91. Ryan
Ryan
I stood in the doorway of the Tidal Teals locker room, leaning against the cold metal frame, watching the man I loved perform.
Jackson was in the center of the room, still in his sweat-stained gear.
He was cracking jokes about Logan’s lack of defensive awareness, high-fiving the younger rookies, and giving the hovering media crew exactly the kind of charismatic, easy-going soundbites they lived for.
To anyone else, he looked like the golden boy of Seattle hockey, the joker who never let the pressure of the game break his stride.
But I saw it. I saw the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, the way his shoulders were held a fraction too tight, and the frantic, forced energy behind every laugh.
It was a mask. It was the same kind of heavy, suffocating armor I had worn every single day in the desert, the version of yourself you present to the world so they don’t see how much you’re actually hurting inside.
A fierce, protective heat flared in my chest. Jackson had spent such a long time trying to pull me out of my own head, and now I realized he was carrying his own silent noise.
He played the clown so no one would look too closely at the man who felt entirely alone in a crowded room.
He had given me a quiet place where I didn’t have to be a soldier, and I realized in that moment that I wanted to be that same sanctuary for him.
I wanted to strip away the jersey and the performance and just let him be Jackson.
I was going to hold the line for him now, protecting the man behind the mask with everything I had.
Catching my eye, Jackson winked at me, pulling his cap on backward, sweat streaked and so fucking edible. Yeah, he knew exactly what that did to me!