Page 159 of Offside Angle

Nobody answers him.

“You said after playoffs.” His voice catches slightly, and he clears his throat before he continues. “Well. It is extremely fucking after playoffs.”

Viktor turns his head toward him slowly. “Cole.”

“No.” Cole points at him immediately. “Don’t you Cole me. I need something to plan before I start crying into your shoulder and make that everyone else’s problem.”

“You already cry into my shoulder,” Viktor says.

Cole looks personally betrayed. “That was private.”

The laugh that moves through the room is small at first, more exhausted breath than actual amusement, but it is enough to shift something that had been pressing down on everyone since we came through the door.

Elias gets to his feet with all five teddy bears and walks straight over to Cole. He doesn’t bother putting them down before throwing one arm around him, which means Cole immediately gets hit in the face by at least one stuffed bear.

“Wedding time,” Elias says and buries his face against Cole’s neck for a moment.

Cole wraps both arms around him.

The grief doesn’t disappear. Nothing about the loss suddenly hurts less, and no one in this room is pretending otherwise.

I watch the room slowly remember how to breathe.

It starts with Tyler asking what colors they’re thinking, which immediately gets three different answers from three different people who are not actually getting married. Jace wants to know whether there’s going to be an open bar. Shane mutters something about refusing to wear a suit unless somebody physically forces him into one, and Cole tells him that can absolutely be arranged.

Even Damian opens his eyes again and lets it happen.

He doesn’t tell them to shut up or remind them there are still interviews waiting outside. He just stays where he is against the wall, listening while the corner of his mouth threatens to move every time somebody says something particularly stupid.

Somehow, less than twenty minutes after losing Game 7 of the Finals, the Ravensburg Reapers have begun planning a wedding.

I take the camera strap from around my neck and hold the camera out toward Zara without looking away from Matteo.

She stares at it, then at me.

Her eyebrow goes up.

Fair. It’s mine, not team equipment, and I usually guard it like somebody might steal a kidney if I set it down for too long.

“My job here is done,” I tell her quietly.

Zara takes it anyway, looking suspicious.

I leave her to deal with whatever argument has just started about floral arrangements and walk toward Matteo.

He’s sitting in his stall, most of his upper gear already stripped away, elbows resting loosely on his thighs while he stares at the floor between his skates. Around him, Cole is apparently trying to veto something Elias suggested, Jace is campaigning aggressively for premium liquor, and someone across the room has started shouting about whether black counts as a wedding color.

Matteo doesn’t seem to hear any of it.

I stop between his knees.

For a moment, neither of us speaks.

Then he looks up at me.

Whatever he sees on my face makes something in his own expression give way. He lets out a long, exhausted breath, reaches for my hand, and pulls.

I go without resistance.