Chapter 31 Tristan
TRISTAN
My phone buzzed during evening drills, and I nearly ate shit on the ice so I could check it.
Eva had sent a photo of her lunch, hours late—a half-eaten container of one of the meals I had delivered to her house twice a week. She wouldn’t answer any of my texts, never laugh-reacted to a meme or video, but like clockwork, she checked in with her food.
Mine.
Obsession with Eva had settled into my bones, and I wasn’t mad about it.
Cole had complained when I set up meal deliveries to her house with his black card, but then I’d caught him logging into the app before dawn one morning, adding those stupid gummy bears she liked to the scheduled deliveries.
The three scouts arrived late, each of them in expensive coats, settling into the stands with tablets to take notes. The team’s mood changed, turning restless and excited.
“You don’t have to feed me,” Eva said when I skated up to the bench during warmups, her voice carefully neutral.
“Sure I don’t,” I said, keeping my voice light, so happy she was talking to me, I was willing to rehash this argument a thousand times.
“I’d like you to stop having meals and groceries delivered to my house.”
Cole skidded to a halt beside me. “Nope,” he said flatly then stole my puck and took off.
I chased him, my chest tight, listening for Eva’s response. When she growled instead of ignoring us, I knew we were making progress.
The puck came to me. I took it, skating hard, setting up for the pass to Haruto, and missed. The puck skittered wide, and Haruto had to scramble to recover it.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Baptiste!” Coach barked. “Where’s your head tonight?”
“Sorry, Coach.”
We ran the play again. This time, I was overthinking every movement. I took the puck, hesitated a second too long, and Cole had to adjust his positioning to compensate.
The play fell apart.
“Again!”
I pushed too hard, took a stupid risk trying to prove myself, and ended up taking what would have been a hooking penalty during a game when the puck got stripped from me.
Coach’s whistle shrieked across the ice.
“Baptiste! Bench! Now!”
I skated to the bench, embarrassed and not looking at anyone, especially not Eva.
“You want to play in the NHL?” Coach said, his voice pitched just for me. “Then get your head out of your ass and remember why you’re on the ice.”
Massi clapped my shoulder as he slid into my spot. The team kept running drills without me.
I sat on the bench, jaw clenched, watching the scouts take notes. One checked his watch. Another closed his folder. All three left before practice ended.
The team was kind about it after, and somehow, that made it worse.
I sat in my car outside the hockey house afterward, hollow.
Work harder, be better, do more.
Still not enough.
Every day for a week, I’d walked the line between hope and desperation, two steps forward, one step back.
Slowly, infinitely slowly, Eva was thawing.
The team was thawing too. Eva had started speaking to us again after we nursed her through her fever. Yesterday, she’d looked up when I walked into the training room, and her eyes had sparked before she could bank it.
“Hold up, kitten,” I called after practice, jogging to catch her.
Eva didn’t slow, just kept walking toward the campus café.
I reached for her tote bag like I did every day, my palms sweating, even though she’d been letting me carry it for her all week.
That was how pathetic I was, desperate to carry her fucking bags.
This morning, Eva stopped and looked me up and down with an expression I couldn’t read. For a second, I thought she was going to tell me to fuck off, that she was done with the groceries and the flowers and the gestures and the groveling.
“Thanks,” she said instead, her lips tilting into a small smile.
I felt a thousand feet tall and completely unworthy all at once.
Normally, I dropped her bag with Rory at the café entrance and left before I could overstay my welcome. Today, I followed her inside, my stomach a knot of nerves as she joined the line.
The silence between us felt almost companionable. I was terrified to breathe wrong and shatter it.
“Extra avocado,” I told the barista when Eva ordered a breakfast burrito.
She raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. I fumbled for Cole’s credit card, nearly dropping it, adding my order and a sandwich for her lunch.
Eva watched me with an inscrutable expression. Then, she picked up the tray with both our orders and walked toward the booth where her friends sat.
Rory scooted over automatically, and I started to hand Eva her bag, ready to leave—
Eva nudged Rory. Hard. Rory grinned and pressed even further into the booth, making more space.
Eva slid the tray onto the table, half in front of her, half in front of the empty spot beside her.
Was she—?
My heart pounded so hard, I could barely hear Sage’s annoyance. “Stop being such an idiot and sit down, Baptiste.”
Eva’s eyes danced with suppressed laughter, but she didn’t look at me or even acknowledge what she was offering.
I slid into the booth before she could change her mind, our thighs pressing together, and it took everything in me not to reach for her hand.
The conversation flowed around me—Sage complaining about her dads, Rory’s upcoming gallery show, and Violetta’s frustrations about her car. Katie and Linh pulled up chairs, giving me suspicious side-eyes but not commenting on my presence at the table.
I didn’t say a word, just unwrapped my burrito and tried to look like I belonged there, like my chest wasn’t tight with the fear that one wrong move would get me exiled again.
Eva laughed at something Sage said, and fuck, she was so beautiful.
When she checked her watch, I tensed, expecting dismissal. Instead, she raised an eyebrow, waiting.
I scrambled out of the booth, grabbing her bag from the floor before she could.
She smiled, bright and genuine, like the sun breaking through clouds.
I followed her out of the café in silence, too afraid to speak and ruin whatever this was. She pulled up the hood of the grey coat Alek and Cole had gotten her and walked toward the library.
My hands shook as I climbed the stairs behind her.
On the third floor, she held out her hand.
I didn’t give her the tote. Instead, I handed her books and notebooks one by one, drawing out the moment, and she rewarded me with a smile she tried to hide.
When she sat down to study, I sat across from her, my heart in my throat.
She didn’t tell me to leave.
At eleven, she packed up for her next class. I stood automatically, shouldering both our bags.
“Eva.” My voice came out rough. Desperate. “Eva, let me take you out to the team’s charity gala this weekend.”
Her green eyes widened. “Like a date?”
“Yeah.”
Emotion flickered across her face—hurt, maybe, or bitterness. “I don’t date, Tristan. You know that.”
I cupped her cheek, my thumb brushing her skin, terrified she’d pull away. “Please. Give me another chance.”
She swallowed hard, and I could see her working through all the reasons to say no, all the ways I’d fucked up, all the trust I’d shattered.
I steeled myself for rejection.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay.” I nodded, disappointment already crushing my chest. “Wait, what?”
Eva’s laugh burst out of her, and it lifted an enormous weight off my soul.
“Okay,” she repeated, smiling up at me. “I’ll go to the gala with you, Tristan.”
I was afraid to move, that this was a dream, that she’d take it back.
Eva just shook her head and started down the stairs, leaving me to follow.
Maybe, possibly, I’d earned my way back.