35. Jamie #3
“It gets worse. He pointed at the report and asked what he was looking at. There didn’t seem to be much point in lying by then, so I told him. I explained the company, the trust, the board, and the amount of control that had passed to me after my grandfather died. Then I waited for the questions.”
“What did he do?”
“He sat there for nearly thirty seconds without saying a word.”
Her eyebrows rise. “That might be a record.”
“It probably is. Then he folded the report, handed it back to me, and asked whether I wanted another slice of pizza.”
Annette’s laughter fades into a warm smile. “He didn’t care.”
“Not about the money.” The truth of that still catches me sometimes. “I asked if he had questions. He said he had one.”
She turns slightly toward me. “What was it?”
“Whether he could still make billionaire jokes.”
“Of course.”
“I told him absolutely.” He nodded and said, “Excellent, because I’m definitely never paying for pizza again.”
Annette leans into me again, smiling against my shoulder. I wrap an arm around her, grateful for the ease of the moment. Toby had given me the same gift all those years ago. He had seen the numbers, heard the truth, and then gone right back to treating me as though nothing important had changed.
“That really is Toby,” she says. “He makes everything ridiculous for thirty seconds, then somehow makes it easier to breathe.”
“Exactly.”
“Has he ever told anyone?”
“No. Not once.” I look across the room at the framed photograph of him asleep in the chair, popcorn scattered across his shirt.
“He’s made plenty of jokes when we were alone, but he’s never let it slip.
Not even when the guys were giving me grief about being cheap or wondering why I never seemed worried about contract negotiations. ”
“He’s protected your secret.”
“He’s protected me.” The words come out more quietly than I intend. “That’s different.”
Annette lifts her head and studies me. Her amusement softens into something gentler, and I know she hears what I haven’t said. Toby is the only teammate who knows because he discovered the truth by accident. Annette is here because I chose to bring her.
“He’s the only one?” she asks.
“Yes, the only teammate.”
“And no one else has ever figured it out?”
“A few attorneys. The board. My parents, obviously. People connected to the foundation know the family has money, but not the extent of it. To everyone else, the Walker Foundation is simply another private charity.”
She nods slowly, taking in the years of careful decisions behind that answer. “You’ve worked very hard to keep these two parts of your life separate.”
“I had to.”
“Because of the press?”
“That was part of it. The first time a reporter learned my family had money, I was nineteen. I hadn’t even made the NHL yet, but suddenly every story about me included phrases like privileged childhood and wealthy heir.
It didn’t matter that I’d spent my entire life working for hockey.
It didn’t matter that my parents made me earn everything I had. To them, the money explained me.”
Annette’s thumb brushes slowly across the back of my hand. She doesn’t interrupt, and the silence gives me room to say what I’ve spent years avoiding.
“After that, I learned to be careful. I let people assume the penthouse belonged to the team or that I rented a condo during the season. I kept the board meetings private. I signed foundation documents through attorneys whenever I could. It became easier to let people know only the parts of me they expected to see.”
“The hockey player.”
“The captain. The man who could take care of everyone else.” I look down at our joined hands. “Those parts were simple. People understood them.”
“And this part wasn’t.”
“No.” I meet her eyes. “This part would always make me wonder whether someone saw me differently if they knew.”
Annette doesn’t rush to reassure me. That is one of the things I love most about her. She lets the truth settle between us before answering.
“I understand why you told Toby after he found the report,” she says softly. “You didn’t have much choice.”
“Not unless I wanted him to spend the rest of his life convinced that I was Batman.”
“That ship may have already sailed.”
I smile, but the humor passes quickly. Her gaze remains on mine, patient and steady. She understands there is still one question left, and I know from the tenderness in her expression that she won’t let me hide from it.
“So why tell me now?” she asks.
***
For a long moment, I don't answer.
The city glitters beyond the windows, thousands of lights stretching toward the horizon. I've looked out at that view hundreds of times over the years. After difficult losses. After playoff wins. After lonely nights when the silence in this place felt far louder than any arena crowd.
Tonight, for the first time, I don't see the skyline.
I only see Annette.
She waits without rushing me, her fingers still wrapped around mine, her quiet patience giving me the courage I've been searching for since we walked through the front door.
Finally, I let out a slow breath. "Because I almost lost you."
The words hang between us.