Chapter 22 Open Ice #3
We crash through the door, shoes off, tripping over a pile of boxes and a laundry basket stacked with goalie jocks.
Inside, the only light is a lamp shaped like a moose that casts insane shadows on the wall. He looks at me like he’s about to say something important, but instead he just grabs the back of my neck and kisses me, hard, like it’s the only way he knows how to communicate.
We make it as far as the couch before collapsing. He’s laughing, breathless, and I can taste the salt of his skin, the sweet tang of champagne still clinging to his mouth.
After, we lie there, the both of us half-dressed, my hand tracing the faded bruise on his thigh from last week’s game. He’s staring at the ceiling, eyes wide, smile lazy and unguarded.
I should say something. I should tell him.
Instead, I start with, “You remember Vincent?”
His body goes rigid, just for a second, then he lets out a low laugh. “Does anyone not remember Vincent?”
“Do you know what he told me?” I ask.
Ash shrugs, “I mean, he told me a lot of things, but—what, specifically?”
I look at him, really look, and decide I’d rather be honest than smart.
"You already know what he told me about you, the white supremacist shit, the photo, all of it. That's why I shut down." I take a breath. "But here's the part I need to hear from you. What did he tell you about me?"
Ash goes still.
Then, quiet, "He told me you were part of a Black separatist group. That you were targeting mixed-race relationships. That being with me was some kind of political stunt."
I stare at him.
Then the absurdity lands, Vincent told me, the only Black goalie in the league, that my white teammate was a violent racist.
And he told Ash that I was a Black supremacist trying to destroy him. Mirrored lies, perfectly calibrated, each one designed to weaponize the exact fear that would hurt the most.
The laugh that breaks out of my chest is huge and stupid and unstoppable.
Ash watches me for a second, confused, then it hits him too, and he's falling back on the couch, hands over his face, howling.
"Holy shit," he says, gasping. "He played us both. The exact same trick, just flipped."
I shake my head, but the laugh won’t die. It turns to something else, though, something sharper, almost tears but not quite. “We almost did.”
He sits up, serious now, voice low. “I’m sorry I believed it. Even for a second.”
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it.
We sit there, catching our breath, letting the echo of what might have been roll out to nothing.
“Next time,” he says, “let’s just talk, okay?”
“Okay.”
He leans in, rests his head on my shoulder, and for the first time since I can remember, I feel weightless.
The city keeps spinning outside, but in here, in this busted apartment with the lamp that doesn’t make sense and the couch that’s already too small for us, everything feels possible.
We survived. We chose each other.
That’s enough.
For tonight.
———
Asher
We pick the place.
Not because we want home ice, but because there’s only so many variables you can control when you’re going head-to-head with a guy who turned your whole life into a clickbait suicide note.
Darius picks it, actually. Neutral ground, daylight, some indie coffee shop in the heart of Capitol Hill, all white tile and reclaimed wood and people who look like they haven’t felt a feeling in years.
Vincent is already there, of course.
Ten minutes early, sipping from a glass that’s supposed to look like a mason jar but just looks like a test tube. His notebook is open, pen parked exactly parallel to the edge of the table.
He’s in a blazer, shirt so pressed it could double as an offensive weapon, and he’s texting with his left hand while scrolling his phone with the right, which should be physically impossible but, then, so is half the shit he’s pulled already.
He clocks us the second we walk in.
His face does this thing where it goes perfectly blank, like he’s shutting down every unnecessary process to focus all CPU cycles on the threat in front of him.
The barista says “Hey, Ash!” and I wave, like it’s a normal Tuesday and not the morning of my own public execution.
Darius puts a hand on my back as we walk up. It’s not for me; it’s a warning for Vincent. The second we hit the table, Vincent stands, offers a handshake. I ignore it.
Darius does too, just sits, arms crossed, jaw set, making the bench creak in protest.
Vincent sits. The silence is a third party at the table, hovering like a drone waiting for the signal to drop a payload.
He opens with, “I appreciate you coming.” His voice is softer than usual, almost intimate, like he’s about to read me my rights. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but…”
“Let’s not,” I say. My voice sounds tired even to me. “Let’s just do it.”
He looks at Darius, then at me. “You’re together.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. Darius’s hand is on my leg under the table, steady.
Vincent sighs. He closes his notebook, lines up the pen again. “Okay. You want to know why I did it.”
Darius leans forward. “I want to know why you tried to rip us apart with a pair of copy-pasted fucking hate crimes.”
Vincent doesn’t flinch. “Because you wouldn’t talk to me otherwise.”
For a second, I think I misheard. “Excuse me?”
He shrugs, almost apologetic. “That was the story. Not the hockey. Not the shooting. Not even the coming out. It was you two. I saw it before you did. I thought if I could break it, I could see what made it work.”
I stare at him, trying to process the math of it. “You lied about a Black separatist group. You lied about a white supremacist group. You made us think…” My voice catches. “You made us think the only thing we had was a fucking delusion.”
Vincent folds his hands, looks down at them. His nails are chewed to the quick, the cuticles ragged. “I don’t know how to explain it. People are stories. That’s all they’ve ever been to me. It’s the only way I know how to get close.”
Darius is silent, but his knee is bouncing hard enough to shake the table.
I say, “You ever been in love, Vincent?”
He smirks, but it’s a tired one. “Define love.”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “You can’t.”
He laughs, sharp and sour. “I’m not the villain. You know that, right? I just…wanted to understand. You made it look so easy.”
“It wasn’t,” Darius says. “But you made it a hell of a lot harder.”
Vincent’s eyes flick to him, then to me, then back to the closed notebook. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Not for the article. That was always going to happen. But for the rest. For making you doubt each other.”
The air is heavy, thick with caffeine and old pain.
I watch his hands, the way his fingers twitch around the rim of the glass. I want to hate him. I want to punch his perfect teeth out. But all I feel is tired.
"For the record," Darius says, voice flat, "the league's media office has everything.
The fabricated screenshots, the doctored photo context, the pillow-talk quotes you used without consent.
You're done covering hockey. And if any version of that article goes live, Ash's attorney will make sure the only thing you're writing is apology letters. "
Vincent's smile dies. For the first time, his hands go still.
“We’re done here,” Darius says, standing. He’s taller than the table, taller than Vincent’s reach.
Vincent stands too, but slower. He tries to meet my eyes, but I don’t give him the satisfaction.
“Hey,” I say, voice flat. “For what it’s worth? I hope you find someone who makes you want to be honest.”
He smiles at that, for real this time. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”
We walk out, sunlight stabbing through the window, and I don’t look back.
Outside, I breathe in the sharp, wet air. Darius squeezes my hand, just once, and I know it’s over.
Vincent sits alone in the window, staring at his reflection in the glass. For the first time, he looks like someone who’s just been told a story with no ending.
I hope it hurts.
A little.
———
There’s a nervousness to it, a shake in my hands that I can’t blame on adrenaline or low blood sugar or even the giddy aftermath of public vindication. It’s just nerves, pure and unfiltered.
The apartment is still a mess from last night’s collapse, my jacket on the lamp, his shirt on the doorknob, two empty bowls stacked on the coffee table, and a trail of socks like a demented, striptease version of Hansel and Gretel.
But neither of us moves to fix it.
Darius stands in the center of the living room, lit by the fractured spill of neon from the laundromat across the street. He doesn’t move, not right away.
Just looks at me, eyes black and endless, like he’s memorizing everything before the lights go out.
I want to say something, break the tension, but all I get is, “You want water?” which is so dumb it almost makes him laugh.
He shakes his head, but doesn’t look away. “Come here,” he says, and it’s not a question.
I go.
He pulls me in, one hand on my waist, the other knotted in the back of my shirt. It’s not rough, not rushed. Just sure.
Our mouths meet, soft at first, then harder, his bottom lip caught between mine.
He tastes like blue Gatorade and exhaustion, the salt of sweat still lingering at the corner of his mouth.
There's something else too, something earthy and familiar that floods my senses and settles in my chest like the first breath after breaking water's surface. Something like home.
His hands are shaking, his fingertips brush against my wrist, leaving trails of electricity, and I realize, for the first time, I'm not the only one scared of breaking this fragile, precious thing we've built between us.
We move toward the bedroom, bumping into furniture, giggling at nothing.
When we finally make it to the bed, he stops, sits on the edge, pulls me down beside him.
There’s no choreography, no script.
Just touch, and breath, and the heat of skin against skin.
He undresses me slow, like he’s opening a gift he’s waited for all his life. I let him.