Epilogue Kai
Jenkins Tiago looks like he’s aged five years in the past two weeks.
The general manager of the Toronto Wardens stands in the hallway outside the practice facility, his usually pristine suit wrinkled, his tie loosened like it’s strangling him. Dark circles shadow his eyes.
“Kaisyn.” He says the name like it costs him something. “Do you have a minute?”
Kai adjusts his gym bag on his shoulder, his expression carefully neutral.
“For you, Jenkins? Always. Though if this is about my plus-minus from last night’s game, I should warn you I have a very compelling PowerPoint presentation prepared about zone exits and why they’re actually everyone else’s fault. ”
Jenkins doesn’t smile. “I need to ask you something. It’s… delicate.”
“Delicate.” Kai repeats the word slowly, tasting it. “That’s never a good sign. Usually when management uses ‘delicate,’ what they mean is ‘deeply unpleasant and probably your problem now.’”
“The investors want to meet with you.”
Kai keeps his expression light, bored even, but his mind is already racing. “The investors. Plural. How many are we talking?”
“Six of them.” Jenkins runs a hand through his thinning hair. “They’re… concerned. About—”
“About my father being arrested two weeks ago and currently residing in a cell.” Kai’s voice stays light, but there’s an edge underneath. “Yeah. I can see how that might make people nervous.”
Jenkins flinches. “Kaisyn—”
“It’s fine.” He shifts the bag to his other shoulder. “I’m always available to talk. To all stakeholders! Didn’t you know? I’m the one they usually send when there’s a crisis. I have a very soothing presence. People find my complete lack of shame deeply reassuring.”
“I know this isn’t fair to you.”
“Fair?” Kai lets out a short laugh. “This is just Tuesday for me. When do they want to meet?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Perfect. I’ll wear my most apologetic suit. The charcoal one.” He pauses, watching Jenkins’s face crumple slightly. “But just because I can do it doesn’t mean I want to. You understand that, right?”
Jenkins looks at him for a long moment.
“I know,” Jenkins says quietly. “And I’m sorry. But there’s no one else who can do this. The investors trust you. Or at least, they’re willing to listen to you. You have a way with people, Kai. Even when you pretend you don’t.”
Kai feels something twist in his chest. The weight of expectation pressing down like it always does. He takes a breath, forces his shoulders to relax.
Then he reaches out and pats Jenkins on the shoulder—a gesture that feels absurdly paternal given that Jenkins is twenty years older than him.
“Don’t worry,” he says, his voice gentler now. “I’ll meet with them. You can count on me for that.”
Jenkins exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours. “Thank you. Really. I—thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kai waves him off. “Now go home. Get some sleep. You look like death warmed over, and it’s very depressing.”
He leaves Jenkins in the hallway and heads for the parking garage, his footsteps echoing in the concrete space.
The Taycan is exactly where he left it. He slides into the driver’s seat and just sits there for a moment, hands on the steering wheel, staring at nothing.
His phone is in his hand before he consciously decides to pick it up.
He pulls up Nazar’s contact. Stares at it.
His thumbs hover over the keyboard.
I miss you
Delete.
Tomorrow can’t come fast enough
Delete.
I need to ask you something and I’m terrified of the answer
Delete.
Nazar is supposed to arrive tomorrow. They’ll have more than a week together—the longest stretch of uninterrupted time they’ve had in four months. No games. Just them.
Kai should be ecstatic. Is ecstatic, mostly. But there’s this other thing gnawing at him.
The events that led to his father’s downfall unfolded with shocking speed and efficiency. Three weeks after that damning exposé hit the news—the one detailing decades of abuse, manipulation, financial crimes—criminal charges were filed. Two weeks ago, Doyle Callahan was arrested.
It shouldn’t have happened so fast. These things never happen this fast. Rich men like his father have lawyers who can delay cases for years.
But somehow, impossibly, his father’s entire empire collapsed in less than three months.
And Kai can’t shake the feeling that Nazar had something to do with it.
Which is crazy. Right? It’s crazy to think that Nazar—who plays hockey, who barely talks to anyone, who until recently was still trying to figure out how to use Instagram—could somehow orchestrate the downfall of one of the most powerful men in professional sports.
Except.
Except Kai remembers that night. The hotel room. His face pressed against Nazar’s chest, Nazar’s voice a low rumble against his hair: I swear to God, Kai. I am going to destroy your father.
At the time, Kai had thought it was just… words. The kind of thing people say when they’re angry and protective and don’t actually mean literally.
But now.
Now his father is in prison, and Nazar is arriving tomorrow.
Kai should ask. Should demand the truth. Should have this conversation like an adult instead of typing and deleting messages like a teenager.
But he and Nazar don’t really talk. Not about the big things.
They exist in a strange space of intense physical intimacy and emotional…
not distance, exactly. But circumspection.
They communicate through actions more than words, which works surprisingly well most of the time but is deeply unhelpful when Kai needs actual information.
Also, you can’t talk much with Nazar anyway. The man prefers silence the way other people prefer oxygen.
Kai finds himself smiling despite everything. That’s the thing about Nazar—his relentless, stubborn silence should be frustrating. And it is. But it’s also somehow comforting. Steady. Like a rock you can lean against that won’t budge no matter what storm is happening around it.
He types out a message before he can overthink it further:
I’m waiting for you. P.S. I bought you a decent hair conditioner.
He hits send, immediately feels ridiculous for the words about the conditioner, and is about to lock his phone when it buzzes.
Nazar: okay :)
Another buzz.
Nazar: tell me what this conditioner does
Kai stares at the messages. At the emoji—an actual emoji from Rykov, who once told Kai that emojis were “unnecessary”—and feels something warm unfurl in his chest.
He’s smiling now. Like an absolute fool.
And then he realizes he’s been sitting here without his sunglasses. The massive Celine ones he usually wears like armor. He’d forgotten to put them on after practice, and now he’s sitting in his car in a parking garage grinning at his phone like—
Like someone in love.
The realization makes him laugh—a slightly hysterical sound that echoes in the enclosed space.
He starts the car and pulls out of the garage, the city streets busy with afternoon traffic. The drive home takes twenty minutes, his mind cycling through tomorrow’s investor meeting, his father’s arrest, Nazar’s impending arrival.
When he pulls into the underground parking of his building, he’s still thinking about Nazar’s emoji when movement catches his eye.
Someone steps out from behind a concrete pillar.
Kai’s foot slams on the brake, the Taycan screeching to a stop.
Then the figure moves into the light, and Kai’s brain finally processes what he’s seeing.
Nazar.
Nazar is here. In his parking garage. A full day early. Wearing jeans and a jacket Kai has never seen before, his hair longer than Kai remembers, and he’s—
He’s smiling.
Not his usual tight, controlled expression.
An actual, broad, genuine smile that makes him look younger and somehow more dangerous at the same time.
Kai is out of the car before he consciously decides to move, rage flooding through him so fast it makes his vision narrow.
“Are you insane?” The words come out in a hiss. “I could have run you over! I could have crashed! What the hell were you thinking, lurking behind a pillar like some kind of—”
Nazar’s smile doesn’t fade. “Calm down. Don’t exaggerate.”
“Don’t exaggerate? You—”
“I had everything planned. I was watching your car. I knew exactly when to step out.” He crosses the distance between them in three strides. “You were never in danger of hitting me.”
“That’s not—you can’t just—” Kai’s hands are shaking. From adrenaline or anger or the sheer shock of Nazar being here when he’s supposed to be in Vancouver. “You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow!”
“I know.” Nazar cups his face with both hands—those large, warm hands that Kai has dreamed about for months. “Couldn’t wait.”
Then he kisses him.
Kai knows his reaction is exaggerated. Knows that objectively, Nazar stepping out from behind a pillar in a parking garage is not actually a life-threatening situation. But his heart is still racing, his adrenaline still spiking, and now Nazar is kissing him and it’s—
It’s too much. All of it.
He kisses back anyway, his hands fisting in Nazar’s jacket, pulling him closer even as his brain screams about security cameras and public spaces and the fact that anyone could walk in.
When they finally break apart, both breathing hard, Nazar’s smile has shifted into something softer. More private.
“Come on,” he murmurs against Kai’s mouth. “Let’s go upstairs.”
They make it to the elevator. Through the lobby—Kai nodding distractedly at the concierge. Up a few floors in silence, Nazar’s hand a warm, possessive weight on the small of Kai’s back.
The moment Kai’s front door closes behind them, Nazar is on him.
They stumble through the living room, hands already pulling at clothes, mouths seeking skin.
Kai’s back hits the wall—then the edge of the couch—then they’re moving again, a graceless trajectory toward the bedroom.
“Shouldn’t you eat, Rykov?” Kai manages between kisses. His voice comes out breathless. “I know you’re always hungry.”