Chapter 11 Derek
Aspen was asleep on his bed next to the fireplace, back legs twitching in whatever dream he was running through. The tape Coach had sent over was still playing on my iPad, X’s and O’s moving across the screen in patterns I had stopped actually seeing about twenty minutes ago.
I closed out the window.
Pulled up YouTube instead.
I told myself I was just unwinding. That it was idle curiosity, the same thing anyone would do. The list of most recent searches popped up and I clicked on the first.
Théo Beaubien jump compilation.
I clicked on the second video. Someone had set it to Eye of the Tiger. It should have been cheesy. Instead, they had timed every jump to the music—the buildup, the rotation, the landing—and it worked. I couldn’t look away.
I watched it the way I always did. All the way through. Then I let it autoplay into the next one.
Théo had called me Aspen’s daddy and now my brain wouldn’t shut up about it.
The daddy thing—yeah. That.
It shouldn’t have landed the way it did. It should have been a casual thing, the kind of thing people said to dogs all the time without thinking and somehow when it came out of Théo’s mouth in that low, slightly raspy voice it had shot through me like a live current.
I wasn’t attracted to him. I couldn’t be. Before Mackenzie, I’d dated other girls. Fooled around. Mackenzie had been my first and—at this point—only real sexual partner. I’d been around plenty of good looking men and never felt even a flicker of that kind of pull.
No, that couldn’t be it.
I was just fascinated. He was interesting to watch—the technical brutality of the jumps, the way he moved between them like he was making choices about how to occupy space. Grace and power that shouldn’t have worked together but somehow did.
Off the ice he was…
I thought about his face in the doorway—hair falling into his eyes when he’d bent to let Aspen sniff his hands, the way he’d shoved it back behind his ear without thinking.
Up close, his features were almost delicate, fine nose, full lips that naturally tipped down at the corners so he always looked mildly unimpressed.
But his eyes didn’t match the rest of him.
His eyes were dark and serious, the kind that didn’t just look—they assessed.
His face was still young—smooth, almost boyish in certain light—but his gaze had this tired, seen-it-all weight to it.
Like the youth stopped at his cheekbones and the rest of him lived behind his eyes.
His voice had that low softness that made you lean in. Not because he was timid—because he was precise. His sentences were blunt, trimmed to the bone. And he went through most interactions like they were an inconvenience he (barely) tolerated.
I often felt slightly off-balance around him. The usual shortcuts didn’t work—he didn’t volley back the small talk, didn’t offer the easy warmth that kept conversations moving. He wasn’t rude, exactly. He just didn’t give much away.
Except sometimes, he did.
A near smile while skating. A softness when he thought no one was looking. Offering to watch Aspen like it cost him nothing, when I suspected it cost him quite a lot.
Those moments felt earned. And after Mackenzie, I’d learned to value earned over easy.
Théo didn’t give trust away. He made you work for it. So when he let his guard slip—even a crack—it meant something.
It made me want to be worthy of more.
On screen, Théo landed the quad axel. The music peaked. Aspen’s legs twitched against his bed.
I watched it twice more and then locked the screen.
We were leaving for Detroit tomorrow. First road game of my comeback season. I needed to be locked in, focused, proving to the fans and my teammates and myself that the A on my jersey wasn’t just legacy. That I’d earned it again.
I looked at the fireplace. At Aspen’s sleeping, twitching form.
“You’ll be good for me while daddy’s away?”
I picked the iPad back up.
Watched it one more time.