55
Nate
Carter finds out in the locker room.
Which is unfortunate, but entirely predictable. Carter finding out anything in a locker room is like handing a megaphone to a man with a pathological need for an audience.
I’m sitting in front of my stall after the morning skate, the scent of sweat, frozen rubber, and industrial-grade laundry detergent thick in the air.
I’m unlacing my skates, my fingers still a little numb from the ice, trying to ignore the way my phone feels like a lead weight in the pocket of my track pants.
Hannah texted me twenty minutes ago. Nothing world-ending. Nothing that required a tactical response. Just a glimpse of the fallout on her end.
**Hannah:** *I think Ella is threatening to formally interview you as my boyfriend. Gerald may be present.*
I’d stared at the word *boyfriend* for three minutes. Not because it scared me—that was the part that caught me off guard. It didn’t feel like a chain or a trap. It felt like a lock clicking into place on a door I already wanted shut behind us.
**Nate:** *I’m prepared to answer questions under duck supervision.*
**Hannah:** *That confidence is adorable.*
*Adorable.* I’m six-foot-two, I play Division I hockey, and I’ve taken hits from guys built like industrial refrigerators, yet Hannah Reed calling me "adorable" over text did more damage to my ego and my pulse than any of them.
Naturally, I’ve been sitting there with a stupid, barely suppressed smile on my face ever since.
Carter sits on the bench beside me, one skate still on. He doesn't say a word. He just looks at me.
“Oh no,” he says.
I don't look up. “What?”
“That face. That’s a new face.”
“I have one face, Carter. It’s the one I was born with.”
“No, you have several. You have ‘Intensity face.’ You have ‘Brooding-in-the-crease face.’ You have ‘Hannah-exists-within-a-five-mile-radius face.’ This is different. This is... happy face.”
Mason’s head pops up from two stalls down like a Labrador hearing a treat bag crinkle. “Nate has a happy face?”
“No,” I snap, yanked back to reality.
Carter points at me. “Yes. Look at the mouth. The corners are doing a thing. It’s terrifying.”
“I thought it was gas,” Mason adds, leaning in to squint at me.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, standing up to grab my towel.
Brooks walks by, steam rising from his shoulders. “Who has gas?”
“Nobody,” I say, but Mason is already on a roll.
“Nate might be happy. Carter is performing a diagnostic.”
The locker room shifts. The hum of conversation—usually about the weekend or the power play—dies down as three more guys look over. Someone near the showers calls out, “Wilder? You okay, buddy?”
Carter ignores them, focusing on me with the intensity of a predator who just spotted a wounded gazelle. “Did she talk to Ethan?” he asks, his voice dropping below the locker room roar.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, then shove it back in. “Yeah.”
“And?”
“And it’s over.”
Carter’s brows lift. He searches my face, looking for the catch, the hesitation. When he doesn't find it, he lets out a slow, appreciative breath. “Okay.”
“There’s your ‘okay’ again,” I say.
“No, that was a good ‘okay.’ A ‘finally-the-idiots-stopped-running’ okay.” He grins, but then his expression softens. “How is she? For real.”
My chest pulls tight. “She’s sad. Guilty. But she’s... she’s okay. Real okay.”
“And you?”
I lean back against my stall, the cold metal pressing through my shirt. The answer should be complicated. It should involve a ten-page dissertation on guilt and timing and the mess we made. But it’s not. “I’m good.”
Carter stares. I wait for the sarcasm, but it doesn't come. Instead, he looks genuinely, annoyingly pleased. “Oh,” he says. “You actually mean that.”
Mason slides closer on the bench, his eyes wide. “What are we processing? Are they official? Is Nate a kept man now?”
I glare at Carter, but he’s already lost to the cause. He turns to the room. “They’re official.”
The locker room erupts. It isn't a team meeting; it’s a riot. Someone wolf-whistles, and Mason starts banging a stick against the floor like a drum. Brooks yells, “Reed? You finally closed the deal, Wilder?”
“Everybody shut up,” I say, though my face is heating up in a way that suggests I’ve lost all authority.
“NATE HAS A GIRLFRIEND!” Mason yells to the rafters.
“I will throw you into a laundry bin, Mason,” I mutter, but I’m already pulling my hoodie over my head to hide the fact that I’m not even mad.
Carter waits for the noise to settle into the usual banter before he nudges my shoulder. “I expected more panic from you, honestly.”
“So did I,” I admit, the words quiet. I think of Hannah in my apartment last night, asking if we were dating with that mixture of terror and hope. I think of the way she looked when I said *girlfriend*. “I thought I’d feel trapped. But I don’t. I feel... steady.”
Coach calls me into his office twenty minutes later.
The transition from the locker room high to the "Principal’s Office" is exactly the kind of mood correction the universe specializes in. Coach is standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, looking like a man who has personally been offended by the concept of joy.
“Wilder. My office.”
Carter immediately veers left, disappearing toward the training room. “Coward,” I mutter.
“Survivor,” he whispers back.
I step into the office. It smells like stale coffee and the weight of a thousand lost championships. Coach shuts the door and sits behind his desk. He doesn't speak for a long minute—the classic move to make you start sweating out your sins.
“Practice was better yesterday,” he says finally. “Focused.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Whatever was eating you, Wilder... figure out how to keep it from eating my top line.” He leans forward, his eyes narrowing. “You sure it’s handled?”
“Yes, sir. It won’t be a problem.”
He studies me, his gaze moving over my face like he’s checking for cracks. “You look different. Same girl?”
“Yes.”
Coach sighs, a long, weary sound as if he’s personally been burdened by my romantic life. “Is it a distraction, Nate? Because I don't care if you're dating, not dating, or writing sonnets in the locker room. I care if you can show up with your head on straight.”
“I will,” I say, and for the first time, I don’t have to fake the confidence.
“Good. No public shit. No party drama. No sloppy reps because your girlfriend didn't text you back.” He says the word *girlfriend* like he’s describing a particularly troublesome injury.
“Understood.”
Coach looks at me for another second, then his expression shifts.
It’s not soft—Coach doesn't do soft—but the edge blunts just a fraction.
“Then let it steady you, Wilder. Some guys get their heads turned and forget how to skate. Others get better because they stop wasting energy pretending they don't care. Don't make me regret thinking you're the latter.”
“I won’t.”
I leave the office and find Carter leaning against the wall ten feet down the hall.
“Coach threaten murder?”
“He said if I’m sure, let it steady me.”
Carter slows down, a small, genuine smile tugging at his mouth. “Damn. Coach went poetic. You actually steady?”
I think of the way Hannah’s name looks on my screen. I think of the hair tie currently tucked into my nightstand drawer like a secret I’m finally allowed to keep. I think of the guilt about Ethan, which is still there, but no longer a wall between me and the truth.
“Getting there,” I say.
We step out onto the ice for the afternoon session. The cold hits my face, and the rink feels different—less like a cage and more like a stage. I move through the first few drills with a clarity I haven't felt in weeks.
Hannah isn't a distraction anymore. She’s the anchor.
I send a laser of a pass to Carter across the slot. He buries it, top shelf, and points his stick at me. I don't smirk. I don't celebrate. I just skate back to the line, feeling the weight of the choice I made.
*Girlfriend.* The word is still new, still a bit bright and sharp around the edges. But as I dig my blades into the ice, I realize Coach was right. I was spending all my energy trying to pretend I didn't want her. Now that I’ve admitted I do, I have all that power back.
And I’m going to need it, because being the "Hockey Star" is easy. Being the guy who deserves Hannah Reed? That’s the real work.