29. Aftershock
Chapter twenty-nine
Aftershock
Emma
T he door clicks shut and Luke takes all the oxygen with him.
That’s what it feels like. One second the room has a center of gravity, a man standing in the kitchen absorbing every blow because that’s what Luke does.
He stands there and takes it. The next second that center is gone and the rest of us are floating in the wreckage, untethered, trying to figure out which way is up.
Grayson’s back is to me. He’s gripping the kitchen counter with both hands, head bowed, like if he lets go he’ll either break something or chase someone down the driveway, and he’s not sure which impulse is winning.
Sienna’s phone is already at her ear. She’s moved to the far corner of the living room, voice low as she navigates the public fallout without being asked. Right now, I’m more grateful for her than she might ever understand.
Zane hasn’t moved from the doorway. He’s watching Grayson the way you watch someone standing on a ledge, not crowding but ready to catch if it came to that.
I’m standing in the middle of the room with French toast going cold on the table. My phone is vibrating against my hip like a second heartbeat, and I just watched the man I love walk out the door because my brother told him to .
“Grayson.”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Gray, look at me.”
“I need a minute, Em.” His voice is sandpaper. Rough and stripped.
“You don’t get a minute.” I take a step toward him. My legs are shaking, which is infuriating, because my legs don’t shake. I score goals and confront ex-boyfriends and seduce hockey coaches in hallways. I’m bold and brave and unbreakable.
I’m also twenty-one years old and watching my family split apart because of a choice I made, and the bravado is held together with spit and stubbornness and the memory of Luke’s hand on my hip in the dark whispering I’m not going anywhere .
“I love Luke and there’s not a damn thing you’re going to do that will change that,” I tell him, and my voice is steady, which is a miracle I’ll thank God for later. “So you’re going to turn around and let me talk. Because you didn't even let Luke give his side. Which means you get to hear mine.”
He turns. Slowly. And the face that greets me isn’t the furious Grayson from five minutes ago.
This Grayson looks older. Tired. The version of my brother that existed when we were kids and Dad left and he sat at the end of my bed and said it’s going to be okay, Em in a voice that didn’t believe itself.
The version that’s been carrying this family since before anyone asked him to.
It almost breaks me. Almost . But I didn’t stand my ground through Drew and BC and three months of loving someone in secret just to crumble now.
“I’ve been in love with him since I was sixteen years old, Gray.”
He flinches at the specificity, not the revelation. “Sixteen? Em, you had a crush on him. You weren't in love with him. ”
“I was,” I confirm. “And then junior year he started sitting with us at the games.
He was spiraling, Gray. You saw it. I saw it.
So I got his phone number. We started talking.
During away games when he didn't travel with the team. A check in that would turn into something else.” I watch my brother absorb this.
Watch him recalibrate. “The calls got more frequent. Became the highlight of my day. More than hockey. More than anything.”
“You were a kid, Emma.”
“I was. And he knew that. Gray—” I need him to hear this part.
Need him to understand the thing that matters most. “He never touched me.
Never said anything inappropriate. Never so much as hinted that he saw me as anything other than your sister.
For years. He kept that promise to you. He kept it so hard that he stopped responding to my calls, to my texts, because he didn't want to let you down.”
There’s a crack in the certainty behind Gray’s demeanor. A shift in the narrative he’s constructed where Luke is the predator and I’m the prey.
“Last Christmas when I was still at BC,” I continue, because I’m in it now and stopping would be worse than finishing. “I told him I wanted to be with him. Standing right there in Mom’s living room. After you and Sienna went upstairs. I put it all on the table. And you know what he said?”
Grayson waits.
“He said we were better as friends. Because of you . Because of the promise he made. Because he would rather break his own heart than risk breaking yours.” My voice breaks on the last word and I hate it.
Hate the vulnerability that’s leaking through the composure I’ve been attempting to keep since Luke walked out.
“So don’t stand there and tell me he took advantage.
Don’t tell me he didn’t protect me. He protected me from himself for the last four years, Gray. When I practically begged him not to.”
The kitchen is so quiet I can hear Sienna’s murmured conversation from the living room.
Can hear Zane breathing. Can hear the hum of Grayson’s refrigerator, the one in his beautiful house that his unexpected success bought.
The life he built by being talented and hardworking and loved by people who showed up for him every single time.
The way Luke showed up for him. Every time. Until showing up for me meant he couldn’t show up honestly for both of us.
“And the tattoo?” Grayson’s voice is quieter now. The anger hasn’t disappeared—it’s still there in the set of his jaw, in the white-knuckle grip on the counter—but it’s sharing space with something else. Something that looks uncomfortably like grief. “You got his number tattooed on your body, Em.”
“Senior year,” I confirm. “After he played that first game back. When everyone said he was done. After two surgeries and a year of rehab. He scored on his first shift. I got it done the next day because I wanted something permanent to remind me that nothing is impossible. ”
My brother looks like he did at Mom’s Thanksgiving toast, like he’s trying not to cry.
“He didn’t know about it,” I add, softer now.
“Not until January. When I—” I stop. Because even now, even in the middle of this, some details belong to me and Luke alone.
“He didn’t know, Gray. No one did. At least until Drew put together the roman numerals with the number on his jersey from that photo at Mom’s.
Wanted me to confirm it and I refused. He couldn’t get over it.
That’s why we broke up. Why he dated my roommate.
Why I left BC. Why I even entertained Thornton’s call last May. ”
The pieces click together on Grayson’s face like a play developing on ice.
The transfer that didn’t make sense. The ex-boyfriend who was too polished to be innocent.
The sister who arrived at Silver Pine with demons she wouldn’t name and a determination that looked less like ambition and more like survival.
“Drew,” he says. A single name carrying the weight of sudden comprehension. “The post. The details about the tattoo. He’s the one who—”
“I don’t know that for certain.” It’s the closest I can get to a yes without handing Grayson a target, because my brother has a history of solving problems with his fists and the last thing any of us need is a viral video of an NHL player assaulting a college athlete.
“But you think it.”
“Drew said something to Luke at the game yesterday. Then to me. Still wanted me to confirm feelings that I’m too smart to admit out loud, Gray. So, do I think he’d do something so low? Something else that would hurt me? Hurt the guy I loved instead of him? Yes, I do.”
Grayson turns back to the counter. Both hands flat on the surface. For a long moment, the only movement is the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes.
“I’m not apologizing for loving him.” I say it to his back, to the broad shoulders that have been carrying this family’s weight since he was a child, to the brother who taught me to skate and drove me to practice and screamed at a referee so hard she cried.
“I know the timing is terrible. I know the optics are a disaster. I know you feel lied to and I’m sorry for that—truly, Gray, I am sorry for the hiding.
But I will not apologize for loving him. Not to you. Not to anyone.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t turn around .
“You want to be angry, fine. Be angry. You’ve earned it.
But be angry at the lying. Not at the love.
” I take a breath that shakes on the inhale more than I want it to.
“Because I’m happy, Gray. Truly happy. With him.
And I’m not letting go of it. Not for a social media post. Not for Drew Markham. And not for you.”
Sharp. Final. The sound of a woman drawing a line and daring her brother to cross it.
He doesn’t cross it.
He doesn’t do anything for what feels like a full minute. Then his hand comes up, drags down his face, and he exhales—a long, ragged sound that carries the debris of the last twenty minutes out of his body and leaves something rawer behind.
“I have a game in five hours,” he says finally. Not looking at me. Not looking at anyone. “And you have a championship tomorrow. And I can’t—” His voice wavers. Recovers. “I can’t do this right now, Em. I need to think. I need time.”
“Take it.”
“I don't know how long.”
“I'll be here anyway.”
He finally looks at me. My big brother. The boy who made me breakfast when I was six and taught me to take a hit when I was eight and has spent his entire adult life trying to make sure the people he loves never feel as abandoned as he did when Dad walked out.
“I’m scared for you, Em.” It’s stripped of the anger, the volume, the protective fury. Just the raw, honest fear of a brother who can see the cliff his sister is standing on and can’t pull her back. “If this gets bigger…? If Walsh hears about it, if the committee—”
“Then we deal with it.”
“ We . You and Luke.”
“All of us. You’re still my brother, Gray. That doesn’t stop being true just because you’re angry.”