Chapter 22
Louis
The windshield wipers of my SUV are fighting a losing war against the Seattle downpour as I skid into the empty parking lot of the practice facility. I slam it into park right next to Tanner’s car.
I’m fixing this.
I burst out of the truck, ignoring the rain soaking through my hoodie for the second time tonight, and sprint for the side entrance. I key in my code—beep-beep-click—and yank the heavy metal door open.
It’s midnight. The lobby is dark, lit only by the green glow of the exit signs and the hum of the vending machines. Usually, this place is full of noise, shouting, laughter, bags thumping against walls. Tonight, the silence is heavy.
I push through the double doors leading to Rink A. I hear the sound right away.
Shhh-chk.
Scrape.
Shhh-chk.
It’s the distinct, rhythmic sound of steel blades carving into ice.
It’s colder in here than outside, the familiar, comfortable scents of recycled air, rubber mats, and Zamboni exhaust mingling together.
I walk to the glass, staying in the shadows.
Tanner’s in the far crease, doing technical edge work. Butterfly slides. T-pushes. Over and over, he repeats the series of movements:
Push. Slide. Stop. Reset. Push. Slide. Stop. Reset.
He’s moving like a machine: crisp, efficient, and utterly soulless.
He’s not training; he’s punishing himself.
I know that look. I know exactly what he’s doing because I’ve done it a thousand times.
He’s trying to turn off his brain. He’s trying to work through his confusing emotions using the physics of his skate blades and the biology of exhaustion.
His jersey is soaked through, and he’s not wearing his chest protector, so it clings to his chest. Even from here, I can see how heavily he’s breathing. He’s been here for hours. While I was sitting in my condo feeling sorry for myself, he was here, grinding himself into dust.
A jagged ache rips through my chest that has nothing to do with my surgically repaired pectoral muscle.
I step into the players’ bench and climb over the boards, my sneakers landing on the rubber matting with a heavy thud.
“You’re gonna grind your steel down to nothing, Sinc!” I call out, my voice echoing in the cavernous rink.
Tanner freezes mid-slide. He stands up slowly, rotating his hips to face me.
His mask is sitting on the top of the net. His short blond hair is wet with sweat, plastered to his forehead.
He doesn’t offer me a smile. He doesn’t look relieved to see me. He looks more like a fortress with the drawbridge pulled up. His blue eyes are flat, analyzing me like I’m an opposing forward he needs to read.
“If you’re here to tell me to take the offer, don’t bother,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I made my choice. I’m staying here.”
He thinks I’m here to lecture him and finish the job I started in my kitchen: to push him away for his own good.
“I know,” I call back. “Carson told me.”
Tanner stiffens. He waits, clearly expecting me to tell him he’s being an idiot. That he needs to take the trade offer and go to Minnesota.
I don’t. Instead, I step off the rubber matting.
My sneaker hits the ice.
It’s a stupid, dangerous thing to do. I’m recovering from major surgery, and sneakers aren’t exactly made for walking on ice. I slip immediately, my feet scrambling for purchase, my good arm windmilling to keep my balance. A bolt of pain shoots through my shoulder as I jar it.
“Louis!” Tanner barks.
He lunges toward me, his robot armor shattering as his instincts take over.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snaps, panic bleeding into his anger as he reaches me, coming to a stop a couple of feet away. “You’re going to fall and fuck up your shoulder.”
I ignore him. I shuffle closer to him, sliding carefully across the ice.
“I’m not here to yell at you,” I say breathlessly, my focus locked on him.
He looks torn between reaching out to grab me and force me off the ice and backing away to protect himself.
“Then go home, Lou,” he says, his voice tight. “I’m working.”
“I went to see Carson,” I say.
He frowns. “What?”
“I went to his house. I told him I was retiring.”
The words hang in the cold air.
Tanner goes completely still. His jaw hangs open. He knows what hockey means to me. He knows I don’t have much of an identity outside of the game. The idea that I would quit, for him, doesn’t compute.
“You—what?” he whispers.
He’s taller than me since he’s on skates. I look up at him, and all I can do is hope he can see how sincere I am.
“I had it all wrong,” I say. My voice cracks, but I don’t even care. “In the kitchen. I was trying to do what was right for you, but I was so wrong.”
He stares down at me, his chest heaving. He’s trembling slightly. Or maybe that’s me.
“I tried to push you away because I thought you needed to be a starting goalie more than you needed me,” I say, shuffling a few inches further into his space, close enough to feel the cold radiating off his pads. “But I was wrong. And I thought I needed hockey more than I need you.”
I shake my head, water dripping from my hair into my eyes.
“But I was so stupid, Tanner. I need you more than hockey. More than anything. You’re my home. And I’m not playing another game if it’s not with you.”
Tanner
Lou’s words hang in the air between us.
I’m not playing another game if it’s not with you.
My brain, usually a high-speed processor of angles, velocity, and probability, grinds to a halt. I stare at him, standing there in his soaked hoodie and sneakers on the fresh sheet of ice.
Louis Tremblay is hockey. I grew up studying him. I’ve watched him in the locker room, the way he loves everything about it, from the other players to the equipment guys, right down to the gear and the jerseys. And I’ve also seen the fear in his eyes when he thinks about life without the game.
And yet, he walked into Carson’s home tonight and tried to put an end to his career.
Not because his shoulder is broken. Not because he’s too old.
He did it for me.
Suddenly, I can see it all. He wasn’t pushing me away because he didn’t want me. He was pushing me away because he loves me enough to let me go. And when I wouldn’t go, he tried to burn his own world down to make space for mine.
I open my mouth to say something. Anything. But my throat is locked tight.
Louis shifts his weight, trying to close the distance between us, but physics is a bitch, and he starts to go down, his eyes going wide as his feet start to slide out from under him.
“Shit—”
My body moves before my brain can issue the command. I lunge at him, my skates biting deep into the ice to anchor me as I reach for him.
I catch him by the front of his sodden hoodie, hauling him upright. The momentum slams him into my chest, hard. His good hand clutches at my jersey, bunching the fabric in a death grip.
He’s heavy against me, solid and warm and smelling like rain and desperate, stupid bravery.
“You idiot,” I choke out. The words are jagged, scraping my throat. “You were going to quit? You were actually going to quit?”
Louis looks up at me. His wet hair is plastered to his forehead, but his eyes are burning.
“I’m fixing it,” he gasps, his breath ghosting against my chin. “I tried to be noble, Sinc, but I suck at it. I can’t do it. I can’t let you leave.”
“I wasn’t leaving,” I say, and my voice breaks. “I already told Carson no.”
“I know,” Louis says. He lets go of my jersey to cup my face with his good hand, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone. His touch burns through the cold sweat on my skin. “But I didn’t want you to have to fight for your spot. I wanted to give it to you.”
That’s when the logic I’ve been using for everything crumbles.
Suddenly, all the info, all the data, none of it matters.
The only thing that matters is the heat of his hand on my face and the way he’s looking at me.
Like I’m the most important thing in his universe.
More than any trophy. More than the game itself.
“I don’t need you to give me anything,” I whisper. “I just need you.”
He lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half sob. “You got me, Tanner. You got me.”
I don’t wait. I can’t. I drop my blocker and catcher, sliding one arm around his waist to hold him steady against me, tangle my other hand into the wet hair at the nape of his neck, and crush my mouth against his.
It’s not a slow, gentle exploration. It’s messy and desperate and filled with urgency. It’s the feeling of drowning and finally breaking the surface.
Louis makes a wrecked noise in his throat and melts against me.
He tastes like rain and coffee and relief.
The cold air of the rink presses against us, but everywhere we touch is inferno-hot.
I kiss him until I forget about the trade rumors, forget about Minnesota, forget about feeling alone and my fear of being a burden.
I’m not a guest with Louis. You don’t kiss a guest like this. You don’t sacrifice your identity for a guest.
I pull him closer, lifting him slightly so his sneakers are barely touching the ice, anchoring him to me. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I have to earn my place. I’m just here. And I’m wanted.
When we finally break apart, we’re both gasping. Louis rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed.
“There’s a third option,” he whispers against my mouth.
I blink, my brain slowly coming back online. “What?”
“Carson,” he murmurs, opening his eyes. They’re dark and soft. “He wouldn’t accept my retirement. He has a plan. A tandem.”
I pull back just enough to see his face. “A tandem?”
“More than that,” Louis says, a hint of his usual crooked grin returning. “He wants me to transition into a player-coach role. I play thirty, thirty-five games, but you take the heavy load. You’re the starter, Sinc. But I stay. I mentor you. I coach McWhittier. I help build the system.”
He searches my gaze, anxious now.
“I stay in the net,” he says, his voice dropping lower. “But I share it. With you.”
I stare at him. It’s perfect. It handles every variable. It gives the team stability. It gives Louis a future that doesn’t end in a hard stop, and it gives me the starting job.
But most importantly, it keeps both of us right here. Together. On the bench. In the locker room. In life.
A genuine smile breaks across my face, wide and unpracticed and real.
“You’re going to boss me around,” I say.
“Relentlessly,” Louis promises. “I’m going to make your life a living hell during drills.”
I huff a laugh, shaking my head. The knot of anxiety that has lived in my chest since I was fourteen years old unfurls, leaving nothing but space. Space to breathe. Space to want.
“I’ll take it,” I say. “I’ll take the job. And the coach.”
Louis’s grin widens, that dazzling, movie-star smile that radiates pure joy.
“Good,” he says. “Because the coach comes with a really nice condo and a slightly judgmental lizard.”
“I think the lizard likes me,” I say.
“Everyone likes you, Sinc.” He kisses me again, quick and hard. “Now, get me off this ice before I break my other shoulder and Carson fires us both.”
I keep my arm wrapped tight around his waist, taking his weight as I guide him carefully toward the bench. He leans into me, trusting me to keep him upright, and the sensation settles deep in my bones.
Not a guest.
We reach the gate, and I hoist him up onto the rubber matting before climbing off the ice myself. I sit on the bench next to him and start unbuckling my pads, my hands shaking a little.
Louis watches me, sitting close enough that our arms are pressed together. He doesn’t say anything, just offers a silent, steady presence while I strip off the armor that’s kept me safe and isolated for so long.
When I’m finally down to my compression gear and skates, I look at him.
“Ready to go?” I ask.
Louis stands up and holds out his good hand. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
I take his hand. We walk out of the cold rink together, leaving the lights off and the ice empty behind us.