Chapter 41 Derek
I pulled up the familiar text thread and my thumb hovered over the video icon.
I was feeling uneasy. Unmoored. After his visit to Toronto, something had shifted with Théo. He was quieter. More withdrawn. The texts came slower, the jokes landed softer. I could feel him pulling inward, retreating to that place I couldn’t reach.
It was late. We’d had a brutal game that went into overtime. He was probably asleep.
Fuck it. I hit call.
He answered on the second ring. The screen filled with him—curled up in my bed, wearing one of my shirts, looking sleepy and soft and so beautiful it knocked the breath out of me. The riotous thing in my chest settled into something warm and possessive.
Mine.
But then I looked closer. The shadows under his eyes were darker than usual. His face was thinner. The kind of thin that made my stomach clench with worry.
“Sorry, were you sleeping?”
“No, I was still up.” His voice was low and a little rough. He shifted against the pillows—my pillows—and I caught a glimpse of collarbone where the shirt had slipped. Too much collarbone.
“Were you waiting for me to call?” I teased, trying to keep my voice light when everything in me wanted to say I miss you and I hate this and are you eating enough?
“Maybe.” A small smile. “I had a long call with Sabrina earlier.”
“Oh yeah? How’s she doing?”
“She’s good. Worried about Nico. Worried about me.” He said it matter-of-factly, like these were just items on a list. “Worried that I’m going to relapse. I upped my therapy appointments to weekly.”
“That’s good.” The words felt inadequate. A thousand miles of highway and hotel rooms between us and all I could do was say that’s good like it was enough. I wished I could reach through the phone. Pull him close. Make sure he knew he wasn’t doing this alone.
“Yeah.” But his voice was flat. Distant.
I leaned back against the headboard, letting myself just look at him for a moment. The low light from his bedside lamp. The way he’d pulled the covers up around himself like a cocoon. The way he was wearing my shirt like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“How are you doing?” I asked carefully.
Something shifted in his expression—subtle but I’d gotten good at reading him. The slight tension in his jaw. The way his gaze dropped for half a second before he met mine again.
“The Maple Leaf Classic is next month,” he said, neatly sidestepping my question. “Coach Miller brought it up. And Sabrina’s been… gently nudging.”
“Nudging?”
“She knows not to push.” A ghost of a smile.
“She just keeps mentioning it. Casually. Like I don’t know exactly what she’s doing.
” The smile faded. “They both know what the Olympics mean to me. It’s been my dream since I was a kid—since I was nine and watched the coverage with my mom and told her that was going to be me one day.
” He exhaled. “Sabrina’s not pushing. Not with…
everything. But she won’t let me bury it, either.
She keeps it where I can see it. Like she’s saying, you don’t have to choose it today—but don’t pretend you never wanted it. ”
My heart stuttered with worry. “That’s a big step. Are you coming out of hiatus?”
I wanted to ask if he was okay. If this was too much, too fast. If he was running toward something or just running away from the wreckage behind him. But I’d learned that pushing Théo only made him retreat further.
So I waited.
“More like… dipping my toe?” He said it like a question, like he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. “It’s in Toronto. Which feels like either the worst idea or some kind of cosmic test.”
“Is it something you want to do?”
A pause. His fingers twisted in the sleeves of my shirt—one of the nervous habits I’d noticed.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But it’s still terrifying. After everything with Nico… going back to Toronto feels like walking into a haunted house. Every corner has a ghost. Every rink has a memory.” He swallowed. “And the skating world is going to be watching. Waiting to see if I fall apart again.”
“Oh, snowdrop.” It slipped out before I could stop it, low and aching.
His jaw tightened. He looked away from the camera for a second—composing himself, I realized. When he looked back, his eyes were glassy.
“Seeing Nico in that hospital bed…” He stopped, started again.
“It scared me. Not just because of what happened to him but because I understood it. How he got there. The exhaustion. The pressure. The feeling like you just want everything to stop.” His voice cracked.
“I’ve been there, Derek. I’ve been exactly there.
And going back to competing—back to that world—what if it puts me right back in that place? ”
The question hung between us, raw and honest. I wished I was next to him. I wished I could pull him into my arms and hold him until the fear passed.
“If this is something you want,” I said, keeping my voice steady, “I’ll support you.
Whatever that looks like. If you need me at practice, I’ll be there.
If you need me to just listen, I can do that.
If you need someone to remind you that you can do this differently—Théo, you can.
” I swallowed. “I’ve watched you fight for it. Every single day.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, almost to himself, “What if I’m not strong enough?”
“Then you’ll have people who catch you,” I said. “Sabrina. Your mom. Your brother.” I paused. “Me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Even if I spiral?”
“Even then,” I said. No hesitation. “You think I don’t know what pressure looks like?
After Mackenzie, the concussion, the ACL—I didn’t think I was coming back.
It was the darkest, loneliest stretch of my life.
I don’t recommend doing it alone.” I leaned closer to the camera.
“You’re doing the work. You’re talking about it. That’s not weakness.”
“Nico asked me if it gets better,” Théo said suddenly.
His voice was thick. “When I visited him. He looked at me like I had the answer and I told him that it gets different, the bad days get further apart—but afterwards I kept thinking… what if I was lying? What if I’m not actually better?
What if I’m just pretending well enough that people believe me? ”
“You’re not pretending.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen what you look like when you’re pretending,” I said quietly. “And this isn’t it.” I held his gaze. “You don’t let people in by accident, Théo. You’ve let me in. That’s not a mask. That’s progress.”
He blinked a few times, fast, and turned his head slightly away from the camera.
“I landed a quad today,” he said, voice wavering. “First one in months. Coach Miller was watching and he just… nodded. Like it was no big deal. But it felt like a big deal. It felt like proof that maybe I’m not completely broken.”
“You’re not broken.” My voice came out fiercer than I intended. “You’re healing. There’s a difference.”
He looked back at the screen and something in his expression had shifted. Still vulnerable, but lighter. Like he’d set down something heavy and was surprised to find his arms still worked.
“I really want to kiss you right now,” he said.
“Four more days.”
“That’s forever.”
He yawned hugely and I watched the tension finally start to drain from his shoulders.
“You should get some sleep, snowdrop. You’re going to have a grueling schedule ahead and you need your rest.”
“Promise to call tomorrow?”
“Promise.”
“Goodnight, Derek.”
“Goodnight, Théo.”
◆◆◆
The next night we had another chat about his training.
We didn’t have a game so I was able to call him earlier, settling back against the hotel headboard while he walked me through his session with Coach Miller.
The new choreography for his short program.
The jump layout he was considering. The way his anxiety spiked every time he thought about the judges’ table.
We talked for hours. About skating, about the team, about nothing important at all. His mom’s latest attempts to learn how to use Instagram. The reality dating show Hana had gotten him hooked on. Unhinged theories about Game of Thrones.
Théo’s laugh crackled through my phone speaker and I held onto the sound like a lifeline.
It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough.
I wanted to be there—in my apartment, on my couch, close enough to touch him.
I wanted to feel the weight of him against my side, to press my nose into his hair and breathe him in.
The distance felt physical, an ache that settled somewhere behind my ribs and wouldn’t let go.
We won our game against Detroit. Then we flew into Toronto.
We had a practice day and afterward I met up with Sabrina for drinks. Avery had gone to have dinner with his dad so it was just the two of us. She’d picked a spot in Yorkville: dim lighting, leather booths, the kind of place that served overpriced cocktails with herbs floating in them.
She was tiny and fiery, just like her hair. A cascade of copper curls framed sharp features and even sharper eyes. I got the distinct sense that those striking green eyes didn’t miss much.
“So,” she said, stirring her drink with a sprig of rosemary. “You’ve stuck around longer than I expected you to.”
I blinked, caught off guard by the directness. No small talk, no easing into it—just straight to the point. It reminded me of Théo. That same refusal to waste time dancing around what they actually meant.
“Is that surprising?” I asked after a beat.
“You seem like the low key type.” She took a sip, watching me over the rim. “Stable. Uncomplicated. The kind of guy who dates women named Jessica who work in marketing and own a Peloton.”
I huffed a laugh despite myself. “That’s... oddly specific.”
“I’m good at reading people.” She set her glass down. “He’s different since Chicago. Lighter. More... present. I was worried, after everything with Nico.” Her expression sobered. “He told me about the near miss. The razors.”
My stomach clenched. “He scared me,” I admitted. “That night. I’ve never felt so helpless.”
“But you stayed on the phone. You talked him through it.” Her expression softened marginally. “That matters. More than you probably know.”
We sat in silence for a moment. The low hum of conversation and clinking glasses filled the space between us.
“He likes you a lot,” she said finally. “I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”
I loved him. But it felt weird saying it to someone who was basically a stranger to me. “I care about him too. More than I know how to say.”
“I can tell.” She tilted her head, fingers tracing the rim of her glass. “But here’s the thing about Théo... If this is some sort of spring awakening for you—figuring yourself out, experimenting, whatever—please break it off before he gets hurt.”
“I would never hurt him.”
“Not on purpose.” Her voice softened but her gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t know you very well, Derek but I can tell you’re a good guy. Théo needs good people in his corner. And I know you want to be that for him.”
She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“But he’s like a glacier. You only see what’s above the surface—this beautiful, glittering thing.
And maybe you think you understand the scale of it.
But underneath? There’s so much more. Layers that took years to form.
Pressure and weight and cold that goes deeper than you can imagine.
” She held my gaze. “If you’re not ready for that, if you chip away at him and then leave, he won’t just crack.
He’ll shatter. And the pieces don’t go back together the same way. ”
I thought about the scars on his skin. The way he flinched the first time I had touched them. The hollow look in his eyes when he’d shown me those razors through a phone screen. The way he’d sobbed in my arms after Toronto, letting me see him broken in a way I suspected very few people ever had.
“I’ve seen underneath,” I said quietly. “He’s let me.
The scars, the panic, the nights when he can’t get out of his own head—I’ve been there for those.
And I’m still here.” I met her eyes. “This isn’t experimentation for me, Sabrina.
This isn’t a phase or a curiosity. I know what I feel.
I know what he means to me. And I’m not going anywhere. ”
She searched my face for a long moment. Then something in her expression shifted—not quite trust but the beginning of it.
“He was a wreck at the hospital,” she said. “I’ve known Théo for years and I’ve only heard him cry like that once before—when he called me from rehab, two weeks in, finally admitting how bad things had gotten.”
My chest ached.
“But then he said something that surprised me.” She swirled her drink, watching the rosemary spin. “He said he didn’t want to spiral. That he had a reason to stay steady. Someone who made him feel grounded.”
She didn’t say you. She didn’t have to.
“Théo doesn’t anchor easily,” she continued. “He drifts. He runs. It’s how he survives. But lately...” She looked up, her gaze assessing. “Lately he sounds like someone who actually wants to stay in one place.”
I didn’t know what to say. My throat was too tight.
“So.” She raised her glass slightly. “If you’re planning to be that place—be solid. Be consistent. That’s what he needs more than anything.”
“I will be.” The words came out rough but certain. “I know he’s not easy. I know there will be hard days. Days when he pulls away because it feels safer than letting someone stay.”
I turned my glass slowly on the table.
“But I’m not going anywhere. I don’t need him to be perfect. I just need him to let me show up.” I met her eyes. “That’s what I can offer. Consistency. Patience. Being there when he needs someone steady.”
Sabrina was quiet for a moment, studying me.
“He’s never had that before,” she said finally. “Someone who stuck around for the hard parts.”
“Then I’ll be the first.”
“Good. Because if you hurt him, they’ll never find your body.” She smiled sweetly. “I’m small but I’m scrappy.”
“Noted.”
We clinked glasses and something shifted between us—an understanding, an alliance. She then proceeded to grill me about hockey and whether I thought Avery had a future with the Frost. Her questions were more pointed and knowledgeable than I expected. I felt like I’d passed some kind of test.
“You ready for the game against Toronto tomorrow?” Sabrina asked as I settled the bill.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I’ll be there with Sharon.” She grinned. “I’ll try not to yell too many obscenities in front of their mom.
“She seems like she can handle it.”
“Oh, she can. That woman is steel.” Sabrina pulled on her coat. “Take care of yourself, Derek. And take care of him.”
“I will.”
She disappeared into the Toronto night and I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, breathing in the cold air.
Two more days until I was home. Two more days until I could hold him.