Chapter 17
Louis
The storm exhausted itself overnight, or maybe it needed a time-out, I don’t know. But when I blink my eyes open, the only sounds are the heavy, rhythmic whoosh of the ocean below us and the softer sound of Tanner’s breathing beside me.
We came to bed shortly after I blew him in front of the fire, like we’re two characters in a romance novel or some shit. But if I’m being honest, it was pretty fucking amazing, even if it was corny as hell.
Getting ready for bed together was surprisingly not weird at all.
Tanner, being the perfectionist he is, insisted on returning the favor when we got into bed, and it was utterly amazing, the same way it was the first two times he did it to me.
I have no idea why things feel so different with him, but for some reason, they do.
I have no idea what I’m going to do about it, but I’m very deliberately not thinking about that right now.
He’s tucked into my side, his arm draped over my waist, carefully avoiding my bad shoulder even while he’s sleeping.
It seems like it should feel strange to me, simply because we’re close to the same size, and I’m so used to women being so much smaller.
But I like it. I like how he matches me, his hard muscles and long, slightly furry limbs.
In fact, the only thing I don’t love about being cuddled up to him is his body temperature.
The man is a furnace. For a guy who always appears so emotionally cool, his body heat is off the charts.
I lie there for a minute, staring at the cedar-paneled ceiling and enjoying the sensation of being here.
My shoulder is a dull, manageable ache, like an annoying noise at low volume.
I can ignore it, for the most part. But for the first time in months, the crushing weight of what comes next isn’t pressing down on my lungs.
Tanner shifts, letting out a sleepy groan.
“Morning,” I rasp, my voice thick with sleep.
“Mmmph,” he replies eloquently, tightening his arm around me for a second before he’s fully conscious. But then his “Tanner Sinclair, Serious Professional” programming boots up, and he pulls away to stretch. Strangely, I miss his body heat pressed up against me.
I roll over to face him carefully, wincing as the movement pulls at my injury. His hair is sticking up in three different directions, and his face is creased with pillow marks. He looks younger. Softer.
“Coffee?” I ask.
He quirks his mouth into a cute smile. “Is that a question or a promise?”
“It’s a necessity.”
His smile grows into a sleepy grin. He’s not fully awake yet, so he seems less guarded than normal. My heart does a little flip in my chest. “Okay. I’m cooking breakfast though. I’ve seen you try to crack eggs one-handed. It’s a tragedy.”
We roll out of bed, and an hour later, after a delicious breakfast of bacon and eggs and perfectly brewed coffee, all prepared with healthy team effort, we’re outside for a walk.
We head along the edge of the cliff toward the weathered wood staircase leading down to the beach.
The path is narrow, worn into the tough beach grass by hotel guests, and the air is cold and full of the sharp scent of sea salt and wet pine trees.
The sky is a heavy slate gray, but every so often, there’s a rip in the cloud cover, letting a shaft of sunlight stab down onto the ocean, turning it from dark gray into hammered silver.
It’s breathtaking.
“How do you think the healing is going?” Tanner asks. He’s walking on my right side, subconsciously positioning himself between me and the drop-off, even though the path is plenty wide enough to be safe.
“Good,” I say, and I mean it. “I can feel it getting better and better every week.”
He nods, his hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie, while he looks out to sea. His eyes are constantly scanning the horizon like he’s analyzing what he sees: tracking the swell of the waves or the flight path of a seagull, but the tension in his jaw is gone.
“So,” I say, kicking a small pinecone off the path. “This is better than watching tape in the video room, right?”
“I suppose,” he allows, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of our boots and the roar of the surf. It feels domestic in a way that should scare the shit out of me but doesn’t.
“You know, this reminds me of home a little,” I say, looking at the trees.
“Northern Ontario doesn’t have the ocean, obviously.
But the smell of the trees. We used to spend all day outside in the winter.
My dad would flood the backyard, and me and Rylan would be out there until our toes were black. ”
Tanner glances at me. “Your dad was a doctor, right?”
“Yeah. Small-town GP. Which meant he was also the marriage counselor, the sports medicine specialist, and occasionally the vet if someone’s dog got into it with a porcupine.
” I chuckle at the memory. “It was good. We all thought it was so boring, but it was safe and stable. Mom was a nurse at the hospital about an hour away, but she was from that generation that taught women that they were the ones responsible for feeding the family, even if they were working outside the house. She was always cooking enough food for an army, so we always had leftovers.”
“And Rylan?”
“He lived at my house more than his own, especially after his brother died.” I trail off, looking out at the water.
“And then his mom passed like a year later. My parents just kind of absorbed him into us. They could see his dad struggling so much, and they loved them both, so they stepped up and welcomed Ry into our family, loving him like another kid. That’s why we’re closer than a lot of siblings. ”
“That sounds nice,” Tanner says. His voice is carefully neutral. Almost like he’s trying to distance himself from an emotion he doesn’t want to examine.
I stop walking and turn to him. “What about you? I know your mom had to work a lot, so were you closer to your grandparents?”
Tanner stops too, squinting against the wind. He looks down at his boots. “It was fine. It was just logistics.”
“Logistics,” I repeat.
“Yeah. My mom was grinding. She was a single mom trying to climb a corporate ladder. She loved me. I know she would do anything for me, but she was tired. All the time.” He shrugs.
“I learned pretty quick that not causing problems was the best way to help her. Get good grades so she doesn’t have to meet with the teacher.
Don’t ask for help with homework. Don’t break things we would have to pay to replace. Don’t need things.”
“What about hockey?”
“Hockey was my ticket out,” he says simply. “I left when I was fifteen. Juniors.” He hesitates for a second before continuing. “It made my mom’s life a lot easier when I moved away. She was able to focus more on her job without worrying about me. It was better for everyone, honestly.”
I frown. “Jesus, you really think it was?” I say softly.
He shrugs. “How could it not be? I went from being in her house, full-time, always needing a ride somewhere, or something for school, or some new piece of equipment for hockey, to being only something she had to think about once a week or so for a phone call.”
“Damn, you only talked to her once a week?”
It’s pretty common for young hockey players in Canada to play on teams far from their hometowns, so they stay with other families. Rylan and I were lucky we were able to live at home and still play rep hockey, but that’s not the case for most kids.
But most of the guys who lived with billet families kept in touch with their parents all the time.
Only talking to your family once a week sounds like something from my parents’ generation, before everyone had cell phones.
But nowadays, when it’s so much easier to stay connected, only talking to your kid once a week seems… extreme.
“The billet families I lived with were always nice,” he says, still not looking at me. “They fed me, drove me to practice. They were great.”
“But?”
He shrugs again, still staring out to sea.
“I was a teenager living in someone else’s home.
I was always a guest, never part of the family.
I learned to not take up any more space than necessary.
Don’t make noise, wash my dishes right away so I didn’t make a mess anyone else would have to clean up. ”
He chuckles wryly. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I was successful as a goalie. It’s more solitary, you know? You’re on the team, but you’re apart from it. You have your own rules, your own space. It made sense to me.”
“Do you still talk to the families you lived with?”
“Nah, not really. We’re connected on social media. For the first few years, I would make a point to try and call them around the holidays, but after a while, that faded too. That’s how it works.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but I get the feeling it does.
My heart breaks for that fifteen-year-old kid trying to be invisible in a stranger’s house, worried that if he made too much noise or struggled in class, or fuck, needed some emotional support, he’d be a burden.
“That must have been fucking hard,” I say.
He blinks, maybe surprised at the force of my words.
“Maybe sometimes, but it’s not a big deal. It’s just what happened. Lots of kids have it a lot worse.”
“Yeah, I know you get the math.” I step closer, forcing him to look at me.
“It sounds to me like you’ve rationalized all that shit away.
Mom worked hard. Billets were nice. Taught me how to take care of myself, made me tough.
” I shake my head. “But how did it feel? Because it sounds pretty fucking lonely.”
Tanner’s throat bobs. He looks away, staring at a piece of driftwood down on the beach shaped like a twisted spine. His jaw works.
“Yeah,” he whispers, the word barely audible over the wind. “I was lonely.”