Chapter 33
Game Misconduct
Austen
I didn’t go back to the dorm immediately.
I walked. I walked until the cold numbed my face and the wind off the creek dried the humiliating dampness in my eyes. I walked until I could treat the last hour as an error message rather than a memory.
Fact: Luke had played a perfect game.
Fact: His father had arrived with a scout.
Fact: When presented with the choice between his father’s approval and my dignity, Luke had chosen the former. Fast.
Without a flinch.
I’m only his roommate.
The variables were run repeatedly in a search for a different outcome, a mitigating factor. None were found. The equation was balanced, and the result was zero.
Stony Creek Hall accepted my keycard at 11:15 p.m., the beep echoing in the deserted lobby.
Upstairs, Room 317 sat dark and silent. A relief.
The overhead light clicked on, washing the space in harsh artificial brightness.
Me: I need to get out of here. Can I stay with you?
Maya: Of course, what’s going on?
Me: I’ll explain when I see you. Be there in thirty.
From the closet, the duffel bag was retrieved. Essentials were packed with mechanical efficiency: toiletry bag, chargers, clothes for a few days. The zipper hissed shut just as the door opened.
Luke stumbled in. He was still wearing the nice jeans and the button-down shirt he’d worn to dinner, but he looked wrecked. His hair was wind-blown, his eyes wild. He smelled of expensive steakhouse and alcohol.
He saw the bag on my bed and froze.
“Austen,” he breathed. “Don’t.”
I didn’t look at him. I picked up the laptop power cord and coiled it. Loop, tuck, secure. “I’m staying at Maya’s tonight.”
“Please.” He stepped into the room, reaching for me, then stopping short when I took a sharp step back. “Let me explain.”
“There’s no need for an explanation, Luke.”
“It wasn’t real,” he rushed out, the words tumbling over each other. “What I said to them—it wasn’t real. It was Vane. It was my dad. I froze. I needed to get them off my back so I could get out of there.”
“You succeeded.” I zipped the side pocket of the duffel. “You successfully erased me.”
“I didn’t erase you. I—I protected the offer.” He ran a hand through his hair, frantic. “Vane is old school. My dad is… you know how he is. If they thought I was distracted, if they thought I was—”
“Queer?” I supplied.
He flinched. “Complicated. If they thought I was complicated.”
“I am complicated,” I said, finally looking at him. “I am a foster kid with a complex history and a scholarship I can’t afford to lose. I am a male math major dating the male hockey goalie. That is the definition of complicated.”
“I know. And I want that. I want us.”
“No,” I said calmly. “You want the idea of us. In this room. With the door locked and the blinds drawn. You want a constant you can keep on a shelf like a puck.”
I walked over to the desk. The puck was there, sitting on the roster sheet.
I picked it up.
“You looked at me,” I said, voice trembling for the first time. “He called me ‘the roommate,’ and you looked right at me, and you agreed.”
“I panicked!”
“You calculated,” I corrected. “You ran a risk assessment. Weighed the Minnesota contract against me, and I lost. That’s fine. That’s rational. Don’t lie and say it was an accident.”
Luke leaned back against the closed door, looking defeated. “They want me in St. Paul in June. Mid-June.”
The timeline clicked into place. “So, you’re leaving right after the semester ends and never coming back.”
“I have to. It’s the development camp. If I don’t go, I lose the spot.”
“And when were you going to tell me that?”
“Tonight. I was going to tell you tonight.”
“After you introduced me as your roommate? After you let your dad laugh at me?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I screwed up. I know I screwed up. But I can fix it. I’ll call Vane tomorrow. I’ll tell my dad to back off. Don’t leave.”
“You’re the one leaving, Luke.”
I held out the puck. The NRU logo caught the overhead light.
He stared at it like it was radioactive. “No. I gave that to you. It’s yours.”
“Article five,” I whispered, my voice trembling for the first time. “Constants keep us honest.”
“Screw the articles.”
“Take it.” I grabbed his hand—his clammy, shaking hand—and forced the hard rubber disk into his palm. Curling his fingers over it, I said, “I’m not your constant anymore. You made sure of that.”
I pulled my hand away. The loss of contact felt like a physical blow.
“Austen, please.” His voice cracked, fracturing under the weight of the room. Tears pooled in his eyes, spilling over before he could blink them back. “I love you.”
The words hung in the air, suspended in the fluorescent hum.
It should have been a victory. It should have been the solution to the equation. Instead, it felt like a casualty.
“I know,” I said. And I did. That was the worst part. He loved me, but he feared his father more. “But love isn’t enough to fix this.”
I shouldered my duffel bag. The strap dug into my shoulder.
“I won’t be your secret,” I said, my voice thick. “I won’t be the thing you hide in the dark. And I won’t stay here and watch you lose this dream, Luke. Because if you miss the draft… if you fail… you will look at me one day and you will hate me for being the distraction.”
“I could never hate you,” he choked out.
“You would,” I said gently. “And I love you too much to let that happen.”
He stood there, clutching the puck so hard his knuckles turned white. He looked young. Terrified. Not the big star goalie people stare at on the Jumbotron, just a boy who’d been told his whole life that he had to be alone to be great.
“If you walk out,” he whispered, “I don’t know how to do this. The shoulder, the scouts, the pressure… I can’t do it without you.”
“You have to,” I said. “It’s the only way you’ll know if the dream is actually yours, or just your father’s.”
I waited.
Slowly, painfully, he stepped aside.
I opened the door. The hallway air hit me, cooler, smelling of the same old floor wax and silence.
“Austen?”
I paused, hand on the frame. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to turn around, to drop the bag, to fix him one last time.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“I know.”
I walked out, letting the door close gently behind me. The latch clicked into place like a bone breaking.
I walked down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the night.
I didn’t look back at the window, knowing if I saw him standing there I would cave and go running back to him.
I just walked, letting the freezing air burn the tears off my face.