Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The poster board had been blank on the counter for forty minutes, and Dawson still couldn't make himself pick up the marker.
It wasn't the words. He knew the basic sentiment of what he wanted to say, but nothing felt right. He needed to draw Leo’s attention without making an ass out of both of them.
He'd spent his whole life learning how not to be seen.
Tonight he was going to make himself the most visible man in the building.
He'd already texted Ethan. I need a ride to the game tonight. Nothing else. Ethan asked what time and hung up, and now he'd be pulling into the driveway any minute. And Dawson was still standing at the counter with his hand not moving.
The strangers weren't the problem. Ten thousand people who didn't know his name could think whatever they wanted. It was the thought of someone recording the moment and posting it to social media. As much as he wanted to do this, he wasn’t thrilled about the possibility of their reconciliation becoming a viral moment.
He thought about Leo's face the last time he'd seen it — shut down and careful, none of the usual light in it. Dawson had done that to him.
He pulled the cap off the Sharpie.
The first letter was the hardest. After that, he just kept moving. Block letters. No frills. He worried his attempt at being clever yet respectful was going to fall flat.
He capped the marker when he was done and stared at the words on the board. His stomach churned harder with every passing minute.
He sat in the passenger seat of Ethan’s truck with a piece of poster board on his lap, a Stags hoodie he’d never worn before stiff against his shoulders, the tag scratching the back of his neck.
His knee was bouncing again. He pressed his hand against it and held it still, and it started again as soon as he let go.
His shirt was already damp, and they weren’t even there yet.
The sign was face-down on his thighs. ONE LAST SHOT. DON’T BLOCK ME?
Ethan had shown up twenty minutes after the phone call. No questions, engine running in the driveway, and he’d driven ten miles toward The Forum before curiosity got the better of him.
“A sign,” Ethan said. “That’s one way to get his attention.”
Dawson stared out the window.
“You’re going to a hockey game with a poster board sign. Like a kid at a baseball game.”
“You can drop me off and leave.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving.” Ethan shifted his grip on the wheel. “I’m just trying to understand the plan. You’re going to stand at the glass and hold up a sign during warm-ups, and what? Hope he sees it?”
“He’ll see it.”
“And then what? He’s about to play a game, Dawson. He can’t exactly stop warm-ups and come talk to you.”
Dawson didn’t answer. He hadn’t thought past making a sign. Hadn’t been able to. Every time he tried to think about what came after, his brain shorted out, and he transported back to the night of his greatest regret.
Ethan was quiet for a stretch. Fields in the dark. A semi passed going the other direction, its headlights sweeping through the cab.
“What if he doesn’t—” Ethan stopped, and then started again, more careful. “What if it’s too late? What if he’s moved on and you’re standing there with a sign?”
Dawson’s throat tightened. He’d thought about that. At three in the morning, staring at the ceiling, he’d thought about nothing else.
“Then I’m standing there with a sign,” Dawson said. “But at least I’ll know I tried.”
Ethan looked at him. Looked back at the road. His grip tightened on the wheel, running numbers on a job and not liking what they added up to.
“You eat today?” he asked.
“No.”
“There’s a granola bar in the glovebox.”
Dawson opened the glovebox and found the bar under a tire pressure gauge and a handful of receipts. He unwrapped it and took a bite.
The Forum’s lights hit the windshield before Dawson was ready.
Ethan pulled into the lot and killed the engine, and Dawson watched families stream toward the entrance in blue and silver, kids running ahead, the Stags logo projected on the concrete face of the building. This was their world. Leo’s world.
Dawson had been to a game once before. He’d felt like a fish out of water that night, but that was nothing compared to putting it all on the line.
“You sitting right up front?” Ethan asked.
“If I can.”
“You do know how hard those tickets are to get, right? People buy those weeks out.”
Dawson hadn’t thought about that. “Then close as I can get.”
Ethan looked at him for a long beat. Then he opened his door, shaking his head.
Dawson looked at him. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m not sitting in a parking lot for three hours.” Ethan pulled his cap lower and got out. “If things go to shit, you’re going to need a ride home. And if they don’t… well someone’s gotta be Mom’s favorite when the story comes out. She’s going to want the details.”
They walked toward the entrance together, the cold biting through the hoodie, the sign tucked under Dawson’s arm with the words against his ribs. Families streamed past them. A group of guys in Stags jerseys cut between them, and Ethan let them pass without breaking stride.
At the ticket window, Ethan pulled out his wallet before Dawson could argue.
“Two,” Ethan said to the woman behind the glass. “Lower bowl, close as you’ve got behind the home bench.”
She typed something. “I’ve got row six, seats three and four.”
“That works.” Ethan handed Dawson his ticket. “You’re paying me back.”
“Yeah.”
“And buying me a beer.”
They pushed through the concourse doors and the noise hit—music, crowd, the hum of ten thousand people settling in. Ethan looked at the sign, looked at Dawson, and the shit-giving drained out of his face. What was left was quieter.
“I gotta say,” Ethan said, “you’ve got bigger balls than me. No chance in hell I’d walk into an arena full of strangers and make an ass of myself for the person I love.”
“I don’t—” Dawson started. Stopped. His ears were hot. “It’s not— I haven’t—”
“Yeah, you do.” Ethan’s voice was matter-of-fact, like he was reading a parts invoice. “You’ll figure that out eventually.”
Dawson’s throat tightened. He’d realized how much Leo meat to him within minutes of him leaving, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Ethan until he had a chance to tell Leo.
“Go find our seats,” Ethan said. He clapped him on the shoulder, once, firm. “I’ll grab beers.”
He found the section entrance and started down the steps and the arena opened up around him—the ice white and empty under the lights, the seats filling in blues and silvers, the distant thump of music from the PA system. Warm-ups hadn’t started yet. He had a few minutes.
Row six was right behind the home bench. He found their seats and sat down, and the arena stretched out around him, massive and loud and full of people who belonged here. His shirt was damp under the hoodie. His heart raced with anticipation.
He set the sign on the floor between his feet and breathed—in through the nose, out through the mouth, trying to chill.
The seats around him filled. Families, couples, groups of guys in jerseys.
Down by the glass, a cluster of kids was already pressed against the boards, faces bright, homemade signs held overhead.
WE LOVE YOU, CALLY. A little girl with a poster that just said HI in wobbly letters.
Next to them, a college-age woman in a Stags crop top held up JONESY, MARRY ME in pink glitter, and her friend was filming the whole thing.
Dawson looked at his own sign. Block letters, black Sharpie, no glitter or cute doodles. He was going to stand down there with the children and the college girl with her phone camera.
Ethan dropped into the seat beside him and handed over a beer. Dawson took it. Drank. Didn’t taste it.
The music shifted. The lights changed. A buzzer sounded, low and long. The tunnel doors opened, the Stags came out, and Dawson’s hand tightened on the cup.
“You know you can’t hold that sign from up here and expect him to see it, right?” Ethan said. “Get your ass down there and get your man.”
“I’m working up to it.”
“Seriously, man. You’re overthinking this. They’re going to come out for warm-ups soon, and if you aren’t there when they start I doubt he’ll see you once he’s in the zone.” Ethan took the beer out of his grip and set it in the holder. “Commit.”
Dawson looked at the glass. Looked at the ice. Looked at the sign between his feet.
Dawson stood. Picked up the sign. Walked down the steps past rows five and four and three and two, past the couple on the aisle, past a dad hoisting a toddler onto his shoulders, until he was standing at the glass between a kid in a Stags jersey holding a sign that said #7 IS MY HERO and a girl who couldn’t have been older than eight waving a foam finger that was bigger than her head.
The players poured onto the ice in a loose stream, sticks down, gliding into their warm-up patterns.
Dawson held the sign against his chest, words still hidden, and watched.
Ford went straight to the net and started digging his skate into the ice.
Leo was near the end of the line, and Dawson’s stomach fluttered at the sight of him.
He was really going to do this.
Leo came out of the tunnel, sprinting to the other side of the ice before taking a couple laps around their half.
He looked good. He looked like he belonged out there, like the ice was the one place where everything he carried got lighter.
Dawson watched him take a lap and fire a wrist shot into the far corner, and the sound of the puck hitting the back bar was a clean, hard crack that vibrated through the boards.
His fingers trembled. He turned the sign around and held it up, the four words facing the ice, and braced his free hand against the glass to keep himself steady.
He didn’t wave. Didn’t shout. Just stood with the words against the boards, his hand on cold glass, and waited.
Jonesy saw it first.
He was taking a lazy loop near the boards, spraying ice with one skate, and his head snapped sideways—caught by something in the periphery that didn’t fit.
He slowed. Squinted. Read the sign. Looked at Dawson’s face, then back at the board, then across the ice to where Leo was stretching near the blue line.
Jonesy skated to Leo with a speed that had nothing to do with warm-ups. He bumped Leo’s shoulder with his glove, jerked his chin toward the glass, said something that made his whole face split into a grin.
Leo looked at Jonesy. Followed the direction of his chin. His eyes found the sign first, the block letters, and then they dropped to Dawson’s face.
The arena dropped away, and there was only Leo’s face.
How it broke open. Not just happy, he looked relieved.
The composure Leo had been wearing for weeks cracked down the center.
His mouth opened and closed. His glove tightened on his stick.
His eyes went bright and Dawson watched Leo Vargas, who always had something to say, stand on the ice with his mouth agape.
Leo skated toward him. Not fast. Deliberate. No wasted motion, a straight line from where he was to where he needed to be. He stopped at the glass. Close enough that the fog from his breath hit the surface and spread.
Dawson kept his hand where it was. Steady now. Fingers spread against the cold. Leo lifted his glove and pressed it against the glass where Dawson’s hand was.
Leo’s jaw was tight. His eyes were wet. He didn’t blink.
He nodded. Once. Small.
We’ll talk after.
Dawson nodded back. His vision blurred at the edges, and he blinked it clear, keeping his hand on the glass until Leo pulled away and skated back toward center ice.
He hit the first puck he touched so hard it rang off the crossbar, and Dawson watched him circle back with his head up and something loose in his stride that hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago.
Jonesy glided past, slowed, looked at Dawson, looked at the sign, and pointed at it with his stick. He mouthed something to the bench that made Riggs throw his head back laughing.
Dawson sat back down. His legs were unsteady, his breath shallow. The sign rested on his lap, the block letters staring up at him, and somewhere on the ice, Leo was lining up for one last shot before the horn.
The horn sounded. Warm-ups were over. Dawson walked back up to his seat on wobbly legs and dropped into the seat next to Ethan.
Ethan handed him his beer, but didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, quiet enough that only Dawson could hear, “Looks like it worked. Congrats.”
Dawson took a long drink and set the cup between his feet next to the sign.
The puck dropped. Leo took his first shift, and Dawson didn’t know enough about hockey to judge the mechanics, but he knew Leo. Knew when he was going through the motions and when he was present. Tonight, Leo was focused, crashing into the play like he had somewhere to be.
“He’s flying,” Ethan said.
He was. And Dawson couldn’t look away, couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t do anything except sit in row six and watch the man he loved play like the building was on fire and he wanted to be the last one out.
Ethan leaned over. “So, what happens after the game?”
Dawson didn’t have an answer. He’d been so focused on getting through the part where Leo saw the sign that he hadn’t let himself imagine anything past it. He figured he was about to find out.