Page 58 of For Pucking Ever

Starting with Bast. I don't know how to start but I have to try.

When I eventually exit her office, the corridor is silent. The stadium is largely deserted now but there he stands, Sebastian, propped against the distant wall like some brooding sentinel. God, this man. Even when he's scowling with his arms crossed, he's absolutely stunning. The overhead lights cast shadows along his jawline, highlighting the intensity in his posture that would intimidate anyone else.

Our eyes meet across the empty hallway. I prepare myself for judgment. For frustration, for how short I was with him earlier. Anything. Something that would confirm I've disappointed him yet again, but his expression gives nothing away, a practiced mask of neutrality.

Instead, he straightens with deliberate slowness, pushes off the wall with a graceful shift of his shoulders, and simply waits.

We walk in silence to the car, our footsteps echoing against concrete, the only sound between us. Neither of us knows where to begin. The weight of all our unsaid words feels physical, something I could reach out and touch if I dared.

The tension stretches as the city passes by in a blur of muted colors, neon signs smearing into watercolor streaks, streetlights pooling gold on wet pavement. Seattle at night feels both beautiful and melancholy, matching the hollow ache in my chest.

At the house, I drop my gear inside the door with a muffled thump and start for the stairs, already cataloguing excuses to retreat to my room, a room I haven't actually slept in for weeks. That fact alone has me reeling. How did I get here? Sharing Sebastian's bed night after night while pretending during daylight hours that we're just. . .what exactly? Teammates? Friends? Something undefined that neither of us has been brave enough to name.

At this point I'm willing to lock myself in my forgotten bedroom just to avoid whatever conversation is brewing between us. The walls would offer sanctuary from his penetrating gaze, from the questions I know are coming. I was so brave when I left Dr. Sloan's office, full of determination and clarity about what I needed to say to him. Now, though, that courage has evaporated like morning dew, and I want nothing more than to brush it all under the rug, pretend everything's fine, keep living in this beautiful, fragile limbo we've created.

Bast's voice stops me, low and certain in the quiet foyer. The sound of it freezes me mid-step, my hand hovering over the polished banister, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.

"Derrick."

I turn slowly, feeling my resolve dissolve beneath his gaze like sugar in hot water. This man has always had the ability to unmoor me with just the sound of my name on his lips.

"You're gonna have to talk to me." His voice is steady, measured, the voice he uses when he's trying to contain something volatile beneath the surface.

I cross my arms, a shield of flesh and bone that does nothing to protect my heart. "Like you talk to me?" The words come out sharper than I intended, edged with weeks of unspoken frustration.

He flinches, just slightly, a micro expression anyone else would miss, but I've spent hours memorizing the topography of his face. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" My voice rises, bouncing off the high ceilings of his immaculate home. "I've been in your bed, your house, your arms and I still don't know what the hell we are. What you want. Who you even are." The truth spills out, messy and raw, impossible to recapture once released.

"Don't do that," he warns, his accent thickening the way it does when emotion breaches his carefully constructed walls.

"No, say it." I step toward him, closing the distance between us, needing him to feel the weight of my words. "Because I've been trying, Bast. I've been trying to hold it together, to recover, to figure out who the hell I am when I’m not playing at full capacity. And you? You've been silent. About us. About whatever has turned you into this cold, closed off version of the man I believe you're not. I know nothing about you really. Hell, I stumbled upon your studio. If I hadn't, I'd still be fucking clueless that you moonlight as a world-renowned artist."

His jaw tightens, the muscle there jumping beneath his skin. I want to press my thumb against it, feel the tension there. "I didn't ask for this."

"Neither did I!" I shout, weeks of confusion and longing erupting from somewhere deep inside me. "But we're here. And I need to know if I'm just another guest in your house, or if I'm something real to you."

Silence crashes down between us like a hammer, dense and destructive.

He stares at me, breath heavy, those gray eyes stormy with something I can't quite name. And then he says, low and ragged, "You are real to me. Too real. That's the problem. I know how I feel. I’ve said it before. . .but I’m fucking scared."

The truth of it knocks the wind out of me. I stumble back a step, blinking, suddenly unsteady on my feet. All this time I thought I was fighting for something that didn't exist, and here he is telling me it's so substantial it frightens him.

"I can't give you what you want if you won't meet me halfway," I say, softer now, the anger dissipating like smoke. "I'm not asking for perfection. I'm just asking for you to let me in."

He nods slowly, something shifting behind his eyes like a door unlocking after years of being sealed shut. "Then maybe it's time I do."

I follow Bast into the living room, my heartbeat a thunderous rhythm in my ears. The sleek leather couch cool beneath me as I sink down, watching him carefully. He doesn't sit immediately. Instead, he paces, all coiled energy and hesitation, before finally lowering himself beside me, close enough that I can feel his warmth, but with enough space between us to suggest the weight of what's coming.

"Before Seattle, I was with Winnipeg for six years," he begins, his accent thickening around the edges. "The last three, I was with someone. Lachlan Devereaux."

The name hits me with unexpected force. Lachlan Devereaux, center for the Wolves, known for his lightning-quick hands and ruthless precision. Not someone I'd ever pictured with Bast.

“Wait, I thought he was straight.” I say, confused and maybe a little jealous.

"We kept it quiet. Professional hockey, you know how it is." His shoulders slump, the proud, straight line of his back curving inward. "The rest of the hockey world saw a bromance. But to us, well, to me, I thought. . .I thought we were building something real."

I want to reach for him, but something in his posture warns me not to. Not yet.