Chapter 12 Roman
ROMAN
Calgary
It feels wrong to be in the visitor’s tunnel in a suit.
I should be on the ice. In gear. Leading warm-ups like I have for the past few seasons. Instead I’m standing here in dress pants and a button-down, watching Dex run the drills I designed, listening to the sound of skates and sticks and my team getting ready for a game I can’t play.
The suit is perfectly tailored, but it feels like a fucking costume.
My shoulder rolls in the socket easily. No catch. No instability. Just a minor ache that barely registers compared to the worse hits I’ve played through. The mobility is there—I tested it this morning doing the exercises Marnie prescribed.
I could be in gear right now.
“Shoulder check?” Marnie appears beside me with her tablet, all business.
Professional. Distant. Like Friday night didn’t happen. Like I didn’t stand in that hallway listening to Barrett call the lines without my name, feeling like I’d been gutted. Like she didn’t have tears in her eyes when she walked away.
“It’s fine.”
“That’s not a medical assessment.”
Her voice is clipped. Clinical. The same tone she uses with Rodriguez when he’s being difficult.
“It feels stable. Minor ache. Mobility at about 85%.”
She makes notes without looking at me, stylus moving across her tablet screen. Her hair is pulled back in that ponytail she wears for games, professional and severe.
“October twenty-third,” she says quietly.
“Twelve days.”
“I can count.”
Dex crashes into the boards during a drill, pops back up laughing. The team looks good. Loose. Ready.
They don’t need me.
“They need their captain,” Marnie says, reading my mind.
“They’re doing fine.”
“Fine isn’t the same as complete.”
I want to respond, but Rodriguez skates by and gives me a salute that makes me remember I’m supposed to be supporting them, not wallowing in my own shit.
“Anything else?” she asks, still not looking up.
Everything else. But I don’t know how to say it.
“No.”
She nods once and walks away, disappearing back toward the medical room.
And I’m left standing in the tunnel in a suit, watching my team warm up without me, wondering how I managed to fuck up both my career and whatever was starting with her in the span of a single week.
We lose 4-3 in overtime.
I watch from the press box while Marnie works the bench. Every time the camera finds her, she’s focused, professional, handling issues with calm efficiency. No one watching would know her mom is dying or that we complicated everything in a supply closet five days ago.
Edmonton
The hotel gym at midnight is supposed to be empty.
Instead, I find Marnie on the treadmill, running like something’s chasing her.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask.
She doesn’t slow down. “Mom had a bad night. Teresa called.”
“And you’re what, trying to outrun it?”
“I’m trying to exhaust myself enough to sleep.”
I get on the treadmill next to her and start walking. My shoulder protests slightly, but it’s manageable.
“You should be resting,” she says.
“So should you.”
We move in silence for a while. Her breathing is controlled but there’s tension in her shoulders, visible in the way she’s gripping the handrails too tight, the way her jaw is clenched.
“She didn’t recognize me yesterday,” Marnie says suddenly. “On FaceTime. She called me by my aunt’s name. My aunt’s been dead for ten years.”
“Moxie—”
“Don’t. Please. Just... let me run.”
So I do.
I walk while she runs, both of us pretending this is normal. Pretending we’re not in a hotel gym at midnight, her running from grief and me walking beside her because I don’t know what else to do.
When she finally stops, she’s shaking. Exercise or emotion, I can’t tell.
“October twenty-third,” she says, voice unsteady. “You’ll be back October twenty-third.”
She’s been repeating it like a mantra. Like if she fixes me, everything else will somehow fall into place.
She leaves without looking at me.
I stay on the treadmill for another hour. Not running from anything. Just walking. Thinking about how she sounded when she said her mom didn’t recognize her.
We lose to Edmonton 5-2.
It’s ugly. The team’s off, missing passes, taking bad penalties. Luca lets in two soft goals. I can’t help from the press box. Can’t lead from a distance. Can’t do anything except watch it fall apart.
Barrett’s post-game speech is about resilience and staying focused, but I see him looking at me.
Travel Day
The flight to Vancouver is short but feels endless.
Marnie sits three rows ahead of me, looking at her phone constantly. Every buzz could be about her mom. Every call could be the one.
Brody drops into the empty seat beside me.
“She okay?”
“No.”
“You okay?”
“Also no.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not even a little.”
“Cool.” He doesn’t move.
“Elliot says Marnie’s mom is really bad.”
“Yeah.”
“And you two are...”
“Complicated.”
“That’s one word for it.” He stretches his legs into the aisle. “I’m just saying, life’s short. Whatever’s stopping you from being with her, maybe reconsider.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple. You want her. She wants you. Everything else is just excuses.”
He walks away before I can form a response, but his words stick.
Maybe it is that simple. Maybe I’m making it complicated because complicated is easier than admitting I’ve never felt this way about anyone before and I have no idea what to do about it.
Vancouver
Game day.
I go through the motions. Team breakfast, meetings, watching them prepare. But my mind’s on Marnie.
She’s been avoiding me since Edmonton, maintaining perfect professional distance. When she has to check my shoulder, she’s clinical. Efficient. Doesn’t meet my eyes.
We lose 3-1.
It’s not even close. The team looks lost, disconnected. Passes aren’t connecting. The power play is anemic. And I’m up in the press box, useless in my suit, while everything falls apart on the ice.
Back at the hotel, everyone scatters to their rooms. No one wants to talk about three straight losses. No one wants to admit we’re struggling without our captain.
It’s 2 AM and I can’t sleep.
I pull on shorts and a t-shirt, grab my room key. I know this is stupid. Know I should stay in my room, maintain the distance she’s trying to create.
But I knock on her door anyway.
She opens it in tiny shorts and a team t-shirt, hair messy, eyes red. She’s been crying.
“Roman, what—”
“I can’t sleep.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Your mom didn’t recognize you.”
Her face crumbles slightly before she controls it. “That’s also not your problem.”
“Let me in.”
“We can’t—”
“I know we can’t. Let me in anyway.”
She steps aside.
Her room is identical to mine except for the medical files scattered on the bed, her phone charging on the nightstand showing three unread texts from Teresa.
“Bad night?” I ask.
“Mom’s asking for my dad. He’s been dead for fifteen years.” She sits on the bed, pulls her knees to her chest. “Teresa says it’s normal. The brain shutting down, memories getting scrambled. Normal.”
I sit beside her, careful to leave space between us.
“None of this is normal.”
“No.”
“The team lost again.”
“I noticed.”
“Three straight. We haven’t lost three straight in two years.”
“They’ll figure it out.”
“Not without me.”
She looks at me. “That’s arrogant.”
“Yeah, but it’s also honest.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Then she shifts closer, just slightly. Not touching, but the space between us feels charged.
“Why are you really here?” she asks quietly.
“Because you’ve been crying alone and that’s not okay.”
She turns toward me fully, and there’s something in her expression that makes my breath catch.
“Roman, I wish—”
I kiss her.
Not soft, not careful. Just need and want and fuck all the reasons we shouldn’t.
She kisses back immediately, climbing into my lap with an urgency that matches mine, hands in my hair, pulling me closer.
I grip her waist, pull her tight against me, and she makes a sound that goes straight through me.
“This is such a bad idea,” she breathes against my mouth.
“The worst,” I agree, kissing down her neck, feeling her pulse racing under my lips.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” she admits, breathless. “Since the supply closet.”
“Just since then?” I pull back to look at her.
“Since you showed up at 6 AM that first day, all grumpy about five-pound weights.”
I laugh against her throat. “I’m still grumpy about those.”
She shifts in my lap, intentional and deliberate, and my laugh turns into a groan. Then her hand slides down between us, palming me through my shorts.
I hiss, hips bucking involuntarily.
“Moxie—”
“I want to see it,” she says, squeezing gently, and I have to close my eyes against the sensation. “The whole tattoo. All of it.”
“Now?” My voice comes out strangled.
“You showed everyone else. My turn.”
“I showed them my thigh.”
“And now I want the rest.” She’s still touching me, making rational thought impossible. “Unless you’re shy?”
“Shy?” I manage a laugh, though it comes out breathless. “You’re the one who keeps getting interrupted before you can see it.”
“So show me. No interruptions.”
“You sure you can handle it?”
“I can handle it.”
“Because once you see where it ends, there’s no going back.”
“Going back from what?”
“From knowing exactly what you do to me.”
I lift her off my lap and stand up, ignoring the way my body protests the loss of contact.
“Still want the full tour?”
“Stop stalling.”
I hook my thumbs in my shorts. “Last chance to back out.”
“I swear to God, Roman, if you don’t—”
Her phone rings.
We both freeze.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she says.
It rings again. Teresa’s name on the screen.
“Answer it,” I say, though every part of me wants to throw the phone out the window.
She grabs it, breathing hard. “Hello? Yes, this is... what? When?”
Her face changes completely. All the heat, all the want, drains away in an instant.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll—yes. First flight. Thank you.”
She hangs up. Stares at the phone like it might tell her something different if she looks long enough.
“Mom’s fever spiked to 104. She’s... they think maybe days, not weeks.”
All the heat from moments before evaporates.
“I can’t—I need to—” She’s shaking, trying to pull up airline apps with trembling fingers.
“Hey.” I take the phone from her hands gently. “We fly back tomorrow morning. Team flight’s at eight.”
“I need to go now.”
“There are no flights until 6 AM anyway. I already checked when I couldn’t sleep.”
“You checked flights home?”
“I check a lot of things when I can’t sleep.”
She looks at me, tears starting to fall. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m not ready for her to die.”
“No one ever is.”
She collapses against me then, sobbing in a way that feels like it’s been building for weeks. Maybe months. I move us so we’re lying on the bed, her curled into my chest, and just hold her while she breaks apart.
Her whole body shakes with it. Deep, wrenching sobs that sound like they’re tearing her apart from the inside. I hold her tighter, one hand on the back of her head, the other rubbing circles on her back, and don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say that would make this better.
“I still haven’t seen the whole tattoo,” she says eventually, voice wrecked from crying, in a broken attempt at humor.
“Still want to?”
“Maybe when my mom’s not actively dying and you’re not holding me while I sob.”
“So Tuesday?”
She actually laughs, weak but real. “You’re an idiot.”
“Been established.”
We lie there in silence. Her breathing gradually steadies, syncing with mine. Her hand rests over my heart, and I wonder if she can feel how fast it’s beating. From earlier, from her touching me. From this moment now.
“Roman?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay? Just until I fall asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“This doesn’t mean—”
“I know what it doesn’t mean. Close your eyes, Moxie.”
She does, and I hold her, listening to her breathing slow and deepen.
She falls asleep around 4 AM, exhausted from crying and worry and whatever we were doing before the phone rang.
I should leave. Should go back to my room, pack for the morning flight, maintain whatever boundaries we’re supposed to have.
But she’s holding onto my shirt even in sleep, and I can’t make myself move.
At 6 AM, I carefully extract myself. She mumbles something but doesn’t wake. I cover her with the hotel comforter, grab my room key, and head for the door.
The hallway is bright after the darkness of her room.
Rodriguez is there, ice bucket in hand, but his usual grin is replaced with concern.
“She okay?”
“Not even a little.”
He nods slowly. “Team flight’s at ten. Barrett moved the departure time so everyone could sleep off the loss.”
“We’ll be there.”
“We?” He doesn’t make it sound like a question, just an observation.
“I’m making sure she gets home.”
“That’s...” He pauses. “That’s good. She shouldn’t be alone.”
“No, she shouldn’t.”
Rodriguez shifts the ice bucket. “Nobody blames you for missing games. We see how hard this is.”
“We’re 0-3 without me.”
“We’re 0-3 without our full team. You’re getting healthy. That’s what matters.”
I look at him, sometimes I forget he’s not just the kid making TikToks.
“Thanks.”
“Get some sleep, Cap. Four hours until wheels up.”
I head back to my room, but I don’t sleep.
I pack, shower, and think about how she felt against me. First when she was touching me, wanting me, her hand on me through my shorts making me forget every reason we shouldn’t. Then later when she was breaking apart in my arms, holding onto me like I was the only solid thing left in her world.
October twenty-third.
Ten days until I can play again.
But right now, hockey feels very far away compared to the woman down the hall who’s about to lose everything.