Chapter 10 Skyler
Skyler
The January air wrapped around me like a damp towel as I exited Barbacks through the front door. It wasn’t cold, not by any real standard, but it was cool enough that the warmth of the bar still clung to my skin as it faded.
Ybor hummed with the last gasps of a Friday evening and the first breaths of partiers arriving for their endless night.
Bass thumped from one of a half dozen clubs down the block, a couple argued in Spanish outside a pizza shop, the distant wail of a siren headed somewhere more urgent wailed blocks away.
The brick streets glistened under the amber glow of antique streetlamps, still wet from an earlier rain I’d missed while sitting in that booth. Somewhere nearby, a rooster crowed—because Ybor had feral chickens, and because Florida was a fever dream pretending to be a state.
The absurdity of it almost made me laugh.
Almost.
But I was too busy replaying one word in my head to notice much of anything else.
Sky.
Not Skyler. Not Shaw. Not Cap or bro or dude.
Sky.
Something spiked in my chest as Jacks’s voice echoed in my head. It was a warmth that spread outward, settling into my bones like the first sip of that night’s whiskey.
I strode down the sidewalk toward my car, keys in hand, trying to figure out why one stupid syllable had hit me like a slap shot to the sternum.
You’re being an idiot. I chuckled at my own stupidity. Everybody calls me Sky. My mom, my sister, Murph (when he was being sincere instead of chaotic), half the team. Hell, even Coach calls me that when I make a great play.
It was a nickname. A shortening. The kind of thing people did when they got comfortable with someone.
When they got close.
Holy shit. I stopped walking.
Was Jacks getting close?
I’d parked under a streetlight that buzzed with moths and couldn’t remember how walking worked. I was halfway to my car.
Was Jacks getting close?
And more importantly, did I want him to?
“Yeah, I do,” I said to a passing rooster.
The rude fucker didn’t even look up.
But the answer had come so fast it startled me.
Of course I wanted him to grow close. Friends were close, right? Real friends, anyway.
Jacks was easy to talk to.
And he was funny and genuine in a way that most people weren’t. Tonight had proven that. I’d walked into Barbacks feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, and somewhere between the Space Duke updates and the conversation about shapes that didn’t fit, I’d started to feel human again.
Jacks had done that.
Just by listening.
Just by being there.
I reached my car and slid into the driver’s seat, but I didn’t start the engine. Instead, I sat in the dark, hands on the wheel, staring at nothing.
I’d had friends before. Good friends. Murph, Tyler, and Erik were brothers, guys I’d trust with my life on and off the ice.
Still, talking to them wasn’t like talking to Jacks.
With the team, there was always a layer of performance. It wasn’t fake, not exactly, but curated. I was their captain. I had to be steady, reliable, someone they could look up to.
With Jacks, I was . . . just me.
I was the version of myself that didn’t have all the answers, the version that felt broken in ways I couldn’t articulate. And magically, instead of being weird about it, he’d nodded and shared his own broken places, and somehow that had made everything feel less heavy.
I replayed what he’d said about having his whole life planned and losing it, about forcing himself into shapes that didn’t fit. The way his voice had gone quiet, become almost fragile when he talked about football. I closed my eyes and saw the tears he’d fought so hard to keep from falling.
I don’t think he’d meant to let me see that—but he had.
He barely knew me, and he’d let me see him be vulnerable.
But why did that matter so much?
I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, driving on autopilot toward home. The streets were empty, only a few passing taxis and the neon glow of signs above the bars.
Brooke’s voice drifted through my head. “Part of you is always somewhere else.”
And she was right.
She’d been right about everything.
I hadn’t been present with her because some part of me was always waiting for something, reaching for something I couldn’t name.
Tonight, in that booth with Jacks, I hadn’t felt that way. I’d been right there, fully present, hanging on every word he said. The hours had flown by like minutes. I hadn’t checked my phone once, hadn’t thought about hockey or the season or anything except the conversation we were having.
When was the last time that had happened with a date? Or anyone, really?
I couldn’t remember.
My building’s parking garage was quiet when I pulled in, so I sat in the car for another minute after turning off the engine, listening to the tick of the cooling motor.
What was happening to me?
I’d come to Tampa three years ago as a first-round draft pick with everything figured out. I had hockey, a career most only dreamed of, and a real life. I knew who I was and what I wanted. Play hard, win championships, maybe settle down with a nice girl somewhere along the way.
Everything was so simple and clear.
A straight line from point A to point B.
Now that line felt tangled, as though someone had taken my carefully mapped route and crumpled it into a ball.
I felt more comfortable talking to a barback I’d known for a few weeks than I did with teammates I’d known for years, and when that barback called me “Sky” in his warm, easy voice, something in my chest did a backflip. Sure, he was my college football hero, but still . . .
None of it added up to anything I could understand.
None of it made a bit of sense.
I dragged myself out of the car and hobbled up to my apartment. The space was dark and quiet, the way it always was when I came home. I flipped on a few lights, tossed my keys on the counter, and stood in the middle of my living room feeling oddly displaced.
My eyes landed on the FSU jersey hanging on the wall—the one I’d told my team was somewhere in my parents’ house, discarded and forgotten—the one I’d told Jacks wasn’t framed.
It was.
Number 52.
Jackson Armstrong.
I’d bought that jersey years ago, back when he was a name on a screen and a highlight reel I couldn’t stop watching. He’d been my favorite player, my idol, the guy I’d wanted to meet more than anyone.
Now I knew him.
I actually knew him.
I knew that he made terrible jokes and fought with ice machines and got emotional talking about his lost football career. I knew the way his face scrunched up when he was trying not to laugh and that his eyes were this warm brown color that caught the light in ways I couldn’t help but notice.
That I kept noticing.
Why did I keep noticing?
I pulled out my phone and stared at our text conversation.
The last message was from two days ago. It was a stupid meme I’d sent about hockey players and their superstitions.
He’d responded with three laughing emojis and a story about a college teammate who’d refused to wash his socks for an entire season.
It was normal friend stuff, easy banter. There was nothing weird about it.
So why was I standing there after midnight, thumbs hovering over the keyboard, wanting to text him again?
I pecked out a message.
Me: Thanks again for tonight. I needed that more than you know.
Then I deleted it. Too sincere. Too much.
I tried again.
Me: Made it home safe. Thanks for the therapy session, Dr. Jacks.
Delete. Too jokey. Didn’t capture what I actually felt. One more attempt.
Me: Hey.
I stared at that single word, the same word I’d sent him from the plane, the message that had started all of this. It felt insufficient now, like trying to describe the ocean with a single drop of water.
I deleted it and shoved my phone in my pocket.
This was ridiculous.
I was being ridiculous.
Jacks was a friend.
A new friend, but a friend.
People made friends all the time.
People felt comfortable around their friends.
People looked forward to seeing their friends.
None of that was weird.
So why did it feel so fucking weird?
I got ready for bed on autopilot, brushing my teeth without seeing my reflection and changing into sweats without registering the motions. When I lay down, the ceiling stared back at me, blank and unhelpful.
Brooke had asked me what was wrong.
I hadn’t been able to answer her because I didn’t know.
But lying there in the dark, reliving the night in my head, I was starting to wonder if the answer was bigger than I’d thought, bigger and more complicated and maybe a little terrifying that I’d ever imagined.
Something was shifting.
Something inside me.
I could feel it, like tectonic plates grinding against each other deep underground. The landscape of my life was rearranging itself, and I had no idea what it would look like when the dust settled.
I thought about Jacks again.
His laugh. His honesty. The way he’d said, “Night, Sky,” like it was the most natural thing in the world. My chest did that thing again, that warm, expanding thing that I couldn’t explain and didn’t know what to do with.
Feeling both frustrated and lost, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.