Chapter 34 Kai
Afew days pass, and a strange, unfamiliar anxiety begins to creep in.
It starts small. A check of his phone every fifteen minutes. A hyperawareness of every notification sound, every buzz. The way his heart jumps every time the hotel elevator dings on his floor.
After the charity event something fundamental had shifted.
No text. No call. No knock on his hotel room door at two AM. Just silence, vast and echoing.
Kai tells himself it’s fine. That he’s overthinking it. That Nazar probably just needs time to process.
But three days stretch into four, then five, and the silence starts feeling less like processing and more like abandonment.
Kai could reach out himself. He knows this. The words are right there, composed and deleted a dozen times on his phone: Tonight. We need to talk.
But something stops him every time. Pride, maybe. Or fear. The bone-deep terror that if he reaches out and gets rejected, it will confirm what he’s always suspected — that he wants this more than Nazar does.
So he waits. And hates himself for waiting. And checks his phone obsessively anyway.
The last night they’d spent together had felt different. Like they’d crossed some invisible line from whatever they were before into something real.
Nazar had shown him that he wanted to be with him. Not just physically. But actually with him. Present. Attentive. Tender in ways Kai hadn’t known he was capable of.
And Kai had wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Had already started planning in his head.
Figuring out logistics. How they could keep it quiet, protect Nazar from his father’s reach.
It should be safe now — Kai had done his part, created the public distraction with Rey, muddied the waters enough that no one would be looking at Nazar.
But it was always better to be careful. Always safer to assume his father had eyes everywhere.
So maybe that’s why Nazar hasn’t reached out. Maybe he’s being careful too. Maybe the silence is strategic rather than personal.
Kai repeats this to himself like a mantra while he packs up his condo for the off-season.
Sorting through equipment that needs to be shipped, throwing out protein powder that expired three months ago and trying to decide what to do about the small garden of dying houseplants he’s neglected all season.
Bonifazio watches him from his cat tree.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kai tells him.
Then, the day after the season officially ends — after the Wardens’ disappointing second-round playoff exit that Kai definitely doesn’t want to think about — his world tilts on its axis again.
He’s in his condo, hip-deep in a mountain of hockey gear that needs to be sorted and stored, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt he’s owned since college, when his front door buzzer screams.
Not rings. Screams. Someone’s leaning on it.
Kai looks at the security camera feed on his phone, and his heart stops.
Nazar.
Standing in his building lobby, looking up at the camera like he knows Kai is watching. His hair is a mess. He’s wearing jeans and a jacket that looks like he grabbed it off a chair without checking if it was clean first.
The knock on his door comes exactly ninety seconds later. Kai knows because he counted every single second.
He opens it.
Nazar doesn’t say hello.
He takes Kai’s face in his hands, those large, rough hands that Kai has felt everywhere, and kisses him.
It’s not gentle. Not a greeting. It’s a claim.
When he finally pulls back, his dark eyes are burning with something Kai can’t understand. “We need to talk.”
“Okay. Great!” Kai’s voice comes out breathless. “About what?”
“I want a serious relationship. I will not settle for anything less.”
Kai is so shocked his brain temporarily stops processing language.
“I—what?”
“A relationship,” Nazar repeats, his hands still framing Kai’s face like he’s afraid he’ll disappear. “Real. Public eventually, when it’s safe. I want all of it.”
The tension rolling off him is palpable. Electric. Kai can feel it humming through his skin where they’re touching.
“Is everything okay?” It’s a stupid question, but Kai’s brain is still rebooting. “Did something happen?”
Nazar looks him straight in the eye. His gaze is unwavering. “Everything is good. Better than good. I realized something.”
“What?”
“That I love you.” He says it simply, like he’s stating a fact.
Like the sky is blue and ice is slippery and Nazar Rykov loves Kaisyn Callahan.
“And that’s all that matters. Everything else…
your father, the media, the league, all of it…
we’ll figure it out. But I need you to know: I will only agree to a serious relationship. You’ll have to take the risk.”
The word love hits Kai with the force of a physical blow. He has to lock his knees to stay standing.
“I’m afraid,” he admits, the confession raw and honest. “Of what could happen. To you. Because of me. And I’m afraid… that you will abandon me.”
Something soft flickers across Nazar’s face. Tender in a way Kai has only seen a handful of times. “I know. But you have to trust me.”
“My father—” Kai’s voice breaks. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of. What he’ll do if he finds out we’re together. He already threatened to destroy your career. He has a file on you, Nazar. Photos. Evidence. He knows about us and he’ll use it to—”
“Don’t worry about him.” Nazar’s voice drops to a low, dangerous growl. “He won’t touch you again. That’s my problem now. I’ll solve it.”
“You can’t just—”
“Your father destroyed my brother.” The words are quiet but land like bombs. “And I think… I think you knew him. His name was Derek.”
Derek.
The name unlocks a flood of memories he’d buried so deep he’d almost forgotten they existed. A kind man at the rink when Kai was seven or eight. Sad eyes but a gentle smile. The only adult at his father’s stadium who’d treated him like a person instead of an asset.
Who’d shown him how to tape a stick properly. Who’d snuck him hot chocolate from the staff room when his father left him waiting for hours in the cold.
The one who’d just… disappeared one day. And when little Kai had asked where Derek went, his father had said “he doesn’t work here anymore” in a tone that made it clear the subject was closed.
Kai takes Nazar’s face in his hands now, his thumbs tracing the hard lines of his jaw. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—I never knew what happened to him. My father never told me anything. I was just a kid and suddenly Derek was gone and no one would explain why.”
“It’s not your fault.” Nazar’s voice is firm. “None of it was your fault. You were a child.”
“But if he was teaching me—”
“Then he made that choice. Knowing the risks. Because that’s who Derek was.” Nazar’s eyes are bright with unshed tears. “He couldn’t stand by and watch someone get hurt. Especially not a kid.”
They stand there in Kai’s messy living room, holding each other’s faces, sharing grief that’s a decade old and also brand new.
“Nazar.” Kai swallows hard. “You can’t imagine what you’ve become to me. Not just in my life, but inside of me. Like you’re written into my DNA now.”
He takes a shaky breath, the words tumbling out before he can stop them. “And I’ve loved you for a long time. Because I’m a pathetic, stupid romantic who falls in love with people who hate him.”
Nazar lets out a sound that’s half laugh and half sob.
“Stupid romantic? Yes. One hundred percent. You hide it behind all that sarcasm and deflection, but I saw it. I always saw it.” He shakes his head.
“But pathetic? Absolutely not. You’re Kaisyn Callahan.
You stood up to entire stadiums. To the press.
To your own father. You didn’t back down or apologize or make yourself smaller.
You’re like if the Terminator had anxiety and a better fashion sense. ”
A smile touches Kai’s lips, but then he scowls.
“I’m significantly more attractive than the Terminator.”
“Yeah.” A real smile breaks across Nazar’s face—rare and beautiful and transformative. “So beautiful you made me lose my goddamn mind. Fucking cute. Made me climb a building. Made me assault my own teammate on national television.”
“That was really stupid, by the way.”
“I know.” Nazar leans in and presses a soft, lingering kiss to Kai’s neck. Right over his pulse point. “Worth it though.”
They stand there for a long moment, just breathing each other in. The anxiety that’s been eating at Kai for days dissolves.
“So,” Kai says eventually. “A serious relationship. What does that look like exactly?”
“I don’t know.” Nazar pulls back enough to look at him. “I’ve never done this before. The serious part, I mean. But I want to figure it out. With you.”
“My father—”
“Is my problem now,” Nazar repeats. “I’m working on it.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“So is loving you. I’m doing it anyway.” Nazar’s expression turns serious. “But you need to trust me. Can you do that?”
Kai thinks about it. About trust. About risk. About the fact that loving Nazar Rykov has been the most terrifying and necessary thing he’s ever done.
“Yes,” he says finally. “I can trust you.”
“Good.” Nazar kisses him again, softer this time. “Because I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Stuck with you,” Kai repeats, testing out the words. They feel foreign and wonderful. “Like… permanently?”
“Like permanently.”
Bonifazio chooses that moment to yowl from his cat tree.
Nazar looks over at the cat. “Does he always sound like he’s dying?”
“Only when he wants attention. Or food. Or both.” Kai disentangles himself reluctantly. “I should feed him before he stages a coup.”
“You do that.” Nazar follows him toward the kitchen, his hand finding the small of Kai’s back. “I’m not letting you out of my sight anyway.”
As Kai opens a can of obscenely expensive cat food while Nazar leans against the counter watching him like he’s afraid he’ll vanish if he looks away, something settles in Kai’s chest.
This is what he’s been afraid of. This intimacy. This domesticity. The terrifying vulnerability of letting someone see him like this—in sweatpants, feeding his demanding cat, surrounded by the mundane reality of his life instead of the carefully curated image he shows the world.
But Nazar is looking at him like he’s never seen anything better.
“What?” Kai asks, self-conscious suddenly.
“Nothing. Just…” Nazar shakes his head. “You’re really here. This is real.”
“Yeah.” Kai sets down the cat food. Bonifazio immediately begins eating like he hasn’t been fed in weeks. Oh please. “This is real.”
They stand in Kai’s kitchen, in the afternoon light filtering through windows that need cleaning, and start figuring out what real means.
And for the first time in longer than Kai can remember, the future doesn’t feel like something to survive.
It feels like something to look forward to.