9. Thane
NINE
THANE
Coming out to the world had been easier than walking back into the locker room.
That realization hit me the moment the arena came into view.
The Seattle Orcas Arena looked exactly the same as it had twenty-four hours earlier.
The giant banners still hung from the front of the building.
The turquoise-and-black team logo still glowed above the entrance.
Fans still streamed toward the doors wearing jerseys and winter jackets against the December cold.
The moment the SUV turned into the players' entrance, I saw them.
Reporters.
Cameras.
Fans holding signs.
Security personnel trying to maintain some semblance of order.
Camera phones appeared almost instantly. A few people waved. Others shouted my name. Somewhere in the crowd, someone yelled that they were proud of me. A second later, another voice shouted something considerably less supportive.
The distinction shouldn't have mattered as much as it did.
Beside the entrance, two security guards waited to escort players inside. Their presence wasn't entirely unusual, but there were more of them than normal. Enough to make the reason obvious.
I greeted the guards with an upnod.
"Ready?" one of them asked.
It was a simple question. Unfortunately, I wasn't entirely sure of the answer. I gave him one anyway.
“Yeah.”
Plus, Vancouver wasn't going to wait for me to figure out my feelings, and neither was the rest of the team.
The arena's familiar soundtrack wrapped around me almost immediately.
Equipment managers moved through the hallways with carts loaded with gear.
Staff members hurried from one end of the building to the other, carrying clipboards and tablets.
Somewhere deeper in the building, metal scraped against concrete, a sound I'd heard so many times over the years that I barely registered it anymore.
Today, they felt different.
Every person I passed seemed to look at me for a second longer than usual. Most offered a smile or a nod. A few stopped to say they appreciated what I'd done. Others looked as though they wanted to say something, but couldn't quite find the words before I continued walking.
By the time I reached the locker room, my shoulders were already tight.
The room fell quiet for half a heartbeat when I stepped inside.
It just felt as though everyone was figuring out how to stand around a new piece of furniture that had appeared overnight.
Coach Reno was standing near the whiteboard with one of the assistant coaches. He glanced my way as he sipped from a travel mug. "Hale."
"Coach."
That was it. No speech. No awkward conversation. No carefully chosen words. Just the same greeting he'd given me a hundred times before. Oddly enough, that helped.
"Morning, Halestorm."
I looked up to find Wayne Briggs leaning against his stall. The veteran left winger studied me for a second before nodding once. "Good job yesterday." The words were simple. Coming from Briggs, they carried weight.
"Thanks."
He grunted as though that settled the matter and went back to lacing his skates.
Others followed.
A fist bump.
A pat on the shoulder.
A few awkward attempts at conversation that died almost as quickly as they started.
Most of the guys were trying. I could see that. Some were more comfortable than others, but most were making an effort. A handful avoided eye contact entirely. One or two looked irritated for reasons that had nothing to do with hockey.
Professional sports had rules, written and unwritten. Whatever personal opinions existed, nobody was stupid enough to start a fight in the middle of an NHL locker room two hours before a game.
Still, the room I'd walked into thousands of times suddenly felt both familiar and unfamiliar.
The door opened again, and Tannen T-Mills Miller walked in.
The effect was immediate.
Nobody snapped to attention. This wasn't the military. But the energy changed because, whether he wanted the responsibility or not, Tannen Miller was the captain of the Seattle Orcas.
He carried that presence with him.
Tannen moved through the room with his usual calm confidence, exchanging greetings and checking in with a few of the younger players before making his way toward the stall beside mine.
When he finally glanced my way, our eyes met briefly.
Normally, one of us would have cracked a joke by now. Tannen would have made some smart-ass comment, or I'd have said something to break the ice. Instead, neither of us seemed entirely sure where to start.
The silence wasn't hostile.
If anything, it felt uncertain.
"Mornin'," he said.
"Mornin'."
For the first time since we'd become teammates, I wasn't entirely sure what came next.
Fortunately, Coach Reynolds stepped away from the whiteboard and gathered the room's attention. The meeting itself was business as usual. Matchups. Special teams. Video clips. A reminder about tonight’s game.
Nothing about me. It was all about hockey.
By the time Coach left, the room had settled into something closer to normal.
Tannen rose from his stall and looked around the room.
"We good?"
A few players laughed, some nodded.
Tannen folded his arms across his chest. "We've got Vancouver tonight. They think they're walking out of here with two points. I disagree."
That earned a few grins.
His gaze moved around the room before settling briefly on me. When he spoke again, his voice remained steady. "We're a team. We win together. We lose together. We deal with our business together."
Nobody interrupted.
"If anybody's forgotten that, now would be a really good time to remember."
The message wasn't subtle. It wasn't supposed to be.
Several players nodded immediately. Others murmured their agreement.
The moment passed almost as quickly as it arrived.
Just another captain addressing his team before a game.
At least that's how it looked from the outside.
From where I was sitting, I knew better.
Tannen wasn't just talking to the room. He was talking to me.
And for the first time all morning, some of my worries about what our friendship would look like going forward began to ease.
The rest of the session unfolded the way it always did. Stretching. Drills. A few chirps between teammates. For an hour or so, hockey gave me something else to focus on. The illusion lasted right up until I stepped off the ice.
I barely made it through the tunnel before a voice behind me stopped me.
"Thane."
I knew that voice. I stopped in my tracks.
A few players passed us on their way toward the locker room. Equipment staff moved through the corridor carrying gear and water bottles. Nobody paid us much attention. To anyone watching, it probably looked like two teammates having a routine conversation.
It wasn't.
I turned around.
Tannen stood a few feet away with his hands shoved into the pockets of his training jacket. "Got a minute?"
"Yeah."
He nodded toward a quieter stretch of hallway away from the traffic. Neither of us spoke immediately after we stopped. For years, that silence would have felt impossible between us.
Tannen was my best friend.
My linemate.
My captain.
There had never been much we couldn't say to each other.
Until now.
Finally, he looked at me. "You really couldn't tell me?"
Of all the reactions I'd prepared myself for, that was the one I'd been dreading most. For a moment, I stared at the floor between us.
I thought about every opportunity I'd had to tell him. Every road trip. Every off-season workout. Every late-night conversation after tough losses and playoff exits. There’d been hundreds of chances. Maybe thousands.
"I don't know," I admitted quietly.
Tannen's jaw tightened. The disappointment in his eyes somehow felt worse than if he'd yelled.
Before I could stop myself, another question slipped out. "Could you have told me?"
The silence that followed seemed to stretch endlessly. Tannen blinked. Something flickered across his face. Maybe it was surprise, or confusion, or something else I couldn’t quite identify. For a second, it looked as though I'd asked a question neither of us knew how to answer.
Eventually, he exhaled slowly. "I don't know," he said.
The strange heaviness between us lingered for another moment before Tannen shook his head. "You should've trusted me."
"I know." Because I should have trusted him. I should have probably trusted a lot of people. Tannen studied me for a long moment before stepping forward and squeezing my shoulder. The gesture was brief. Solid. Familiar.
"I'm still your captain."
Relief hit me so quickly it was almost embarrassing. A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Good to know."
His expression finally softened. "And you're still my idiot."
I laughed. The sound surprised both of us.
Just like that, some of the tension broke. There were still conversations waiting for us. There were still questions neither of us knew how to answer. But for the first time since yesterday's press conference, it felt like we were on the same side again.
For now, that was enough.