want the cold shoulder. I don't want the careful distance or this version of Rhys that has decided I'm not worth the trouble. I don't want to have finally become someone he's given up on.
I want the infuriating version. The relentless one. The one who never once let me pretend he didn't exist, who made my heart race every time he got close because I never knew what he was going to do, and somehow that was the most alive I'd felt in years.
I want him to look at me.
That's it. I want him to look at me the way he used to and I haveno idea what to do with that because I've spent my entire life being very good at identifying exactly what I want and then finding the most efficient way to not let myself have it.
I hear my father’s voice sometimes.Hockey is everything. Man up. Don't be soft. Don't be anything anyone can see.
But my father is not here.
And I'm standing here at these boards on day nine of watching Rhys Callahan not look at me and I'm starting to understand that the voice in my head isn't protecting me.
It's just keeping me alone.
I press my hand flat against the boards and continue to watch him skate. I make a decision so quietly I almost don't notice I've made it.
Fine.
My turn.
????????
I find him after practice.
Not by accident. I waited until the locker room cleared out completely — until the last shower shut off and the last voice faded down the hall and it was just us and the fluorescent lights and the silence of a room that's been loud for an hour and suddenly isn't.
Rhys is at his locker with his back to me.
He knows I'm here. That awareness between us has never stopped working regardless of what either of us has decided to do about it. It's the one thing that survived everything — the anger, the distance, the nine days of nothing. My body still registers him before my brain does. I think his still does the same with me. I hope.
He still doesn't turn around.
I clear my throat.
Nothing.
"Callahan."
"Nash." Flat. He keeps moving — folding something, putting it in his bag, deeply occupied apparently with the same contents of a locker he's had all season. I stand there with my hands in my pockets and every single thing I rehearsed over and over again evaporating completely.
