Chapter 21 #2
“Harper’s smarter than me,” I said. “More organized. Less dramatic. She remembers birthdays and oil changes and where she put her wallet. She also calls me when her sink makes a noise because apparently NHL center equals plumber.”
“Do you go?”
“If I can.”
Declan looked over. “Of course you do.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with how easily he read the answer. “Our mom died when I was eleven. Harper was nine. My dad did everything, but I was old enough to know he was outnumbered. So I helped. Badly, probably. Made lunches. Checked homework. Lied and said I wasn’t scared when Harper was.”
Declan’s face changed, not pity. Attention.
“What was your mom like?” he asked.
The question got under my ribs.
“She was loud,” I said. “In a good way. Sang in the car even though she had a terrible voice. Knew every stat from every game I ever played. Used to bang on the glass with her wedding ring and embarrass the hell out of me.” I rubbed my thumb against the seam of my pocket.
“After she died, the house got quiet in this way I couldn’t stand.
So I filled it. Talking. Moving. Being a pain in the ass. Anything.”
Declan didn’t speak right away.
Tiny finished with the leaves and dragged us forward.
“My dad didn’t know what to do with quiet after my career ended,” Declan said eventually.
I looked at him.
“He’d watched me play since I was a kid.
Traveled, coached from the stands, pretended not to cry when I was drafted.
” His eyes stayed on the path ahead. “Then my knee went, and suddenly every conversation was about what doctors said, what rehab looked like, whether I had a plan. He meant well. They all did. But I didn’t want to be someone’s project. ”
“That why you coach?”
“Eventually. At first I was angry.”
“You?”
That got a real look.
“What?”
“You’re like a granite countertop with a whistle.”
“I was not always controlled.”
I tried to imagine it. Declan younger, injured, furious, losing the one thing that had made his days make sense. It shouldn’t have been hard. I knew what hockey did for me. The routine. The boards. The clock. The simple violence of knowing where to be because the game demanded it.
“What did angry look like?” I asked.
“Drinking too much. Picking fights with people who were worried about me. Ignoring calls. Pushing Olivia away, then resenting her for giving me space.”
Her name settled between us.
I didn’t flinch, but it took effort.
“She stayed?” I asked.
“She did.”
He sounded grateful.
That made it hurt more.
“We were good once,” he said quietly. “Not perfect. But good. We knew how to talk to each other then.”
“What happened?”
“Life. Travel. My injury. Her work. My pride. Nothing dramatic enough to point at. That’s the worst part. It just thinned out over time.”
I nodded, throat tight.
“Vanessa isn’t evil,” I said.
“I know.”
“She likes the life. The attention. The photos. The version of me who shows up smiling and gives her something people envy.” I kicked a pebble off the path.
“But she also remembered my dad’s birthday.
She sent Harper a care package during finals.
She asks if I’m hurt after games. Not always in the way I need, but she asks. ”
“That makes it harder.”
“Yeah.”
We walked in silence for a while.
My thoughts started speeding up again, not as bad as earlier, but enough that the edges blurred.
Vanessa tomorrow. Roman. Declan’s wife. The dog leash.
Was someone behind us? Did that guy recognize me?
Hood up. Keep distance. Don’t touch Declan.
Don’t walk too close. Why did Tiny have to look so happy like this was normal?
Declan stopped.
I took two more steps before realizing and turned back.
“Hands out of your pockets,” he said.
I blinked.
Then I noticed my fingers were digging into my palms through the fabric.
I pulled my hands free.
“Look at the light by the bench,” he said.
I did.
“Feet flat.”
I planted them.
“Breathe in for four.”
Something in me wanted to make a joke. Something smarter followed the instruction.
In. Hold. Out.
Again.
Declan didn’t touch me. He didn’t make it a scene. He just stood there with Tiny sitting between us, pretending he had not quietly pulled me back from the edge of myself in the middle of a public park.
After the third breath, the world got less sharp.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Too many inputs?”
“Yeah. And guilt. And thinking. And that guy behind us has walked past twice.”
“Runner. Reflective shoes. Not watching us.”
I looked.
He was right.
I let out a breath that almost became a laugh. “You notice everything?”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Is that all it is?”
“No.”
My gaze snapped back to him.
The path light cut across his face, catching the gray of his eyes, the dark line of his beard. He looked calm. He also looked like the space between us cost him something.
“No,” he repeated. “Not with you.”
The attraction hit low and immediate. Not frantic like the hotel. Not reckless like the alley. This was quieter, the kind that made me want to step into his chest and stay there.
Tiny chose that moment to stand, turn in a circle, and sit directly on Declan’s foot.
Declan looked down. “Really?”
Tiny leaned his full weight against him.
I laughed, and the tension broke enough for us to keep walking.
We made one full loop, then another half.
We talked about small things after that because the big things had taken enough.
His first terrible apartment after he got drafted.
My dad’s habit of calling every hotel room “fancy” even when it had mystery stains.
Owen once filling Declan’s truck with balloons.
Harper threatening to block me if I sent her another expensive laptop.
Tiny eating an entire rotisserie chicken off the counter and then acting betrayed by consequences.
By the time we reached the parking lot edge, I didn’t want to leave.
That was the problem.
Wanting his mouth was one thing. Wanting his body was confusing and explosive and easier to file under sex, even if that file was now on fire. Wanting to keep walking with him in the cold while his dog drooled on my jeans and he told me about his brothers was worse.
It meant I wanted access.
Ordinary access.
The kind people were allowed to have.
Declan’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it.
I knew from his face before he said anything.
“Olivia?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Jealousy moved through me, ugly and pointless. I looked away before it showed too much.
“You should answer.”
“I’ll call her when I get home.”
I nodded.
My own phone buzzed then.
Roman: You home?
I stared at the text for too long.
Declan noticed. “Who?”
“Roman.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I dragged a hand over my mouth. “He knows I’m not home. Or he guessed.”
Declan’s expression sharpened, not panic, but attention narrowing. “Why?”
“Because he’s Roman. Because he saw stuff after the bar. Because I’m a terrible liar when I’m tired. Because I texted him from the hotel but didn’t say room fast enough and he has goalie brain, which is basically surveillance with knee problems.”
Declan was quiet.
My stomach twisted. “He doesn’t know. Not know know.”
“But he’s looking.”
“Yeah.”
The word felt cold after everything warm.
I typed back before I could make it worse.
Me: Out walking. Needed air. Heading home soon.
Roman answered almost immediately.
Roman: Alone?
My chest went tight.
I didn’t show Declan the screen. I didn’t have to.
Me: Yeah.
The lie sat there glowing.
Roman didn’t reply.
Somehow that was worse.
Declan clipped Tiny’s leash shorter as another couple crossed into the lot with a small dog that Tiny desperately needed to befriend. “This is the first pressure point,” he said.
“Sounds like a coach.”
“It is a coach. It’s also true.”
“I know.”
“No more unnecessary lies to him.”
I looked up. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Not everything. But don’t build a version of your life that requires you to remember ten false details.”
I hated how reasonable that was.
“I can’t tell him I was with you.”
“No.”
“Then I lied.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t punish the word. Didn’t excuse it either.
Tiny whined at the small dog disappearing into the dark. I knew the feeling.
“I’ll be more careful,” I said.
Declan looked at me then, really looked. “Careful is not the same as alone.”
My throat tightened.
There were a dozen things I wanted to say. None of them were safe in a parking lot with his wife calling and my best friend circling the truth like a puck loose in the crease.
So I nodded.
We stood there for one more second too long.
Then Declan reached down under the cover of Tiny’s massive head and brushed his knuckles once against mine. Barely a touch. Gone before anyone could clock it.
It hit harder than it should have.
“Go home,” he said.
I breathed out. “Yeah.”
“Eat something that is not cereal.”
I huffed. “You’re very anti-cereal.”
“I’m anti-you pretending cereal is dinner.”
“Fine.”
“And text Roman when you’re in.”
I looked at him.
His face didn’t change, but the instruction wasn’t about control. It was about the lie I had just told and the friend I was trying not to lose.
“Okay,” I said.
Tiny shoved his head against my thigh one last time. I scratched behind his ears, then stepped back before staying became another choice I had to answer for.
I walked to my car without looking over my shoulder until I reached the corner.
Declan was still there, one hand on Tiny’s leash, phone in the other, watching long enough to make sure I got there.
I wanted more.
More walks. More ordinary conversations. More of his voice when nobody was listening. More of the steady way he noticed the crack before I split open. More of the man outside the coach, outside the rules, outside the places where we had to pretend we were only what everyone already understood.
That was the dangerous part.
Not wanting him naked. Not anymore.
Wanting his time was worse.
Because sex could be hidden in locked rooms and deleted texts.
This, whatever this had become, was starting to leave footprints.