Chapter 15
KIERAN
Luca cornered me in the coaches' hallway after morning skate.
The hallway was empty. Everyone else had already filtered to the locker room or the cafeteria.
Luca leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, still in his practice jersey, the C visible on his chest like a badge he never took off.
His expression was the one I'd seen him use in contract negotiations—patient, immovable, and prepared to wait as long as it took.
"We need to talk," he said.
"About?"
"Don't do that." His dark eyes held mine. "I've known you for ten years, Kieran. I was the first person you came out to. I was at your apartment when you told your parents. Give me the respect of not pretending you don't know what this conversation is about."
I leaned against the opposite wall and crossed my own arms, mirroring his posture. Two men who'd been through a decade together, standing five feet apart, having a conversation neither of us wanted to have.
"Okay," I said. "Talk."
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"How long have you been in a relationship with Nico Varis?"
I didn't flinch. Goalies don't flinch. "That's a strong word."
"I saw you in the parking lot, Kieran. I've seen you on the bus.
I've watched you in the locker room, the way you track him across the ice, the way you don't look at each other when everyone else is around, which is actually louder than if you did look at each other.
" He paused. "And Theo told me Nico asked him how we knew.
About us. How we knew the risk was worth it. "
The silence stretched. Through the wall was the distant clatter of the locker room, guys changing, talking, living their uncomplicated lives.
"A few weeks," I said. "Since the road trip."
Luca nodded. He didn't look surprised. "And Park? Does he know?"
"Park knows I'm monitoring a teammate's behavior during a league investigation. That's what he asked me to do. The personal aspect is… separate."
"Is it?" Luca's voice sharpened. Not angry, but concerned.
The difference was subtle. "Kieran, think about what you're saying.
Park asked you to house this man and report on his conduct.
You're sleeping with him. If the league finds out, if Brue finds out, they won't see it as separate.
They'll see it as compromised. At best, you lose your credibility with management.
At worst, you've given them grounds to question every report you've ever filed. "
"My reports have been accurate."
"I know that. You know that. But appearances matter, and right now, the optics are—"
"I don't give a shit about optics."
"You should." He pushed off the wall and took a step closer.
Not threatening—Luca didn't threaten. He occupied space in a way that made you understand the conversation had entered a phase where deflection was no longer an option.
"I spent sixteen years in the closet because I cared about optics.
I'm not telling you to hide. I'm telling you to think about what you're risking. "
"What are you telling me to do?"
The words came out harder than I intended. Luca heard it. His expression shifted, from captain to friend, from authority to equal.
"End it," he said quietly. "Or disclose it. Those are the only two options that don't blow up in your face."
"I can't end it."
"Can't, or won't?"
"Both." I met his eyes. "I won't do that to him, Luca. He's had everything taken away. Every team, every relationship, every support system. I'm not going to be the next person who decides he's too complicated to keep."
Luca was quiet for a long time. His jaw worked, the same tell I'd watched him carry for a decade, the one that surfaced when he was processing something that mattered.
"Then disclose it," he said finally. "Tell Park. Get ahead of it before someone else does."
"And if Park pulls the arrangement?"
"Then Nico finds his own apartment and you date him like a normal person." Luca put his hand on my shoulder, the captain's touch that said I've got you even when I disagree with you. "I'm not your enemy here. I've been exactly where you are. I just need you to be smart about it."
He walked away.
I stood in the empty hallway and felt the conversation settle into my bones.
Bishop found me in the parking lot after practice.
This was unusual. Bishop didn't seek people out, people came to Bishop, or Bishop informed you of his presence by occupying your space until you acknowledged him. But today he was leaning against my car when I walked out, arms folded, expression unreadable.
"Walsh."
"Bishop."
"Got a minute?"
I unlocked the car. "Depends on what for."
He straightened to his full height, six-five, two-forty, the kind of physical presence that made the parking lot feel smaller. "I'm going to say something, and you're going to listen, and then neither of us is going to mention this conversation again."
"That's an aggressive opening."
"You drive here together. You sit together on the bus. You look at him like he's the only thing in the room when you think nobody's watching." Bishop's voice was flat and direct, the same tone he used when telling a rookie where to stand during a penalty kill. "I'm not blind."
I said nothing. The cold November air pressed against my face.
"I didn't like him when he got here," Bishop continued.
"You know that. I thought he was a liability and a distraction, and I tested him, and he took every hit I gave him without complaining.
That earned my respect." He paused. "And what you did in that parking lot with Brue, that earned something else. "
"What's your point?"
"My point is that whatever's happening between you two, be smart about it.
The team doesn't need another scandal, and you don't need Jerry Brue deciding that the starting goalie's personal life is the next headline.
" He held my gaze. "I've got your back on the ice. Don't make me regret it off the ice."
He walked away, his boots crunching on the pavement, his breath steaming in the air.
I sat in the car for five minutes before starting the engine. Luca. Bishop. Two men who saw what I'd been trying to hide, approaching from opposite directions but arriving at the same conclusion. Be careful.
The problem was that being careful had a ceiling.
You could be careful about the distance at the facility, the professional posture on the bus, the interactions in front of the team.
But you couldn't be careful about the way your chest constricted when he walked into a room, or the way his name in your mouth felt like a homecoming, or the 3 AM silence that had become the most honest part of your day.
Nico was packing when I got home.
Not the duffel bag—but he'd pulled his toothbrush from my bathroom, his charger from my nightstand, the hoodie from my desk chair. They sat in a neat pile on the guest room bed. Small objects, carefully ordered. The archaeology of a retreat.
"What are you doing?" I asked from the doorway.
He didn't look up. "Moving back."
"Nico—"
"Luca talked to you. I saw you in the hallway." His voice was flat, the survival blank, the locked jaw, the wall going up in real time. "He's right. This is a risk you can't afford, and I'm not going to be the reason you lose everything you've built."
"That's not your decision to make."
"It's the smart decision." He picked up the hoodie and folded it. His hands weren't shaking, he was too controlled for that, but his movements were too careful, the overcorrection of a man forcing himself to be steady. "You should have made it weeks ago. I should have—"
"Nico. Stop."
He stopped. He stood in the center of the guest room with the folded hoodie in his hands. His face locked down, his eyes bright with tears he refused to let fall.
I crossed the room. I took the hoodie out of his hands and dropped it on the bed. I cupped his face the way I had in Detroit, both hands, palms against his jaw. His skin was warm. His pulse raced against my fingertips.
"I need you to hear me," I said. "Not the version of me that's careful. Not the version that calculates risk. The real one."
He stared at me. The wall was shaking. I could see the fractures spreading.
"I'm in love with you," I said. "I've been in love with you since the night you rearranged my mugs.
I'm in love with the man who reads Finnish epics on my couch and puts dill in everything and sleeps on the floor because the world taught him that beds are temporary.
And I'm not going to let you move back to the guest room because you think you're protecting me. "
His breath hitched. I felt the wall crack, audible and physical, the sound of a man's defenses giving way.
"I don't—" His voice fractured. "I don't know how to do this, Kieran. Everyone has given up on me when things are hard."
"I'm keeping you." I pressed my forehead against his. "Stay."
He stood very still. The hoodie lay on the bed. The duffel bag sat in the corner, perpetually half-packed. The guest room, the room where he'd slept on the floor for seven weeks, where I'd sat beside him while the light changed, where he'd told me to call him Nico, held its breath.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay."
His hands came up and gripped my wrists. Not pulling away, holding on. Anchoring himself to the only thing that felt real.
The toothbrush went back in the bathroom. The charger went back on the nightstand. The hoodie went back on the chair.
The duffel bag stayed in the corner. But for the first time since I'd known him, Nico didn't look at it like a lifeboat.
He looked at it like a relic.