Chapter 36
Overtime
Austen
Not a jog—a frantic, slipping sprint. His sneakers skidded on a patch of ice; he caught himself on the railing, knuckles white, and kept coming.
My heart stopped, then restarted at double speed.
Luke.
He reached me, chest heaving, his breath exploding in white clouds. He looked frantic. His hair was a mess, blown wild by the wind. His face was flushed from the cold or the run, his eyes wide and dark and terrified.
He stopped two feet away, gripping the railing as if he might fall off the earth if he let go. He stared at me like I was a ghost he hadn’t expected to find haunting the machine.
“You’re here,” he choked out.
“I’m here,” I said, my voice flat. I didn’t move toward him. I kept my hands in my pockets, protecting myself from the cold and from the gravity of him. “Maya said the contract came through. Ryan told her it was a done deal, you just needed to sign it.”
“It was,” Luke said.
“Why are you here? You should be celebrating. You should be with the scouts. Or your father.”
“I left them.”
“For a breather? Before you sign your life away?”
“I didn’t sign it.”
The words hung between us, suspended in the swirling snow.
I stared at him, the data not computing. “What?”
“I didn’t sign it,” he repeated, louder this time, shouting over a gust of wind. He let go of the railing and stepped closer, invading my personal space, radiating heat and desperation. “I told my father I wasn’t going to St. Paul. I told him I was finishing my degree.”
He took another step, his boots crunching on the frozen grit.
“And I told my dad to go to hell.”
My brain stalled. The variables weren’t adding up. “Luke. The camp. The contract. That is the optimal path.”
“I don’t care,” he said violently. “I don’t care about the camp if it means I have to be… singular. I don’t want to be singular. I hate being singular.”
He reached for me, his hands hovering, shaking slightly.
“I tried, Austen. For four days, I tried to do it the way he wanted. I shut everything out. And you know what happened? I let in four goals today. Harper kicked me off the ice.”
“I heard,” I whispered.
“How?”
“Ryan by way of Maya. And I may have looked at the Catapult data.”
“Those two are the best gossip machine on campus, I swear.”
“You might be surprised,” I said with a roll of my eyes, but I doubted he could see it in the dark.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s just say it’s been brought to my attention that people have been placing bets on our relationship.”
“What?” Luke stood there not saying anything for a minute. “Ohh, Coach made an offhanded comment about my ‘boyfriend.’ I just thought it was a slip of the tongue.” We stood in silence, as the air whipped around us.
“So, you turned down Minnesota,” I said, testing the weight of the sentence. “You risked your career.”
“I postponed it. If they want me next year, they can call me. Me. Not Rick Carter’s son.” He swallowed hard. “But I can’t do next year without you. I can’t do tomorrow without you.”
“I’m not a variable you can plug back in, Luke,” I said, my voice trembling. “You erased me. In that lobby, you looked right at me and you erased me.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know I did.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why was it so easy?”
“It wasn’t easy,” he said, his voice breaking. “It was reflex. It was twenty years of conditioning. My dad… he doesn’t get angry, Austen. He dismisses. He liquidates. If you aren’t useful to the goal, you don’t exist.”
He tightened his grip on my coat, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer.
“When he saw you… when he looked at you like you were nothing… I froze. I thought if I claimed you, he’d destroy you. He’d find a way to hurt your scholarship, or your placement, or make you feel small. And I couldn’t watch that. So, I hid you.”
“You didn’t hide me to protect me,” I said, tears spilling over, hot against the icy wind. “You hid me to protect yourself. To protect the approval.”
Luke flinched. He looked down, then back up, his eyes wet.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I wanted him to look at me and see a winner. Once. I wanted to be the son he bragged about.”
He took a ragged breath.
“But I got it. Tonight. I was standing there getting ready to sign my life away and I felt… nothing. I realized his pride weighs nothing. It’s hollow. But when you look at me? When you tell me I made a good save? That has weight.”
He stepped closer, pressing his forehead against mine. His skin was freezing, but his breath was hot.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry I was a coward. I am sorry I made you feel like a secret. You aren’t a secret, Austen. You’re the headline.” He turned and yelled, “Austen Lovell, I love you!” The echoes reverberated out across the frozen creek.
I closed my eyes. The cold wind bit at my cheeks, but the heat from his hands was grounding.
Constants aren’t found, Maya had said. They’re named.
He had named it. He had chosen it over the biggest variable in his life.
“You shouted?” I asked softly.
“I shouted.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips
I let the words settle. “Your dad’s going to make your life difficult.”
“He’s been making my life difficult since I was six.” Luke’s voice was steady now, certain. “At least this time it’s for something I chose. He promised to cut me off, but I don’t care. I’d rather work three jobs and go to college without hockey if it means I get to stay here with you.”
“You froze your career.”
“I have time.”
“You froze your ears,” I whispered, brushing my thumb over his cheekbone. Ice cold. “Where’s your hat?”
Luke ignored the question. He reached into his hoodie pocket, his hand trembling as it pulled out something.
“I carried this for four days,” he whispered, his voice rough. “I didn’t want to look at it, but I couldn’t put it down.”
He reached out and pressed the puck into my gloved hand.
“It belongs on your shelf, Austen. Nowhere else.”
He turned his face into my palm. “Take me home, Austen. Please.”
Home.
Not the dorm. Home.
“Okay,” I said.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t like the first time in the dark, tentative and testing. And it wasn’t like the desperate, hidden kisses in the hotel room.
This was an anchor. Heavy and sure and claimed everything. He kissed me like he was trying to breathe for both of us. He kissed me like he was rewriting the last four days.
I buried my hands in his wind-tangled hair, pulling him down. His arms wrapped around me, crushing the air out of my lungs, lifting me off my toes. Messy and desperate and cold—teeth clashing, noses bumping—but the heat radiating between us was enough to melt the ice on the creek below.
I tasted the salt of his tears and the coffee on his breath. I felt the shudder run through him as he let go.
When we broke apart, he was shivering violently. Adrenaline crash.
We stood there, foreheads pressed together, breathing clouds into the frozen air. “I thought you were gone,” I whispered. “I thought I’d calculated it all wrong.”
“You calculated it right,” he said. “I was just too scared to run the proof.”
I pulled back enough to look at him. His face was red from cold and crying, his hair a disaster. He looked terrible. He looked like everything I wanted.
“I need you to understand something,” I said. “I’m not going to be a secret anymore. If we do this—if we iterate—it has to be real. Public. Named.”
“I know.” He didn’t hesitate. “I’m done hiding. Even if it costs me.”
“It might.”
“You’re worth more than the cost.”
“Car’s over there,” he chattered, jerking a thumb toward the curb.
“You parked in a tow zone.”
“I didn’t care.”
I grabbed his hand—intertwining fingers. “Let’s get you out of the wind before you get frostbite and I have to explain to Harper why her starter is compromised.”
We reached the truck. I pushed him into the passenger seat because his hands were shaking too hard to drive.
I got in the driver’s side. The engine was still warm. I started the truck and the heater blasted, slowly thawing us. Luke had his head back against the seat, eyes closed, but his hand was on my thigh—anchoring, not hiding.
“What happens tomorrow?” I asked.
“I call Vane and tell him I’ll reconsider next year. On my terms.” He opened his eyes. “And I tell Harper I’m staying. And then…”
“Then?”
“Then we get breakfast at Harbor Commons, hold hands in public, and make everyone jealous. And tomorrow we look at that apartment on Elm Street.” He squeezed my leg. “If you still want to.”
“I still want to.”
“Where to?” I asked, putting it in gear.
Luke looked at me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion but clear for the first time in weeks.
“Maya’s,” I said. “I need to move my stuff back.”
I smiled, putting the truck in drive.