8. Kieran
EIGHT
KIERAN
I lasted exactly twenty-three minutes after I got back to my apartment before googling him.
I tossed my jacket over the back of a chair, walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stared at its contents without actually seeing any of them.
Then I wandered into the living room, sat down, stood back up again, and told myself that what Thane Hale did with his life was none of my business.
That lasted all of thirty seconds.
By the time I opened my laptop, I was already losing the argument.
The search results appeared almost instantly.
Not dozens.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
News articles. Interviews. Team profiles. Feature stories. Video clips. Magazine covers. Social media accounts. Pages and pages of information stretching farther than I cared to scroll.
I stared at the screen. Then I stared some more.
"Well," I muttered to the empty apartment. "That's probably not normal."
The first result led to his player profile with the Seattle Orcas. That was how I learned he wasn't simply a hockey player. He was one of their stars. Assistant captain. Left winger. Multiple-time All-Star. One of the league's top scorers.
I clicked on another article. Then another. Then another.
The pattern repeated itself with almost alarming consistency.
Award nominations. Playoff appearances. Career milestones.
Photos of Thane holding trophies, posing for promotional campaigns, and standing beside teammates while confetti rained from the ceiling behind them. Every article seemed to introduce a new accomplishment I had somehow never heard of.
The ridiculous part was that none of it felt like bragging. The information was simply there.
Objective.
Undeniable.
The man I'd met in a neighborhood bar had built an entire career while I remained completely oblivious to it.
I found the interviews next. Those fascinated me more than the statistics.
Numbers told me he scored goals.
Interviews told me who he might be.
In one article, he spoke about community outreach programs and youth hockey initiatives.
In another, he discussed leadership, teamwork, and the responsibility that came with wearing a letter on his jersey.
A magazine profile focused on his work with children's charities and local education programs.
That part made me smile. Of course it did. Even before I knew any of this, he had spent part of my birthday asking questions about my degree program and listening as though the answers genuinely mattered.
The endorsements surprised me.
The follower count surprised me even more. Millions. Actual millions. I clicked over to another page just to make sure I hadn't misread it.
I hadn't.
A strange feeling settled in my stomach as I stared at the screen.
The money was impressive, sure. The fame was harder to wrap my head around. Every article I opened seemed to reveal another layer of a life that looked nothing like mine.
The man belonged to a world so far removed from my own that it almost felt unreal.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed a hand across my jaw.
Every click seemed to reveal another layer I hadn't known existed.
More interviews.
More articles.
More photographs.
More evidence that the version of Thane I'd met represented only a tiny fraction of the life he actually lived. And yet the strangest part of all was that none of it felt like the most important thing I'd learned about him that day.
The thing I kept thinking about was the man sitting behind that microphone, trying not to let the world see how scared he was.
I stared at the laptop screen for several more minutes, clicking through articles I barely absorbed.
At some point, I picked up my phone and found myself on his Instagram page. Judging by the follower count, I was approximately one of the last people in Seattle to discover it existed.
The page looked exactly like what I should have expected from a professional athlete. There were action shots from games, photos with teammates, community appearances, charity events, and enough professional photography to make me wonder if the man had ever taken a bad picture in his life.
The comments beneath his most recent post were harder to look away from.
Thousands had already accumulated in the hours since the press conference ended. Many offered support. Others thanked him for speaking openly. A surprising number simply wished him well.
Not all of them were kind.
A few comments were dismissive. Others were openly hostile. After reading several that made my stomach tighten, I closed the comment section altogether.
The internet had always been an excellent reminder that not everyone deserved access to a keyboard.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
For a long moment, I simply stared at his profile picture and told myself to put the phone down.
Instead, I tapped Message. The empty conversation window opened immediately. I wasn't entirely sure why I was doing it.
Part of me kept thinking about the press conference and the nerves I'd heard beneath his carefully controlled answers. Another part remembered the man from the night before—the one who had argued with me about birthday cake and made sure I ate before ordering another drink.
Mostly, though, I just wanted him to know that somebody was in his corner.
The cursor blinked in the empty message box.
My first attempt sounded awkward. The second felt strangely formal. After deleting both, I gave up on trying to be clever and typed the truth.
Me: Hey. It's Kieran.
Me: I just saw the press conference.
Me: I don't really know what today has been like for you, but I wanted to say I hope you're doing okay.
I read the message twice.
It wasn't flirtatious. It wasn't dramatic. It didn't ask for anything in return. It was simply the sort of message I would have wanted to receive if I were having the kind of day Thane had just endured.
Before I could change my mind, I pressed send. The message slipped into the conversation thread.
And then there was nothing left to do but wait.
For the first minute, I told myself I wasn't waiting for a response. By the second minute, I was very obviously waiting for a response.
The message sat there exactly as I'd sent it, looking strangely small against the backdrop of a social media account followed by millions of people.
It occurred to me that my words had just landed in the same inbox that was probably being flooded with messages from reporters, fans, teammates, former teammates, sponsors, and people who suddenly felt compelled to share their opinions.
Mine was likely one drop in an ocean. That realization should have made me feel better. Instead, it made me refresh the conversation.
Nothing changed.
I set my phone down on the coffee table and picked up my book. I managed half a page before I checked the screen again. The message remained exactly where it had been before.
Unread.
No typing indicator.
No response.
I laughed softly at myself and dropped my head back against the couch.
"What exactly did you expect?" I asked the empty apartment.
The question was fair. Thane wasn't sitting around waiting for messages from people he'd met in a bar and then had sex with.
He had just come out in front of an entire league, an entire city, and probably half the sports media in North America. Compared to everything happening in his life, my message barely registered as a ripple.
That didn't make me regret sending it. It just helped put things into perspective.
I picked up my phone one last time before locking the screen. The conversation looked exactly the same as it had five minutes earlier.
Still unread.
I slipped the phone into my pocket and stood from the couch. The apartment suddenly felt too small, too quiet, and too full of thoughts I didn't particularly want to examine.
The truth was, I didn't think Thane was ignoring me. I didn't think he'd lied to me. I didn't think the previous night had meant nothing.
I simply thought he was busy.
Busy dealing with a life that looked considerably larger and more complicated than some college kid he’d just met.
Some people entered your life for years.
Others stayed for a season.
And sometimes, if you were lucky, they gave you a single unforgettable night.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair and headed for my bedroom.
Whatever last night had been, it was over now.