12. Kieran #2
For a moment, he simply held my gaze. Then he set down his drink. "Because I wanted to see you."
There was no practiced charm in his voice. Just straightforward honesty.
"I kept thinking about you," he admitted, leaning back against the couch, his broad shoulders making my living room look tiny.
"The media has been a complete circus the last two days.
I tried focusing on the game, on the noise, on everything else happening.
But my head kept looping back to that bar. Back to your table."
The tease slipped out before I could stop it, instantly invoking the memory of how we’d left that bar together.
For a second, something flickered across Thane's face. A flash of heat, followed by a slight, boyish smirk. He rubbed the back of his neck. "No. Not just the table."
My pulse stumbled.
"The conversation first," he said quietly, his gaze locking back onto mine, serious now. "The fact that a stranger somehow convinced me to spend three hours talking about teaching and stupid Christmas movies. I haven't had a real conversation like that in years."
His eyes dropped briefly to my lips, the air between us suddenly feeling a lot warmer.
"And then after that," he added, his voice dropping a register. "Because that was... easily the best night I've had in as long as I can remember."
Heat crawled all the way up the back of my neck. I picked at the edge of a napkin. "You left before I woke up." The words came out quieter than I'd intended.
Something in Thane's expression immediately changed. "I know." He didn't try to dodge it or pretend he didn't understand what I meant. "I spent most of yesterday trying to decide whether I should be annoyed about that."
"And what did you decide?"
Thane didn't answer right away. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his large hands loosely clasped in front of him.
"I decided I was an idiot for leaving," he said, looking straight at me.
He let out a short, self-deprecating laugh and shook his head.
“The second I got back to my place, I regretted it.
I should have woken you up. Or at least left a note with my number, instead of letting you think it was just... a one-time thing."
My fingers stopped tearing at the napkin.
The knot of insecurity that had been tightening in my stomach since yesterday morning suddenly loosened.
"I did think that," I admitted, my voice barely louder than the hum of the refrigerator.
“Then, when I saw you on a sports network, it felt surreal. Like I’d made the whole night up. "
Thane’s gaze softened, a heavy, genuine look crossing his features. "You didn't make it up, Kieran. It was real."
The couch wasn't particularly large. Somewhere during the conversation, we'd both shifted closer to the center cushions.
"Were you planning to tell the world before we met?" I asked.
He leaned back against the couch and released a slow breath. "The press conference was already scheduled."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
I stared at him. "So when we were sitting in that bar..."
"I already knew what I was doing the next morning."
The realization hit me all over again. While I'd been worrying about turning twenty-one alone, Thane had been carrying around a secret big enough to change his entire life.
"How did you even decide?"
His gaze drifted toward the window. "There was a kid."
"A fan?"
"A hockey player. At least he hopes to be one someday."
Something in his voice made me pay closer attention.
"The message you mentioned?"
He nodded. "He wrote to me because he didn't think there was a place for someone like him in the sport."
The sadness in those words caught me off guard.
"Someone like him?"
"He's gay."
Thane rubbed a hand across his jaw.
"He told me he loved hockey. Told me he wanted to play professionally one day. Then he admitted he wasn't sure whether there was a future for him in the game if people knew who he was."
I remembered the emotion in his voice during the press conference. Suddenly, it made a lot more sense.
"And you realized he was talking about you, too."
His eyes met mine. "Yeah." Then asked quietly, "What about you?"
I frowned. "What about me?"
"Who do you call when you need to talk?"
For a few seconds, I stared at him without answering.
Part of me wanted to laugh it off. Another part wanted to change the subject entirely.
Nobody ever asked questions like that. Most people assumed there was somebody.
A parent. A sibling. A friend. I looked down at the carton of fries sitting between us and picked up one I had no intention of eating.
"Nobody," I said finally.
The word sounded smaller out loud.
Something flickered across Thane's face, but he didn't rush to fill the silence. He didn't tell me he was sorry. He didn't try to rescue me from the answer. He just waited.
"My mom died when I was eight."
The words came easier than they once had. Time had sanded down some of the sharpest edges, even if it had never erased them completely.
"After that, I ended up in foster care."
Thane's expression softened.
I shrugged, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. "It wasn't all terrible. A few homes were good. Most weren't. All were temporary. I aged out of the system.” I rolled a fry between my fingers. "You learn pretty quickly not to get attached to things that might be temporary."