Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
Practice was brutal in the best way. Coach had us running drills until my legs burned and my lungs screamed for mercy.
Drew and I were still finding our rhythm again.
We’d talked. We’d agreed to move forward.
But there was a stiffness to our interactions that hadn’t been there before—a carefulness that felt unnatural after a lifetime of easy friendship.
We’d always been in sync on the ice, but not since our fight.
We could still play smoothly enough to be efficient, but it wasn’t the same effortlessness we’d always had.
He’d forgiven me for keeping my relationship with Ava a secret, but it was clear he also still didn’t completely trust that I wouldn’t break her heart.
Which was fair.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure either.
I was sure about her. But I was the one who had a lot to prove.
“Good work today,” Coach said as we filed off the ice. “Take tomorrow off. Rest up for the games this weekend.”
The locker room was loud with the usual post-practice energy—guys chirping each other, while someone played some music on their phone. I sat on the bench in front of the locker I always used, and started unlacing my skates while watching the underclassmen goofing off.
For the first time in months, I felt at peace.
Ava and I were official. Drew knew the truth and hadn’t murdered me, and the secrecy that had been slowly poisoning everything was finally gone.
If this was my new normal, I couldn’t really complain.
I grabbed my phone from my bag, expecting a text from Ava. She’d been sending me random messages throughout the day—a meme she thought I’d like, a complaint about her study group, or a selfie of her making a face at her textbook that had made me laugh out loud in the middle of lunch.
I loved that she texted me so frequently now. I loved even more that we didn’t have to hide it anymore.
But the notification on my screen wasn’t from Ava.
Dad
I’ll be in town next week. I’ve made reservations at Summit Hills in Missoula for Wednesday at 7pm. See you there.
The peace I’d been feeling shattered like ice.
I stared at the message, my thumb hovering over the screen as my stomach dropped through the floor.
The locker room noise faded to white static.
All I could see were those words, the clear demand in them despite the fact he’d been radio silent for months—which really wasn’t all that different from how he’d been my entire childhood.
See you there.
That was just like my dad. He didn’t ask. He demanded. I guess I should be grateful he picked a time when I didn’t have a game to play. But my stomach was still in knots. It was never a good thing when he came to town.
Men as handsome as us have responsibilities to never settle down.
His voice echoed in my head, that casual cruelty he’d dressed up as father-son bonding.
All those years of hearing my mother cry herself to sleep, of lying awake listening to her pray for him to change, of hoping that maybe this time he’d stay—and he’d had the audacity to make it sound like infidelity was my birthright.
“You good, Liam?”
I looked up to find Gordy watching me, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he clapped me on the back and then headed for the showers.
I shoved my phone in my bag without responding to the message. I couldn’t think about it right now. Couldn’t process what seeing him would do to me, not when I’d just started to believe I could be something other than what he’d made me.
I needed Ava.
Twenty minutes later, I was knocking on her apartment door.
Sydney answered, took one look at my face, and stepped aside without a word. “She’s in her room studying.”
“Thanks.”
I found Ava curled up on her bed, surrounded by textbooks and highlighters, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She looked up when I walked in, and her face shifted from concentration to concern in an instant.
“Li? What’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t was more like it. My thoughts were a spiraling mess.
Instead of answering, I crossed the room and crawled onto the bed, displacing notebooks and loose papers as I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.
“Liam—”
“Just…can I just hold you for a minute?”
She went still, then her arms came around me, one hand sliding up to the back of my neck. “Of course.”
I buried my face in the curve of her shoulder and breathed her in—her vanilla-cinnamon scent instantly soothing me. The tension in my chest loosened, just a fraction. Just enough that I could think again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
“No.” The word came out muffled against her skin. “Not yet. I just…I needed to see you.”
She didn’t push. Didn’t demand an explanation or try to fix whatever was broken. She just held me, her fingers tracing slow patterns across my shoulders, and let me hold her. Right now, it felt like she was the only thing anchoring me to the world.
We shifted after a while, rearranging ourselves until I was lying with my head in her lap while she sat propped against her headboard. Her textbook was balanced on the bed beside us, momentarily forgotten, and her fingers worked through my hair in slow, soothing strokes.
I should’ve felt ridiculous—a guy my size, with my head in her lap like a kid seeking comfort. But I didn’t. I felt safe in a way I hadn’t felt since I was too young to know who my father really was.
“Your hair’s getting long,” she murmured, her nails scraping lightly against my scalp.
“You complaining?”
“No.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I like having something to hold on to.”
Despite everything, that made me grin. “Noted.” It wasn’t that long, but I’d let the top grow a little longer than usual.
She tugged gently in mock reprimand, and I closed my eyes, letting the sensation wash over me. Her fingers. Her warmth. The quiet intimacy of this moment that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with something deeper.
I could marry this girl.
The thought hit me like a blindside check, stealing the air from my lungs. I went rigid, my eyes snapping open as the realization ricocheted through me.
I could marry this girl.
Not someday, in the distant, abstract way people talked about marriage.
Not as a possibility to be considered years down the road.
I could see it—wanted it—with a clarity that terrified me.
Coming home to her every night. Waking up beside her every morning.
Building a life together, a family, the kind of stability I’d never had growing up.
I wanted all of it.
And that wanting was the most dangerous thing I’d ever felt.
Because it made me wonder if my father had ever felt this way about my mother. Before he’d destroyed her piece by piece with his wandering eye and his broken promises. Before he’d proven that wanting something didn’t mean you were capable of keeping it.
Men as handsome as us have responsibilities to never settle down.
What if he was right? What if this feeling in my chest—this desperate, consuming love—was just the first step toward becoming everything I’d sworn I’d never be?
“Hey.” Ava’s voice pulled me back. Her fingers had stilled in my hair, and when I looked up, her eyes were searching my face. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
She didn’t call me on it, but I could see she didn’t believe me. That was the thing about Ava—she always saw through my bullshit, even when we were kids.
“I love you,” I said instead of explaining. The words came out rough, almost desperate. “You know that, right?”
Her expression softened, some of the worry easing from her features. “I know. I love you too.”
I reached up to cup her face, pulling her down for a kiss that was more about reassurance than passion. Her lips were soft against mine, gentle, and when we broke apart, she pressed her forehead to mine.
“Whatever’s going on in that head of yours,” she whispered, “you can tell me. When you’re ready.”
“I know.” And I did know. Ava wouldn’t judge me. She wouldn’t run. She’d stay, the way she always stayed, even when I’d given her every reason not to.
I’d never feared her running from me.
It was the other way around that made me break out in a cold sweat.
But I wasn’t ready to voice the fear that was clawing at my insides. Wasn’t ready to admit that my father’s shadow still loomed over everything, even now. Even when I was lying in the arms of the woman I loved.
The woman I could marry.
The thought circled back, persistent and terrifying.
I settled my head back in her lap, and after a moment, her fingers resumed their path through my hair. She picked up her textbook with her free hand, returning to her studying like having a six-foot-three hockey player sprawled across her bed with his head in her lap was perfectly normal.
Ava’s fingers found a particularly good spot at the base of my skull, and I let out a low sound of contentment that made her laugh.
“Like a big cat,” she teased.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I cracked one eye open. “Don’t tempt me, Sunshine. I’m trying to let you study.”
“How noble of you.”
But she was smiling, and the sight of it loosened the panic in my chest. This was real. We were real. Whatever ghosts haunted me, whatever demons my father had planted in my head, they couldn’t take this away.
I wouldn’t let them.
I hoped.