Chapter 51
Xavier
No amount of staring at the book in my hand is making it any easier to read. Anxiety is coiled in my gut. The de la Pena crew had their meeting this morning, and other than Ares’s thumbs up emoji, I haven’t heard a fucking thing.
It’s been hours. Hours. I was supposed to leave Iowa over a week ago, but I couldn’t do it. The idea of leaving Artemis to face this battle by himself left me feeling like I was abandoning him, us.
With me out of action on the ice for a few weeks, I requested permission to take the next few weeks remotely. The dean said yes, and somehow all of my professors said yes as well. Probably most surprisingly, Artemis said yes as well.
For a hot minute I thought our exchange of ‘I love you’s was down to trauma bonding after my accident, and that once things settled down, the haze of our emotion would as well.
It’s been a week, and I can’t lie, the domesticity we’ve settled into, even with today’s looming meeting? It’s been so nice, and it’s going to kill me to leave when the time comes.
Stretched out on Artemis’s couch, with Bacon—the Raccoons team mascot, a mini potbellied pig—a murder mystery novel in my lap, and a fancy coffee from Artemis’s almost-too-complicated-to-use coffee machine, a nervous energy has possessed my body.
I don’t have time to nurse my injury, or my identity crisis because I’m so distracted by the de la Penas. When they left this morning, they looked like the best dressed group of badasses I’ve ever seen—like Ninja Turtles in fucking suits.
Did everything go okay with their father? Did he sign the documentation Artemis needed him to sign? Can my boyfriend finally take a full breath and let his shoulders come down away from his ears?
An exterior door slams shut, sounds like Apollo is home. Hopefully, that means Artemis isn’t too far behind. I’m so tempted to get up and go looking, but I channel patience from somewhere deep inside. Plus, I’m still kind of sore and not sleeping well with this stupid, fucking injury.
The front door opens, and I freeze, sucking in a breath and holding it. If he slams the door, it’s bad news, but other than that, I can’t tell what the hell happened, and I don’t want to crowd him, or rush him. He’ll tell me in his own time.
His briefcase hits the floor, there’s a swoosh of fabric—guessing it’s his suit jacket, and a pause, he’s probably toeing off his shoes.
“Honey, I’m home.” His gruff voice meets my ears, making me jump. He’s closer than I expected. He’s standing next to me in his undershirt, boxers, and socks like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, gesturing at me to pull the blanket back.
I usher the now disgruntled pig onto the floor, hold the blanket up, and let Artemis crawl under it. He slots himself against my side like it’s muscle memory, long and solid and painfully careful with my arm.
His skin is cool from the air outside, his presence hot and reassuring. He exhales once, so deep it’s like he’s been holding his breath since he woke up this morning and only just remembered how to let it go. He snuggles against my body. My firm and strong warrior needing a little comfort. I wait.
“It’s done,” he says eventually. Just that. There’s no triumph, no edge, no smile against my chest. His voice is flat, and he holds me just a little tighter.
He should look lighter, sound lighter, victorious…
gleeful even—Okay, Artemis doesn’t do gleeful, but he should at least look like the man who just reclaimed his life.
Instead, he looks deflated, like someone who tried to cross a finish line of a marathon and realized he had another twelve miles to go.
I’m not quite sure whether we should be breaking out the champagne or the tequila. “You okay?”
He huffs a quiet laugh into my shoulder. “That’s not the right question.”
I adjust, wince a little, then settle again.
Bacon snorts indignantly on the floor and wanders off, betrayed by my boyfriend stealing his spot.
Sorry, piggy, but he needs me more than you right now.
I run my thumb in slow circles against Artemis’s ribs, a silent invitation to open up to me rather than a demand for him to speak.
“What’s the right question? Did he fight you?”
“He tried.”
That makes me frown. I tilt my head and look at him properly. His eyes aren’t sharp or lit up the way they should be after a win. They’re dull. Thoughtful. Almost… hollow.
“He folded.” Artemis speaks so quietly, I have to pay attention to listening. “He signed everything. Is taking medical leave, gave up his voting rights. He’s gone.”
“That’s…” I search his face. “That’s good, right?”
He closes his eyes. Presses his forehead into my body. “It’s fine.” Fine is not good. Fine is never good.
“I thought it would feel better.” The words come out rough, scraped raw. “I thought I’d feel… taller. Better. Quieter. Like something would finally stop hurting.”
My chest tightens. “And?”
“And it didn’t.” His mouth twists. “He walked out exactly the way he always does. Angry and small, already rewriting the story in his head so he’s still the hero and the victim at the same time.” A beat passes. “And I was left holding the same ache, with the same fucking hole in my chest.”
There it is: The real win, and the real loss. I slide my good hand up his spine, feeling the tension there, the coiled restraint in every muscle. “Hey. Come here.”
“I am here.”
“No. Come with me.”
He goes still, then moves—carefully—until he’s half on top of me, my sling accommodated, my body supported rather than pinned. His weight is solid, his eyes tell me he’s present. I kiss the spot just below his jaw, where his pulse jumps.
“You didn’t lose.” I keep my voice soft but not filled with sympathy. He loves me, but I don’t want to be punched in the face for pitying my boyfriend.
“I know.”
“And it wasn’t pointless.”
Another beat of silence. “I know that too. But…”
“But it didn’t fix the original wound,” I finish for him.
His breath shudders. “No.”
We sit there for a moment, the truth hanging between us, not sharp but heavy as fuck. Then Artemis surprises me by rolling slightly onto his side, propping himself up so he can see my face.
“This isn’t about him anymore. It can’t be. I won’t let it be.” Something in his tone makes my stomach flip. Not fear… but maybe intention.
“Okay?”
He studies me like he’s memorizing a map. “You’ve been spiraling. While you were helping prop me up.”
I snort. “Subtle.”
“You think I didn’t notice?” His thumb brushes my cheek. “You’re restless. You haven’t finished a single assignment all week. You keep pretending your shoulder is fine so you don’t have to sit with what it might mean.”
I grimace. “Ouch.”
“Xavi. Duende.” His voice gentles. “Look at me.”
I do.
“You are not hockey.” His voice is firm. “You play hockey. Exceptionally and even beautifully. But that isn’t the axis the rest of you spins on.”
I swallow. “It feels like it is.”
“I know.” He rests his forehead against mine again. “Trust me, I know. That’s why I need you to hear this from me, not from some future version of yourself who’s already lost it.”
My heart kicks hard.
“Rooms settle when you walk into them. People soften. You make things feel possible just by being kind in a way that isn’t performative. You notice who’s left out. You build belonging without even trying.” His mouth curves, faint but real. “Do you have any idea what that’s like to grow up without?”
I shake my head, throat tight.
“I chased power because I didn’t know how to chase that.” His admission whooshes out of him on a hot breath. “Warmth. Safety. A place to land.” His fingers curl slightly in my shirt. “Then you showed up and did it accidentally.”
A laugh breaks out of me, wet around the edges. “Not to brag, but accidentally is kind of my brand.” The joke tries to soften it, but I don’t fully let it. Instead, I let the truth stay heavy between us.
He smiles properly this time. It’s a real one, his eyes say so. “Exactly.”
I breathe him in, let the words sink deep. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying.” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. “Whether you’re on the ice next month or next year or never again, you don’t disappear. You don’t become less. And I don’t love you because of hockey.” He doesn’t say it like reassurance, he says it like an easy fact to say.
My heart skips right along with my pulse. I search his face, my vulnerability bare and terrifying. “You love me anyway?”
“I love you specifically,” he corrects. “The man who stayed when everything was on fire. The one who didn’t run.
The one who holds space instead of trying to own it.
” His voice drops. “I don’t want you measuring your worth against someone else’s career timeline, or bank balance, or record of achievement. Not Roman’s. Not mine. Not anyone’s.”
My eyes burn. “You’re supposed to be celebrating. This isn’t supposed to be about me.”
He shrugs like he’s picking pizza toppings. “This feels more important.”
That does it. I pull him into a careful hug, breathing through the ache in my shoulder because this matters more. And he lets himself be held, a rare fucking gift. When he finally exhales, it feels softer.
“I didn’t beat him today. I just decided to stop letting him be the reason I exist.”
I smile against his neck. “That sounds like a win to me.” Maybe not the loud kind of win, the newsworthy kind, but the kind that lasts.
“Maybe you need to stop letting hockey be the reason you exist, too.”
I open my mouth to object—to tell him hockey is all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever wanted—but I don’t.
The thought doesn’t feel so much like a threat anymore.
It feels like an unopened door. Instead of pushing back, I let my inner little boy sit quietly for once, wondering who he might become if his dreams didn’t belong to anyone else.
Artemis breathes slow and steady against my chest. “What would you be if you could be anything you want to be?”
I have no fucking clue. But maybe it’s time to find out.