28. Thane
TWENTY-EIGHT
THANE
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Kieran stood a few feet away from me, shoulders tense, tears still shining in his eyes. The sight hit harder than any loss I'd taken all season.
It wasn't because he was crying; it was because I finally understood why.
The articles. The comments. The losing streak. None of that had ever been the real problem. Kieran hadn't spent the day worrying about hockey. He'd spent the day reliving what happened when he was twelve years old.
My heart ached for him. Nine years. He'd been carrying this for nine years.
"Kier."
His gaze stayed fixed on the floor.
I took a careful breath. "You really think that's what's happening here?"
"Isn't it?"
"No."
Kieran shook his head. "You don't know that."
The words shouldn't have frustrated me. I knew he was hurting. But I needed him to know that he didn't get to decide how our story ended. Because somewhere along the way, he'd started treating his fear like it was a fact.
"Kieran, look at me."
Slowly, he lifted his head.
I held his gaze. "You've already decided what happens next."
Confusion flickered across his face. "What?"
"You've decided hockey is eventually going to matter more."
His forehead furrowed.
"You've decided one day I'm going to wake up and realize you're getting in the way. You've decided that sooner or later I'm going to choose something else."
The color drained from his face.
"You're making decisions for me." I stood, unable to sit another second while he talked about us like we were already over.
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "I wasn't—"
"You decided what I value. You decided what kind of man I am."
The hurt in his eyes nearly undid me, but he needed to hear this.
"Do you know what I heard?"
His expression crumpled slightly. "What?"
"I heard a kid who got his heart broken. I heard somebody who spent years believing he finally belonged somewhere and then had that taken away."
Kieran looked down. I waited until he looked back up.
"And I heard somebody who's been expecting it to happen again ever since."
The silence stretched between us.
"Kier, I understand why you're scared." My voice softened. "Honestly, after hearing all of that, I don't know how you couldn't be."
His eyes filled again. I hated that. Hated that he'd been carrying this alone. Hated that he'd spent the entire day convincing himself he was protecting himself when all he'd really been doing was hurting.
"But you're wrong about this." The words came quietly, but they were true.
Kieran swallowed. "You can't know that."
"No." I couldn't. Nobody could. Not completely. Not when it came to the future. But this wasn't really about certainty. It was about trust.
I took step forward. Close enough now that I could see the tear tracks on his face. Close enough that if he wanted to reach for me, he could. "Kieran, I'm not Janelle."
His eyes closed briefly. The wound was still raw. I could see it. But I kept going.
"I'm not making the same choice."
His throat worked. "You don't know that."
There it was again. Fear. As if he was bracing for a blow that hadn't happened. Maybe never would.
I shook my head. "No. What I know is that you're standing here looking at me like you're still twelve years old waiting for somebody else to decide whether you get to stay."
Kieran froze. The words hit exactly where I intended them to.
My voice dropped. "Nobody is sitting in a courtroom deciding your future."
His eyes never left mine.
"Nobody is deciding whether you belong."
I took the final step between us.
"You're here... and you're here with me."
For a moment, Kieran just stared at me. I could see the fight still happening behind his eyes. The fear wasn't gone. It wasn't going to disappear because of a few words. Nine years of hurt didn't work that way.
His voice came out rough. "You don't know what's going to happen."
"No." I nodded. "I don't."
The answer seemed to surprise him. I understood why. He'd been expecting promises. Guarantees. Something impossible. I wasn't going to insult him with either of those things.
"I don't know what happens five years from now," I said. "I don't know what team I'll be playing for. I don't know what city I'll be living in. Hell, I don't even know what Coach Reynolds is going to be yelling about at practice tomorrow."
A weak laugh escaped him. Good. At least he was still with me.
"What I do know is that you're acting like you're something that happened to me."
His forehead creased. "What?"
"Like you're a problem I have to solve. A distraction I have to manage. A sacrifice I'm making."
The hurt on his face was immediate.
"Kier, that's not what you are." I took another breath. Carefully. Because this mattered. "Do you honestly think I spent the last ten days wishing I was somewhere else?"
"No."
"Do you think I spent Christmas Eve wishing I was at practice?"
His mouth twitched despite everything. "No."
"Do you think I was standing on Cedar Ridge thinking about video review?"
That earned me the smallest hint of a smile. "Probably not."
"Definitely not."
The smile vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, but I saw it.
Progress.
"Kieran, being with you isn't costing me anything." The words settled between us. "It's giving me something."
His eyes widened. "Wha-"
I kept going before he could interrupt. "You look at hockey and relationships like they're competing for the same space. They're not." The certainty in my own voice surprised me. "Hockey is what I do. You are not something getting in the way of that."
His breathing caught slightly. "You don't know that."
There it was again. The certainty that eventually he'd lose.
I brushed my knuckles against his cheek. "Kier, you keep talking about the future like it's already written."
His eyes closed briefly at the touch.
"You keep talking like one day I'm going to wake up and realize you're not worth keeping."
The pain that crossed his face was answer enough. God.
I let my hand settle against the side of his face. "Look at me."
Slowly, he did. I swallowed.
There was no point holding anything back anymore. Not after everything he'd told me and not after everything I'd realized. I'd spent days trying to find the right moment, the right words. The truth had been sitting in front of me for a while now.
"Kieran, I didn't spend Christmas with you because I felt sorry for you." I brushed my thumb lightly against his cheek. "And I sure as hell didn't come back here today because I thought you were convenient."
The tears in his eyes returned. But this time they looked different. Hopeful. Terrified. Waiting.
I smiled. "Baby, I'm here because I fell in love with you."
For a second, Kieran just stared at me. The tears were still there. But something else had replaced some of the fear. Disbelief. As if he wasn't quite sure he'd heard me correctly. My hand remained against his cheek. I didn't rush him.
"Kier?"
His throat worked. "You love me?"
He sounded as though the possibility that I might love him had never fully occurred to him. The thought made me sad.
"Yeah, baby."
His eyes closed briefly. When they opened again, they looked suspiciously bright. "You picked a hell of a time to tell me."
A laugh escaped me. "Believe me, this wasn't how I imagined the conversation going either."
That earned the smallest smile. Progress.
I brushed my thumb beneath one eye, catching a tear before it could fall. "I was going to do something a lot more romantic."
His mouth twitched. "Oh?"
"Definitely."
The smile grew a little. "Like what?"
"I don't know." I shrugged. "I was hoping inspiration would strike."
An actual laugh escaped him. The sound did something dangerous to my heart. It made me want ten more years of hearing it. Twenty. Fifty.
The realization settled over me with startling clarity. I wasn't standing here trying to save a relationship. I was standing here looking at the man I wanted a future with. The man I wanted more Christmases with. More ordinary Tuesdays. More phone calls. More everything.
Kieran's smile faded as emotion caught up with him again. "You really mean it."
“Yeah." My voice came out rougher than before. "I really do."
His eyes searched my face. Eventually, he must have found what he was looking for because his shoulders finally relaxed. A shaky breath left him. Then he smiled through tears. "I love you too."
For a second, I couldn't breathe. I'd wanted to hear those three precious words for days and had somehow convinced myself I could wait.
Turns out I couldn't. Not even close.
I laughed softly and pulled him into my arms.