Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Checking - Using the body or stick to block or separate an opponent from the puck.
Taranis
We lost against Ottawa, but they had a crazy-good first line.
It wasn’t bad, or at least not embarrassing, just two-one.
The interesting thing was afterwards when we had two days off before a road trip and Seph decided, in the complete opposite of his normal relaxed Cali vibe, we were all going out.
It was only when I saw he’d asked the support staff—and Cinder had agreed—that I became enthusiastic.
The bar Seph had chosen was exactly his style—low lighting, exposed brick, a DJ in the corner playing something with enough bass to feel in your chest but not so loud you couldn't talk.
The kind of place that attracted a mix of professionals unwinding after work.
I'd made an effort. Max had insisted on me wearing some of the new clothes he'd made me buy, and the result wasn't bad.
"You clean up nice," Keegan said when I arrived, clapping me on the shoulder. His hand was warm—deliberately so, I suspected—and I felt some of the tension in my muscles ease at the contact.
"Thanks." I scanned the crowd, trying to look casual about it. "Is everyone here?"
Keegan's knowing smile said I wasn't fooling anyone. "He's at the bar. Getting a drink with Nancy."
My gaze found him immediately. Cinder, in dark jeans and a fitted sweater that made his shoulders look broader than they did in scrubs. He was laughing at something Nancy said, his whole face transformed by it, and something in my chest turned over at the sight.
"Go talk to him," Keegan said, nudging me forward. "Stop lurking like a creepy vampire."
"I'm not lurking."
"You're absolutely lurking." He gave me a gentle shove. "Go."
I went.
The crowd parted easily, and I found myself standing beside Cinder before I'd fully planned what to say. "Hey," I managed.
He turned, and the smile that spread across his face when he saw me made the entire bar feel warmer. "Hey yourself. You came."
"Seph made it mandatory." I leaned against the bar beside him, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. "Something about team bonding."
"Mmm." Cinder took a sip of his drink—something amber, probably whiskey. "Nancy's convinced he's trying to set someone up. She has theories."
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably not." His eyes sparkled with amusement. "But they involve Ash and a very confused goalie coach."
I laughed, surprising myself. When had laughing gotten so easy around him?
Nancy appeared at Cinder's other side, her expression shrewd as she looked between us. "Taz. You look less funereal than usual."
"Max dressed me."
"Smart man." She patted Cinder's arm. "I'm going to go interrogate the rookies. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That leaves a lot of options," Cinder called after her. She flipped him off without looking back, and he laughed—really laughed, the kind that lit up his whole face and made something warm unfurl in my chest.
"She's protective of you," I said.
"She's protective of everyone." Cinder turned to face me more fully, his back against the bar. "But yeah. She's been... she's been good to me. Especially after everything."
I didn't need to ask what "everything" meant. The article. Gavin. The hospital. All of it.
"I'm glad you have her," I said quietly.
Something shifted in his expression—softening, opening. "I'm starting to think I have more people than I realized."
The words hung between us, weighted with meaning neither of us was quite ready to address directly. I took a breath, my dragon stirring restlessly beneath my ribs, wanting things I wasn't sure I could have.
"Do you want to—" I gestured vaguely toward a quieter corner of the bar. "Talk? Without the crowd?" Would he tell me the same? Could I stand here and listen while he brushed me off?
Cinder studied me for a moment, something flickering behind his eyes—calculation, maybe, or the careful weighing of risk against reward that I'd come to recognize as his default mode. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'd like that."
We found a booth tucked away from the main floor, the music muted enough here that we could actually hear each other without shouting. Cinder slid in next to me, cradling his drink between both hands like he needed something to anchor himself. "So," he said. "This is us. Talking."
"This is us talking," I agreed, and couldn't help the small smile that tugged at my mouth.
He smiled back, tentative but real. "I've been thinking. About what you said in the parking lot."
My heart stuttered. "Which part?"
"All of it, really. And I'm still terrified." He met my eyes, unflinching. "But I realized something today, watching you face down Gavin like it was nothing. Like protecting me was the most natural thing in the world."
"It was," I said simply. "It is."
His throat worked as he swallowed. "No one's ever done that for me before. Stood up for me like that. Not my parents, not Gavin, not anyone." He laughed, the sound brittle. "Which is pathetic, I know—"
"It's not pathetic." I let my hand rest palm-up between us. An invitation, not a demand. "It's honest. And it makes me want to kill everyone who should have protected you and didn't."
His eyes dropped to my hand, lingering there for a long moment. Then, slowly, carefully, he placed his own hand in mine.
The contact was electric—his warmth against my cold, his pulse fluttering beneath my fingertips. My dragon surged forward, pressing against my ribs with something that felt dangerously close to hope.
"You're cold," he murmured, and I went to pull away, but his fingers wrapped around mine and stopped me.
"I know. Does it bother you?"
"No." His thumb traced a slow circle against my palm. "It should, probably. Medically speaking, it's completely impossible. But..." He looked up, meeting my gaze with something raw and wondering in his expression. "It just feels like you."
The words broke something open inside me—something I'd kept locked away for years, convinced that no one could ever accept the parts of me that didn't make sense.
"There are things about me," I said carefully, "that I haven't told you. Things that might change how you see me."
"I figured." He didn't flinch, didn't pull his hand back. "We all have things, Taz. I'm not expecting you to be uncomplicated."
"This is more than complicated."
"Then tell me when you're ready." His grip tightened slightly on mine. "I'm not going anywhere."
The promise settled into my chest like warmth spreading through frozen ground. I wanted to believe him. Wanted it so badly that my dragon practically keened with it.
"Okay," I said, my voice rough. "Okay."
We sat there in the noise and the dim light, hands clasped across the table, neither of us quite ready to let go. Around us, the team laughed and drank and existed in their easy camaraderie, but in our small booth, something new was taking shape.
Something fragile and terrifying and absolutely worth protecting.
"I should warn you," Cinder said, a hint of his earlier humor returning, "I'm a disaster. I have a car that's held together by rust and optimism, I work too much, and I have approximately zero family who speak to me."
"I'm a goaltender who runs at sub-hypothermic temperatures and hasn't let anyone close in decades," I countered. "I think we're evenly matched."
His laugh was startled, genuine. "God, we're a mess."
"The best kind of mess," I said, and meant it.
He smiled at me then—really smiled, the kind that reached his eyes and made my cold heart feel like it might actually be capable of warmth.
"Yeah," he agreed softly. "Maybe we are."
The rest of the night passed in a blur of warmth and noise and stolen glances across tables. I watched Cinder laugh with Nancy, watched him roll his eyes at something Max said, watched him navigate the chaos of the team with a quiet competence that made my chest ache.
He fit here. Whether he realized it or not, he belonged.
Around midnight, the crowd started thinning.
Seph had achieved whatever mysterious goal he'd set.
Ash was definitely talking to the goalie coach—now, their heads bent close together in a way that suggested Nancy's theories might have had merit—and the energy in the bar had shifted from celebration to the comfortable exhaustion of people ready to head home.
Cinder found me near the door, his jacket already on, cheeks flushed from the warmth of the bar.
"Walk me to my car?" he asked, and something about the way he said it—tentative, hopeful—made my dragon press hard against my ribs.
"Of course."
The night air hit us like a wall when we stepped outside, crisp and cold enough that Cinder's breath immediately fogged. He shivered, hunching his shoulders against the chill, and I had to physically restrain myself from pulling him against my side.
"I had fun tonight," he said as we walked. "More fun than I expected."
"You sound surprised."
"I am, a little." He glanced at me sideways. "I'm not usually... good at this. The social thing. I spend so much time bracing for the other shoe to drop that I forget to enjoy the parts before it does."
"And tonight?"
"Tonight I almost forgot there was a shoe at all." He stopped beside his car—the same rust-bucket disaster from this morning, somehow looking even more precarious under the streetlights. "That's because of you, I think."
My breath caught. "Cinder—"
"I know we said we'd take it slow." He turned to face me fully, his back against the driver's door. "And I meant that. I do. But I also wanted you to know that... this matters to me. Whatever this is. It matters."
The words settled into my chest like something precious and fragile. I stepped closer, close enough that I could see the way his pulse jumped at his throat, the way his eyes darkened as he watched me approach.
"It matters to me too," I said quietly. "More than I know how to say."