Chapter 14 Gabe Thatcher
Chapter fourteen
Gabe Thatcher
The Bench Social Media Group
Marge: Thatcher just walked into The Blue Line for one coffee, looking like a man who slept well and sinned better. Hair was a disaster. I’m guessing the Iceguard play out of town and left today.
Riley: He smiled this morning, can confirm.
Alex: We. Were. So. Right. I love this for us.
Alex: And for them, I guess.
Stan: Kinda knew it
I tell myself I’m just cleaning up, although I’ve done that maybe too many times since Roe hit the road for it to be normal.
Jamie’s at Arch’s for the weekend, Friday through Sunday, with a bunch of other boys. The house is too quiet, too still, the kind of silence that wraps around your ears and hums. I make it as far as the kitchen, then detour to the workshop before I’ve even thought it through.
The miniature town is waiting. I haven’t touched it in days, maybe a week. The rink’s half painted, but the corner café‘s windows are still blank. A little version of Main Street sits on the workbench like it’s holding its breath, waiting for me to come back.
I stare at it for a long time before I pull out the carving tools.
The newest addition starts as a block. Just maple.
Clean, square. I sketch the bar from memory—two windows, front door off-center, flat roof with the kind of overhang that sags a little when it rains.
I don’t even know what Roe’s renovation will look like yet, but somehow, I do.
I know him and I know that building.
Or maybe I don’t and the honeymoon period hanging over us has me thinking one thing, when the truth is that he could already have sold the place.
I start cutting.
Outside, the wind rattles the shed walls. Inside, it’s just me and the wood.
***
While Monroe and I should be old news by now, the town doesn’t shut up about it, and I really need them to get interested in some other guy so I can sort out my own feelings.
Riley posts a picture of me and Roe outside The Blue Line—Roe was holding both our coffees that morning, which is damning enough—and captions it, “Monroe likes his coffee like he likes his men: hot and sweet.”
The comments section lights up.
I close the app, shove my phone in my back pocket, and walk into Miller’s Hardware for screws.
I don’t make it past the front display. “Well, if it isn’t Fox River Falls’ most elusive boyfriend,” Mrs. Hargrove calls from the paint aisle.
“Tell Monroe I said good luck on the road. And that I miss watching his thighs on the ice.”
I blink. “What?”
I don’t need a reminder about people drooling over Roe. Even if it is a woman well into her seventies. She just waves a swatch of sage-green paint at me like it’s a perfectly normal thing to say and adds, “Oh, don’t look so scandalized. He knows what he’s working with. I’m elderly, not dead.”
I buy my screws and flee.
I make it through the day without Jamie and then barricade myself back in my workshop when I get home.
I’m in the shed, knife in hand, shaving a clean angle into the front of the bar.
The model’s small, but I can already see it coming together—windows inset just right, door framed like it’s holding something.
I’ve barely looked up when my phone buzzes again.
Roe: Your’e in the workshop, aren’t you?
I snort, despite myself. Why was I worried about letting someone in? Roe’s just going to crash through anyway. I have precious little agency here.
Me: Maybe.
Roe: So hot when you’re lying.
A minute later, he calls.
I answer with my free hand and set the phone on the bench. He’s still in his base layer, like he just got out of his gear, hair damp, smile soft around the edges like he just finished a practice. I swallow my tongue as he plops a worn baseball cap backwards on his head.
Shit. That’s a look I didn’t quite know I liked so much.
“Miss me?” That cocksure grin takes over.
Yeah, he read me like a book.
“Not yet,” I lie, but I’m sure my face tells a different story.
He squints. “But you will.”
“Maybe. How long are you gone, again? Remind me.”
“Jamie still out for his weekend with Arch?”
“Yeah.” Roe humphs and I hear a door close. His demeanor shifts a bit, and I wonder if he’s alone now. “I have a good feeling about the game. Practice was good.”
His voice is serious, and I set down my work to focus on him. I’ve seen the ego-driven NAPH player more than I’ve seen this side of him—the vulnerable Roe Monroe, searching for his way back to the big show. Trying to earn it.
“Then it’s going to be a good game.”
“You think?”
“Since when do you care what I think? You know your value as a player, Roe.”
“Since always,” he says, like it’s obvious.
“I’ll be watching.”
The cocky smirk I’m used to flares to life. “Yeah?”
“Of course I will be.”
“Tell me about your day,” he says, leaning the phone on something and stripping off his practice gear.
My brain goes fuzzy as his clothes come off. He moves in and out of the frame as I ramble a bit.
It’s . . . nice. Like he’s here. Like I’m not the only one making room for something that’s new. Our relationship—if that’s what it is—is as new as a baby calf finding its legs.
An hour later, he heads out for a team dinner and we say our long goodbyes.
I don’t hear from him the next day, which isn’t a surprise since it’s game day. I do my dad routine, knowing Jamie will blow in here after this weekend with his friends—Arch’s birthday was involved—feeling exhausted and with his body reeling from the overconsumption of junk food and sugar.
The house is so damn quiet I’m almost tempted to go back to the woodshop, but sitting on the work stool the past few days has done a number on my back.
I crack a beer, pull the jersey from where I stuffed it behind the couch cushion earlier today, and tug it over my head.
It smells like him. Like sandalwood from his soap and sweat and something sharper, like the air after a slap shot.
I fire up the game stream. First period.
Roe’s on the ice, first line, eyes sharp, moving like the rink belongs to him.
He doesn’t score, but he’s everywhere. Grinding in the corners, quarterbacking the power play.
I know the language of this game, and what I see tonight is Roe playing for more than points.
Wrapped in his jersey, with the smell of him all around me, I can’t say I hate it.
I watch the whole three periods, although the Iceguard dominate enough to make victory clear well before time is up.
When the game ends, I shower, but I draw it out, like I’m waiting for something. About the time I slip into bed, my phone buzzes again, and I feel the rise of my smile as I slide to open the video call.
“Good game,” I tell him, and the compliment lights up his blue eyes.
“It felt good out there tonight.” The picture becomes a ceiling as he adjusts something then comes back into the frame, propped up against the headboard in a hotel room.
Monroe smirks at me, his damp hair looking even darker than usual. Something thuds hard in my chest.
“Jamie home yet?”
“Tomorrow.”
He nods and we talk a bit about nothing, just reconnecting, but I can see the pinched look around his eyes.
“You tired or is it your knee?”
Monroe sighs. “It’s the knee. Something tells me when these painkillers kick in, I’ll be asleep in seconds.”
I nod, because I know that if he’s taking painkillers the pain must be pretty bad. He’s so scared of ending up back where he was, he hardly ever takes more than ibuprofen, and only then if it’s under the watchful eye of the team staff.
“Don’t let me keep you up.”
Monroe gives a little suggestive waggle of his eyebrows, and I laugh. Like he doesn’t know how attractive he is to me. I would easily lose sleep for the chance to touch him, see him . . . and more.
“You wear my jersey today? You could sleep in it.”
I damn near blush because it’s not that I hadn’t thought about doing just that.
“You’re imagining things.”
“Never. But you don’t have to admit it, Thatch. I know.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling now, and he knows it.
“I forgot I even had it.”
He tips his head. “You’re a terrible liar.”
***
By the time the team is due back, I can’t stay in the house any longer, even with Jamie there.
Not when I know that Roe’s going to be back in town. I’m stumbling toward what it means to be with someone like this, but I’m still moving forward. I can’t just go to The Keep and pick him up. I’m not ready for that. But I can be in town about the time he should arrive.
I hear him before I see him.
Some chatter starts up outside The Blue Line, where I’ve just grabbed Jamie some water and coffee for me.
The kid’s already run ahead, sprinting toward the ice sculpture displays that are still proudly out for people to admire, but I linger, like I knew Roe would show up.
Like something in my gut told me to wait.
And then there he is.
Roe Monroe, back from whatever stretch of cold rinks and cheap hotels the Iceguard just left on the road. Still in his team-issued parka, duffel slung over one shoulder, sunglasses he doesn’t need pushing back his hair. He looks tired. And like he belongs here anyway.
He spots me. Pauses. And I swear the noise of the sidewalk dips just enough to let the tension crawl in.
“Thatch,” he says.
It’s not loud, but I hear it. So does Riley, leaning against the café door like he’s been paid to eavesdrop. So do the two older women at the café window.
I nod. “Roe.”
He steps closer, not quite into my space but close enough for the air to shift. He smells like cold air and something sharp, maybe nerves. Or hope.
“How was the trip?” I ask. I hate how dry it comes out.
He lifts one shoulder. “We won one, lost two. I missed you.” The last part drops, almost hiding the crack in his voice.
That does it. There’s a little gasp from somewhere. Riley straightens, smirking like the gossip gods just paid rent.
I don’t answer right away, mostly because I’m afraid of what’ll come out. Because I did miss him. And I’m not good at saying it.
“You look tired,” I manage.
“You look like you’ve been dodging town gossip.” He steps closer. “You okay?”
“Define okay,” I say.
“I can come by your place later instead.”
I shake my head. Roe’s worth more than that.
“We aren’t sneaking around.”
He huffs a laugh, and something eases in me just a little. We stand like that for a beat too long—close enough that it says something. Too close for it not to.
Then Jamie comes barreling back down the sidewalk. “Roe!”
Roe braces to catch the impact of twelve-year-old hockey player, a practiced move now. Jamie wraps his arms around Roe’s shoulders like he never left.
I get caught up in the look in Roe’s eye that says if I was cool with it, he would kiss the hell out of me right now.
With a sure hand, I reach out and tuck a stray hair behind his ear. The look on his face makes my knees weak.
And just like that, the tension softens. Or maybe shifts. It’s still there—coiled under my skin—but Jamie buffers it with his easy joy, like he doesn’t know what the town is whispering.
I let Monroe go and gesture toward my truck, watching the sunset play off his skin.
“How about a ride, Monroe?”