Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
echoes on replay
SOREN
The gig ran late, which meant I was still buzzing with leftover adrenaline and stage lights when I hit the street at one in the morning.
My hands wouldn't stop moving—tapping against my thighs, drumming on the strap of my gig bag, restless in a way that made my skin feel too tight.
The night air was cold enough to sting, but it didn't help. Nothing was helping.
I should've gone home. But the apartment felt too quiet lately, too full of thoughts I didn't want to sit alone with, so I kept walking until I found a bar that was still open.
One of those places that didn't care what you looked like or why you were there, as long as you paid for your drinks and didn't cause trouble.
Inside, the air was warm and stale, thick with the smell of old grease and spilled beer.
A handful of people were scattered around the room—a couple in the corner booth, a guy at the far end of the bar nursing what looked like whiskey, and a bartender who glanced up when I walked in but didn't bother with a greeting.
I slid onto a stool near the middle, dropped my bag at my feet, and tried to figure out what I actually wanted.
The answer came too easily—whiskey, neat, and maybe another one after that if the first one didn't take the edge off.
I'd been drinking too much lately, knew it was turning into a pattern I should probably break, but tonight I didn't have the energy to fight it.
The bartender didn't ask questions, which was exactly why I kept coming back to places like this.
He just nodded, poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass, and slid it across the bar before moving down to refill someone else's drink.
I wrapped my hand around the glass, felt the weight of it, and knocked back half of it in one swallow.
The burn felt good. Felt like it was doing what it was supposed to do, which was turn down the volume on everything else.
I pulled out my phone, scrolled through a few messages I hadn't answered yet, then put it away again because looking at it made my chest feel tight. The whiskey was helping, but not enough. Never enough.
The TVs were on. Three of them mounted above the bar, all tuned to different channels.
One had the news, one had some late-night talk show I didn't recognize, and the third was playing sports highlights.
I wasn't paying attention at first—just letting the noise wash over me, background static to fill the space where my thoughts kept trying to creep in.
Then I heard the commentator's voice shift, getting excited about a play, and I looked up without meaning to.
The screen showed a hockey game. I recognized it immediately—Wolves versus Boston from a month or two ago, the one where they'd come back from being down two goals in the third period.
I'd watched it live on my laptop while pretending to work on a set list, unable to stop myself even though I knew it was a bad idea.
Knew it would mess me up the same way it always did.
The camera panned across the ice, following the puck as it moved between players, and then it cut to a close-up of the captain calling a play from the bench.
Number eleven. Rook.
My hands tightened on the edge of the bar without me meaning them to, and I felt the air go thin in my lungs the way it always did when I saw him.
It didn't matter that I'd been watching his games for years now, that I could probably recite his stats from memory if someone asked. It still hit me every single time.
I finished the whiskey and flagged down the bartender for another one without taking my eyes off the screen.
He looked good. Better than good, if I was being honest with myself.
His face had lost the last traces of boyhood.
His shoulders were broader than they'd been back when we were eighteen, his jaw more defined, and there was a weight to him now that hadn't existed before.
The weight of a man who'd spent over a decade carrying a team on his back and refusing to let it break him.
The camera zoomed in during a stoppage in play, catching him as he skated over to the bench and said a few words to one of the younger guys.
Then he tapped his stick against the boards in that familiar rhythm, the one he'd always used to punctuate whatever point he was making, and my throat closed up so fast it hurt.
I'd seen him do that a thousand times. On the ice after practice when we were kids, in the locker room before big games, in the parking lot outside the rink when he was trying to explain a play he'd been thinking about.
He'd always talked with his whole body, used his stick like a conductor's baton to shape the words into patterns the rest of us could follow.
The commentators were going on about how dependable he was, how he was the backbone of the team, the captain every franchise wished they had.
They showed the replay of the assist he'd made in the second period—a perfect pass that threaded through three defenders and landed exactly where his winger needed it—and I felt that familiar surge of pride twist into ache before I could stop it.
The second whiskey arrived. I took a long pull from it, letting the burn settle in my chest where the ache was building.
Of course he'd made it. Of course he was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he'd been built to do.
Rook had always moved like he had a map in his head that the rest of us couldn't see, like he knew where he was going even when the rest of the world was chaos.
Even back in high school when we were just kids on a team that could barely afford new equipment, he'd played like he was already in the big leagues.
I'd always known he'd end up here. I just kept forgetting how much it still hurt to watch it happen without me.
My knee was bouncing under the counter in a rhythm I couldn't control, and my free hand was gripping the bar hard enough to make my knuckles go white.
The game kept playing. The Wolves scored on a power play, and the camera cut to Rook on the bench, grinning at one of his teammates with that look of pure satisfaction I remembered so clearly.
He'd always grinned like that after a good play—wide and unguarded, like he'd forgotten for a second that he was supposed to be serious and focused.
It was the grin that said he was exactly where he belonged, doing exactly what he loved, and nothing in the world could touch him.
I used to be able to make him grin like that. Used to be the reason he looked that happy, back when we were just kids who didn't know how badly things could fall apart.
The memory came flooding back before I could shove it down—me and Rook on the ice after practice, staying late because neither of us wanted to go home yet.
The rink had been empty except for us, the lights dimmed but still bright enough to skate by, and we'd been running drills we'd made up ourselves.
Stupid stuff, mostly. Seeing who could land the most impossible shot, who could fake the other one out first. He'd laughed every time I'd managed to score on him, that same grin splitting his face wide open, and I'd felt like I could fly.
That was before everything went to hell.
Before my parents started tearing themselves and us apart, before I stopped sleeping, before the weight of keeping everyone together crushed me into a person I didn't recognize.
Before I disappeared and left him standing in a parking lot with no explanation, no goodbye, nothing except silence that must've felt like abandonment.
The guy at the end of the bar said to the bartender, loud enough for me to hear, “That's the Wolves captain, right? Guy's a beast. Bet he's got recruiters lining up for when his contract's up.”
The bartender nodded, refilling the guy's glass without looking at the screen. “Heard he's staying put. Doesn't wanna leave Toronto.”
“Smart. Team's got a real shot this year with him running it.”
I wanted to leave. But my legs weren't working, and my eyes wouldn't move off the screen, and all I could think about was how Rook had always said he wanted to stay in Toronto.
How he'd talked about playing for a team here someday, about building a life that didn't require him to abandon everything he knew.
He'd done it. He'd built exactly the life he wanted, and I wasn't anywhere in it.
I drained the rest of the second whiskey and seriously considered ordering a third one. The buzz was starting to settle in now, making everything feel softer around the edges but not actually fixing anything.
The game wound down to the final buzzer—a Wolves win, three to two.
I'd already known the outcome because I'd watched it live three weeks ago, but seeing it again still made my chest tighten with a mess of feelings I didn't want to name.
The highlights reel started looping back to the beginning, showing the same clips I'd already seen twice tonight, and I finally managed to tear my eyes away.
My hands were shaking when I reached for my wallet, fumbling with the bills until I could drop enough cash on the bar to cover the drinks.
The bartender didn't say anything when I grabbed my bag and headed for the door, and I was grateful for that.
I didn't think I could've held a conversation without my voice cracking.
Outside, the cold air hit me hard enough to sting, cutting through the whiskey haze but not clearing my head the way I needed it to.
I walked back to my apartment on autopilot, replaying the footage in my mind even though I didn't want to.
The way Rook had moved on the ice. The way he'd looked at his teammates.
The way he'd grinned like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.