Chapter 13
Peter
The hotel room was generic. Beige walls. Abstract art that looked like someone had sneezed paint onto a canvas. The smell of industrial cleaner and stale air conditioning.
I lay in the king-sized bed, staring at the ceiling. Jax was in the other bed, snoring with the rhythmic consistency of a chainsaw.
I couldn't sleep.
My phone vibrated under my pillow.
Bee: Are you awake?
I grabbed it.
Me: Yeah. Jax is sawing logs.
Bee: I’m in Room 314. Sloane is asleep. And she talks in her sleep. She just accused a grapefruit of treason. I need an escape.
I smiled in the darkness.
Me: Come here? No. Jax.
Bee: Meet me on the roof? I saw a fire escape access door at the end of the hall.
The roof. Cold. Quiet. Illegal.
Perfect.
Me: Give me five minutes.
I slid out of bed, grabbing my hoodie and sweatpants. I moved silently, a ghost in my own room. I grabbed a blanket from the foot of Jax’s bed—he wouldn't miss it.
I slipped into the hallway. The carpet muffled my footsteps.
I met her by the stairwell door.
She was wearing flannel pajama pants and one of my old practice hoodies that she had stolen weeks ago. Her hair was a wild mess. She was barefoot.
"You're going to freeze," I whispered, wrapping the spare blanket around her shoulders immediately.
"I have you," she grinned sleepily. "You run hot."
We climbed the stairs. The door at the top was labeled EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY - ALARM WILL SOUND.
Bee pulled a bobby pin from her hair. "Watch and learn, Volkov."
She picked the lock in thirty seconds. No alarm sounded.
"How?" I asked, impressed and slightly alarmed.
"My dad lost his keys a lot when I was a kid," she shrugged. "I learned to improvise."
She pushed the door open.
The roof of the hotel was flat, gravel-covered, and windy. But the view...
We were near the coast. Below us, the town lights twinkled. Beyond that, the black abyss of the Atlantic Ocean stretched out forever. The sky was clear, a vast dome of stars untouched by city light pollution.
"Whoa," Bee breathed.
We walked to the edge, sitting on a raised concrete ledge that housed the HVAC units. The hum of the fans was a white noise backdrop.
I wrapped the blanket around both of us, pulling her into my side. She leaned her head on my shoulder, tucking her cold feet under my legs.
"It’s beautiful," she said.
"It’s vast," I corrected. "Entropy on a massive scale."
"You’re such a romantic," she teased, poking my ribs.
We sat in silence for a while. It was the kind of silence we had mastered—comfortable, heavy, shared.
"Why were you awake?" she asked eventually.
I hesitated. I could lie. I could say it was the adrenaline from the game.
But we were on a roof at 2 AM. The rules were different up here.
"I was thinking about the draft," I said. "And the debt."
"Did you talk to your dad?"
"No. I blocked his number for the weekend. Thorne told me to."
"Do you feel guilty?"
"Every second," I admitted. The words scraped my throat. "I feel like I’m leaving him to drown. He’s... he’s the only family I have, Bee. My mom left when I was six. My grandmother died when I was twelve. It’s just him and me."
"Why did she leave?" Bee asked softly.
I looked out at the ocean. The black water churned, endless and cold.
"She couldn't handle the chaos," I said. "He wasn't always a drunk. But he was always... intense. Obsessive. About the game. About winning. When he lost, the house felt like a funeral. When he won, it was a riot. There was no middle ground."
I paused, the memory surfacing like a shark fin.
"One night, after a bad playoff loss, he smashed every plate in the kitchen. Systematically. One by one. He didn't yell. He just... broke them. To see them break."
I felt Bee stiffen against me. Her hand found mine under the blanket, gripping hard.
"I was five," I continued. "I was hiding under the table. A shard of porcelain cut my leg. I didn't cry because I knew if I made a noise, he would see me. And I didn't want him to see me. I wanted to be invisible."
I took a shaky breath.
"My mom packed her bags the next morning. She told me she was going to the store. She never came back."
"Oh, Peter," Bee whispered. Her voice was thick with tears.
"So, I learned," I said. "I learned that emotion is dangerous. I learned that passion breaks things. I learned that if you want people to stay, you have to be steady. You have to be the rock. You have to be the goalie."
I turned to look at her.
"That’s why I have the rules," I said. "That’s why I have the schedule. The diet. The silence. Because if I lose control... if I let the chaos in... I’m terrified I’ll start breaking plates. And I’m terrified you’ll leave."
It was the most honest thing I had ever said to another human being. It stripped me bare, leaving me shivering in the cold wind.
Bee didn't look at me with pity. She looked at me with a fierce, burning resolve.
She pulled her hand from mine and reached up to cup my face. Her palms were warm.
"You are not him," she said firmly. "You are not a breaker, Peter. You are a saver. That’s what you do. You catch the things that are flying too fast. You stop the damage."
"But the blood," I whispered. "The genetics."
"Genetics load the gun," she quoted softly. "Environment pulls the trigger. You’ve changed your environment. You’ve built a life of discipline. And you have me."
"You," I said. "You’re chaos, Bee. You’re the variable."
"Maybe," she smiled, a sad, sweet curve of her lips. "But I’m not leaving. I’m not your mom. I’m not afraid of broken plates. If you break something, I’ll help you glue it back together. I’m good at fixing things. That’s why I like stats. It’s just fixing messy data."
She leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn't a sexual kiss. It was a seal. A promise. It tasted of salt air and unconditional acceptance.
"I love you," she whispered against my lips.
This time, I didn't freeze. I didn't panic.
The words rose up in my chest, heavy and inevitable.
"I love you too," I rasped.
The world didn't end. The sky didn't fall. The ocean didn't swallow us.
Instead, a profound sense of peace settled over me. Like the buzzer sounding at the end of a shutout.
We stayed on the roof for another hour. We talked about the future.
"Where do you want to go?" she asked. "After the draft?"
"Ideally? New York," I said. "Or maybe Toronto. Somewhere with a good team. Good structure."
"I could work in New York," she mused. "The NHL headquarters are there. Or I could freelance. Knit scarves for pigeons in Central Park."
"Please don't knit for pigeons. They’re rats with wings."
"They deserve warmth too, Volkov."
"We could get an apartment," I said, the fantasy taking root. "Something with high ceilings. And a dishwasher. I refuse to wash dishes by hand."
"And a dog," she added. "A big one. A Newfoundland. To match you."
"A bear dog," I agreed. "We’ll name him Puck."
"No, that’s cliché. We’ll name him... Kevin."
I laughed. "We are absolutely not naming our dog Kevin."
"Fine. Sergei. Better?"
"Much better."
We planned a hypothetical life. A loft in Tribeca. A dog named Sergei. A Stanley Cup ring on the mantle. Sunday mornings with coffee and bagels.
It felt real. It felt possible.
"We just have to get through the draft," I said, bringing us back to reality. "We have to survive the spring."
"We will," she promised. "We’re a team. The Tsar and the Analyst. Unbeatable."
"Unbeatable," I echoed.
We snuck back down the stairs before sunrise.
I walked her to her room door.
"Sleep well," I whispered.
"You too."
I went back to my room. Jax was still snoring.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling again. But this time, I wasn't counting cracks. I was picturing a loft in New York.
For the first time in my life, I wasn't just playing defense. I was playing for a future.
And that made the stakes higher than ever.
Because now, I had something to lose that mattered more than the game.