Chapter 35
Jacks
I’d been sitting in my car in Skyler’s apartment parking lot for twenty-three minutes when I saw his headlights appear at the gated entrance.
The February night was unseasonably warm for Tampa, in the mid-seventies with a humidity-free breeze that made sitting with the windows cracked pleasant.
I’d gotten here early, partly because I’d been too restless to stay at my place after the game and partly because I’d wanted to make sure I was here when he got home.
After everything that happened earlier, I needed to see him.
Moreso, I needed to process what it all meant and where we went from here.
He parked a few spaces away from me, and I watched him through my windshield as he got out, still in his post-game suit, though his tie was now loosened. Something about how he climbed out of his car made my gut clench, like he’d had a longer night than hockey and press conferences.
When he spotted my car, he walked over and tapped on my window.
“Hey,” I said, rolling it down the rest of the way. “You look . . .”
“Happy to see you, but like something happened?” He gave me a half grin that barely reached his eyes and leaned against my car. “Because both of those things are true.”
Well, shit. There it was.
Something had happened after I’d left the arena with Mia, Finn, and Benji.
“Want to talk about it inside? It’s got to be more comfortable—and a lot more private—than this parking lot.”
“In a minute.” He seemed to need the support of my car, which was unlike him.
Skyler moved through the world with a carefree confidence, but in that moment, he looked like he was trying to anchor himself to something solid.
“First, tell me you’re really here, that you didn’t change your mind about the overnight bag thing. ”
“I’m here.” I smiled and gestured toward the passenger seat where my duffel bag sat. “Overnight bag and everything, though I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me.”
“Never.” The word came out intense. “I could never forget about you.”
Okay, that was definitely not his usual tone.
Something had rattled him.
“Sky, what happened?”
“It’s nothing bad,” he said. “Just . . . well, maybe something. I don’t know yet.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
He ran a hand through his still-damp hair, and I could see him trying to organize his thoughts.
“The front office wanted to talk to me after the presser. Coach, several guys on the PR team, and a couple of executives I don’t usually deal with unless someone’s getting traded or suspended pulled me into a conference room.”
My stomach dropped. “About what?”
“About you. And us. About what happened tonight.”
Fucking shit.
I’d been worried about this exact scenario since Tyler had blown me that kiss during warmups. Someone was bound to notice the very public acknowledgments, the post-game meeting, and our public display of . . . whatever we were becoming. Someone was bound to ask questions.
“What about what happened tonight?” I asked, afraid for the confirmation to come.
He looked around the parking lot like he was checking for eavesdroppers. “Maybe you were right. We should go upstairs. This feels like an apartment conversation, not a parking lot conversation.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, reaching over to grab my duffel. “Of course.”
I followed him up to his apartment, watching the tension in his shoulders and the way he kept checking his phone.
I’d never seen him do that, not when we were together.
The guys teased about him checking for my texts every five minutes, but I was right behind him then.
Whatever conversation he’d had with the front office, it had left him wound tight.
Once we were inside, he dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and turned to face me.
I set my bag by the door and waited, recognizing a wary version of Skyler who needed a minute to find his words.
He processed big things by talking through them, but he needed time for thoughts to grow into a conversation before he could let me in.
“They noticed,” he said after what felt like five years.
“Who noticed what?”
“The PR team . . . and management. They noticed that Tyler and Erik acknowledged your section during warmups. They also noticed that I sent someone to find you after the game. Coach picked up on me disappearing for twenty minutes before my press conference. And then Kevin, well, he saw me kiss you.” He started pacing.
“And they’re concerned that if they noticed, other people did, too. ”
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Other people?”
“The media. They’re hounds, and when they catch a whiff, they hunt.
Maybe fans with cameras who like to post things on social media even if they have no proof of what they’re posting.
” He stopped pacing and looked at me. “They think tonight might have put us on people’s radar.
Others might not know for sure what’s going on, but someone’s bound to start asking questions .
. . questions we might not be ready to answer. ”
Well, fuck a duck.
I’d known this was a possibility.
Hell, I’d warned him about this exact scenario only a few days earlier.
But knowing something intellectually and having it actually happen were two very different things.
“How do you feel about that?” I asked, because his reaction mattered more than what anyone else might think, even if the opinion of others was the driving force behind all this.
The question seemed to catch him off guard.
He looked at me like he’d been expecting me to panic or demand answers or start spiraling about worst-case scenarios.
“I’m terrified, Jacks,” he said. “But not for the reasons you might think.”
My brows rose without my permission. “Oh?”
He flopped onto the couch. “I’m not embarrassed about this, Jacks. Not about us. Never about us.” His gaze was so firm when he said those words I felt the truth of them in my bones. “I need you to know that. None of this is about shame or denial or wishing things were different.”
Relief flooded through me.
That had been among my biggest fears, that pressure from the outside world would make him second-guess what we had, make him want to go back to pretending this was friendship and that he was still the straight hockey captain everyone expected him to be.
“Okay,” I said.
“I mean it, Jacks. I grew up with gay friends. My roommate sophomore year at Michigan was gay. Half the guys I played with in juniors had at least one teammate who was out. None of this is about discovering something new or panicking or feeling whatever. I’m good in my skin.
In fact, I’m better than I’ve ever been, knowing who I am and what I want.
That took forever, but I’m happy being me.
Gay or bi or whatever term someone wants to use, I’m good with all of it. ”
I watched him, reading the sincerity in his expression. This wasn’t someone who was about to run. This was someone working through logistics.
“So . . . if this isn’t about all that, what is this about?”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s about timing and figuring out the easiest path forward without destroying everything I’ve worked for.”
“Your career?”
“Yeah, my career, but not only that. It’s the team dynamic and media attention, and sponsorship deals and .
. . shit . . . however the fans might react.
They’re a fucking wild card.” He met my eyes.
“But it’s also about your privacy and your safety.
It’s not just about me and my life, but about the way your life changes when you become ‘the Lightning captain’s boyfriend’ instead of just Jacks. ”
He was thinking about my privacy and my safety in the middle of his own crisis?
Dear God, who was this man, and what had I ever done to deserve him?
He’d confirmed everything I needed to know about who Skyler Shaw was as a person to let myself fall hopelessly—hopefully—in love with him.
I think I did in that exact moment.
“The transition for me,” he continued, “wasn’t about discovery.
It was about mapping. The whole thing is like looking at a route on GPS and trying to figure out which way gets you where you want to go with the least traffic and the fewest accidents.
Does that make sense? I’m not making any sense, am I?
Shit.” He buried his face in his palms and rocked back and forth.
But that was such a Skyler way to think about it. It was strategic, analytical, and focused on finding the optimal path rather than the easiest one.
“So, where do you want to go from here? What’s that road look like?”
“I want to go public with this. With us.” The certainty in his voice surprised me. “I want to stop hiding. I want to be able to take you to team events and hold your hand in restaurants and kiss you whenever and wherever I feel like without worrying about who’s watching or what they might think.”
My heart did something complicated my Oura ring would berate me for later. “But?”
“But I want to do it right, on our terms, with the right support, and in a way that protects both of us from the worst of whatever comes next.”
God, I was so gone for this man.
His thoughtfulness, the way he was approaching this like a problem to be solved rather than a crisis to survive was beyond anything I ever imagined.
I’d been waiting for him to have a very different crisis.
He’d call one day telling me he can’t do the double life anymore and hockey came first. Or he’d text and tell me he didn’t want to settle down, that he wanted to play the gay field before committing to any one person, that he was too new to jump headlong into a relationship.
I’d concocted so many ways he would end things that I almost never considered how he might make them work.
Almost.
“So what did they say? The front office?”