Chapter 9
Theo
The equipment room smelled like stale sweat, sharp enough to burn the back of my throat.
I stood in the doorway. I watched Luca unlace his skates methodically, like nothing had happened. Like the last three days hadn't been radio silence punctuated by clipped instructions during drills.
Like he hadn't told me he was falling for me and then disappeared.
"We need to talk." My voice came out steadier than I felt.
Luca’s hands stilled on the laces. "Callahan. Not here."
"Where, then? Your place? Oh wait—you won't answer my texts." I stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind me. The click of the latch felt final. "Three days, Luca. Three days of nothing."
He pulled off his skate with more force than necessary. "I’ve been busy."
"Bullshit."
That got his attention. His head snapped up. Those dark eyes met mine for the first time since the morning after. The morning after he had touched me like I mattered, kissed me like he meant it, told me things that cracked his armor wide open.
Then his agent called and everything changed.
"Watch your tone." The captain voice. Cold and distant.
"Or what? You’ll bench me? Ignore me harder?" I moved closer, letting my gear bag hit the floor with a thud. "I’m done being patient. I’m done pretending everything is fine when you look through me during practice."
Luca’s jaw tightened. He set his skate down carefully, like he was afraid of what might happen if he wasn't perfectly controlled. "This isn't the time."
"Then when?" My hands curled into fists at my sides. "After another midnight visit when you’re desperate enough? After you’ve convinced yourself I’m just—what did you call it—a distraction?"
Something flickered across his face. Pain. Guilt. But it vanished so fast I might have imagined it.
"Your father called." The words spilled out before I could stop them. "That's what this is about, isn't it? Him and your agent and that contract meeting tomorrow."
Luca stood abruptly. "You don't know what you’re talking about."
"Don't I?" I closed the distance between us, stopping just short of touching.
Close enough to see the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands trembled before he shoved them in his pockets.
"You told me about being fourteen. About what happened when you came out.
About building walls so high nobody could see the real you. "
"Stop." The word cracked.
"About falling for me." My voice dropped. "Was that a lie?"
"Theo..."
"Just tell me the truth." My chest ached. "Are you ashamed of me?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy and sharp. Luca’s expression shuttered completely. His features went blank in that way that meant he was retreating behind every defense he had ever built.
"It's not about shame." His voice was flat. Emotionless. "It's about reality."
"Reality." I tasted copper. I had bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it. "Reality is you telling me you’re falling for me, then icing me out the second your career is on the line."
"This is my life, Callahan." The formality of my last name felt like a slap. "Ten years I’ve worked for this. Ten years of perfect control, perfect image, perfect career. And then you..." He cut himself off, breathing hard through his nose.
"Then I what?" I stepped closer. "Made you feel something? Made you remember what it's like to be real instead of whatever hollow version of yourself you present to the world?"
"You made me lose focus." The words came out harsh. Brutal. "You made me forget what matters."
The floor seemed to tilt beneath my skates. "What matters. You mean the contract."
"I mean everything I’ve built." His hands came out of his pockets, gesturing sharply. "The captaincy. The respect. The career. Things you wouldn't understand because you just got here."
"So I’m too young. Too new. Too—what—naive to understand that hiding who you are is killing you?"
"I’m not hiding." But his voice wavered. "I’m protecting what I’ve earned."
"By pretending." My throat burned. "By lying to everyone including yourself."
Luca’s expression hardened. "You think because you came out in college and everyone applauded that it's that easy?
That the world changed overnight?" He moved past me toward the door, stopped with his hand on the handle.
"This league still has a hundred unwritten rules about what's acceptable. This team—this city—they see me as a leader because I’m focused. Dedicated. Untouchable."
"Closed off." I turned to face him. "They see a mask and you’re so afraid of what happens if it slips that you’d rather be alone than risk it."
"I’d rather have a career than..." He stopped.
"Than what?" The pain in my chest spread outward, numbing my fingers. "Than be with me?"
Silence. Heavy and suffocating.
"This was a mistake." Luca’s voice dropped so low I almost didn't hear it. "Us. All of it. I should never have—at the rink, at my place—" He exhaled roughly. "It was just physical. Heat of the moment. We got carried away."
The world narrowed to those words. Just physical.
Like the way he had looked at me meant nothing. Like his confession meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.
"You don't believe that."
"It doesn't matter what I believe." He still wouldn't look at me. "What matters is reality. And the reality is I have a contract meeting in..." He checked his watch. "...fifteen hours. I have a team depending on me. A legacy to protect."
"And I’m a threat to all that."
"You’re a rookie who should be focused on your own career.
" Finally he turned, but his eyes were empty.
The man who had held me three nights ago was gone, replaced by Captain Moretti—polished, perfect, unreachable.
"This ends now. We go back to being captain and rookie.
Mentor and student. That's all we can be. "
My lungs forgot how to work. "All we can be? Or all you’re willing to risk?"
"It's the same thing."
"No." The word came out strangled. "It's not. And you know it."
Luca opened the door. Noise from the hallway spilled in—voices, laughter, the normal sounds of a team winding down after practice. The normal world where I had thought I belonged, right up until the man I was falling for decided I wasn't worth the risk.
"We’re done, Callahan. Go focus on your game. Forget this happened." He stepped into the hallway.
"Luca..."
"Captain Moretti." He said it without looking back. "That's what you call me from now on."
Then he was gone.
I stood there alone, surrounded by the ghost of everything we'd been three days ago. My hands shook. My throat closed up. The lights buzzed overhead, too bright, too harsh, exposing every sharp edge of what had just happened.
Just physical.
A mistake.
Done.
I had known it was a possibility. I had known from that first kiss at the rink that Luca’s fear might win. But knowing and experiencing were different things. The space behind my ribs felt hollowed out, scraped clean, aching with every breath.
He had chosen the contract. The closet. The lie.
He had chosen everything except me.
I grabbed my gear bag with numb fingers. The hallway was mostly empty now, just a few guys lingering by the trainers' room. Nobody looked at me twice. Why would they? Nothing had changed for them. The world kept spinning, practices kept happening, games kept coming.
Only I was different. Only I knew what it felt like to be wanted one moment and discarded the next.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with hands that wouldn't steady.
Mom: How is my superstar? Dad says you’re leading rookies in scoring!
I stared at the message. I tried to imagine responding with anything coherent. I tried to imagine explaining that yes, hockey was fine, the team was great, I was living my dream—and also the man I was falling for just told me I was a mistake and he’d rather be alone than risk being seen with me.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I deleted three different responses. Finally I typed:
Me: Everything is great. Talk tomorrow?
The lie was familiar now. Bitter but easy. Maybe Luca had the right idea after all—just keep lying until the truth didn't matter anymore.
I shouldered my bag and headed for the parking lot. The November air hit like a wall, cold enough to steal my breath. Or maybe that was just the hollow feeling in my chest, the one that kept expanding with every step away from the arena.
My truck was parked in the back corner of the lot, away from the clusters of expensive cars the veterans drove. I had been proud of that distance once. Proud to be the rookie who didn't presume, who stayed humble.
Now it just felt isolating.
I threw my bag in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat. I sat there with my hands on the wheel, engine off, breathing fog into the cold air. My phone lit up again.
Jamie: Bar tonight? Whole line is going.
Me: Can't. Early skate tomorrow.
Another lie. There was no early skate. But the thought of sitting in a crowded bar, pretending to laugh at jokes was impossible.
The phone buzzed three more times. I turned it face down without looking.
Through the windshield, I watched Luca’s car pull out of its reserved spot near the entrance. The sleek black sedan screamed captain, leader, success. It paused at the lot exit. For a second, I thought maybe he would turn around and come back. Tell me he had panicked, that he didn't mean it.
The car turned left and disappeared into traffic.
I started my truck and drove home.
My apartment looked exactly the same as when I had left that morning—still barely furnished, still missing curtains, still feeling temporary despite two months of living here. I dropped my bag by the door and stood in the middle of the living room, suddenly exhausted down to my bones.
The couch called to me. I ignored it and headed for the shower instead.
The water ran hot enough to burn. I stood under the spray with my forehead pressed against the tile, letting the heat pound against my shoulders, my neck, the base of my skull where tension had knotted itself into a permanent ache.
Just physical.
The words echoed in my head, mixing with the sound of water hitting tile. I had known Luca was scared. I had known he'd spent ten years building walls.
But I'd thought—God, I had actually thought—that what we had was worth the fear. That three weeks of stolen moments and coded texts and desperate kisses in empty equipment rooms had meant something. That when he had held me three nights ago and told me he was falling, he'd meant it.
Maybe he had. Maybe that was the worst part—knowing it was real and still not enough.
I turned off the water. I dried off mechanically. I pulled on sweatpants and stood staring at my reflection in the mirror, cataloging the damage: shadows under my eyes, jaw tight enough to crack teeth, shoulders curved inward like I was protecting something vital.
My phone buzzed from the bedroom. I ignored it.
It buzzed again. And again.
Finally I walked over and picked it up.
Jamie: You good? You seemed off after practice.
Jordan: Heard you’re skipping bar night. You sick?
Coach Wilson: Film session 9 AM tomorrow. Don't be late.
Nothing from Luca. Of course nothing from Luca. We were done. Captain and rookie. That was all.
I typed and deleted five different responses to Jamie before settling on:
Me: Just tired. See you tomorrow.
Then I turned off my phone entirely.
The silence in my apartment felt oppressive. I had grown up in a house full of noise—three siblings, two dogs, parents who never met a volume level they couldn't exceed. Even at college, I had roommates, teammates, constant motion and sound.
This silence was different. Heavy with absence.
I lay down on the couch because going to bed felt like admitting defeat. I stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about Luca’s hands shaking when he had unlaced his skates. The way his voice had cracked on "stop." The emptiness in his eyes when he had called it a mistake.
I tried not to think about how it felt to be wanted and then discarded in the space of seventy-two hours.
My eyes burned.
I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't fall apart. I wouldn't prove Luca right about being a distraction.
I would go to practice tomorrow. Run the drills. Smile at the jokes. Be the teammate everyone expected.
And if the light went out of it—if the joy that had carried me through every practice and game since I was six years old suddenly felt performative—well. That was what happened when you learned that being yourself wasn't enough.
That loving someone who couldn't love themselves just left you empty.
I closed my eyes and waited for sleep that wouldn't come.