Chapter 11 #2
“If this goes public,” Wesley said. “And you need help managing the media—crafting statements, handling public attention, protecting his privacy as much as possible—I’m happy to help. That’s what I do.”
“Really?”
“Really. You shouldn’t have to navigate that alone.”
I nodded. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
We stood, and Griffin pulled me into a one-armed bro hug. “You’re going to be okay. Both of you.”
“I hope so.”
“And hey,” Wesley added. “For what it’s worth? The fact that you’re this worried about protecting him tells me you’re nothing like his ex.”
Griffin’s grip tightened before he let go. “One more thing.”
“What?”
“We’re going to destroy you tonight.”
I left the coffee shop chuckling.
Back in my room, I pulled out my phone.
Nico
Just got back from Beaverton. Met with Griffin and his boyfriend, Wesley Hutton.
Nico
Wesley’s the PR manager for the Portland Stormhawks.
Evan
You met Griffin Lapierre?
Nico
First time in person and not on the ice.
Evan
How was it?
Nico
Good. They’ve been through the public side of this and came out of it intact. Wesley offered to help if it ever goes that way for us.
Evan
The PR manager boyfriend.
Nico
He knows what he’s doing. I believe him.
Evan
That’s good to know.
Nico
They asked how you were doing with all of it. I told them you were scared and trying anyway.
Evan
Accurate.
Nico
Wesley said the fact that I gave you the choice, told you everything and let you decide, is what makes this different from before.
A longer pause than usual.
Evan
He’s not wrong.
Nico
Get some rest. You have a game tonight.
Evan
You have a game tonight. I have a couch and a television and a game to watch I don’t entirely understand.
Nico
Cheer loud.
Evan
No promises.
I set my phone down with a smile. I tried to nap before the pre-game meal, but my mind wouldn’t settle. Instead, I lay there thinking about Evan, about Griffin and Wesley, about how maybe this could actually work.
The game was brutal from the drop of the puck.
Portland was fast and physical, and Griffin was everywhere, a player who made you feel his presence on every shift, whether he had the puck or not.
I matched up against him twice in the second period and came away with nothing both times, which was infuriating in the way that only a genuinely good player could be infuriating.
He scored in the third. A clean shot from the left circle that our goalie never had a chance at. I watched it go in from the bench and felt the loss settle in my chest before the red light finished flashing.
Final score: Stormhawks 3, Lasers 1.
The locker room afterward was quiet in the way that meant everyone was thinking the same thing and nobody wanted to say it first. Coach said it for them with a short, pointed speech that covered exactly what had gone wrong and used enough profanity to make Fortin wince.
Then we were left to shower and change in the silence that follows a game you know you should have won.
I was back in my hotel room by eleven. I sat on the edge of the bed and called Evan.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Hey.” His voice was warm. No mention of the score, no pointed pause, just… there, and glad to hear from me.
“Hey.” I leaned back against the headboard. “Did you watch?”
“I watched.” A pause. “Griffin Lapierre is very good.”
“He’s frustrating,” I said. “Genuinely frustrating. You’d think after eight years I’d have figured out how to read him. I haven’t.”
“He seemed nice when you met him today.”
“He is nice. Off the ice.” I rubbed my face. “On the ice he’s a problem.”
Evan laughed, quiet and genuine, and made me feel like I was in the room with him. “I’m sorry you lost.”
“We needed that win.” I stared at the ceiling. “Seattle tomorrow has to be different.”
“It will be.” He said it simply, not as empty reassurance but as a statement of fact, like he’d already decided. “You were the best one out there tonight, I could tell, even not knowing what I was looking at.”
I closed my eyes. “You’re biased.”
“Extremely,” he agreed. “Doesn’t make it less true.”
We were quiet for a moment. The comfortable kind. Just his breathing on the other end of the line and the silence of someone who didn’t feel the need to fill it.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Anything.”
“Your tattoo… I think you gave me the explanation you give everyone. I want the real one.”
I smiled at the ceiling. “The real one is embarrassing.”
“Good. Tell me anyway.”
I shifted against the headboard, getting comfortable.
“I got it the day after I signed my big contract with the Lasers. Not a week after, not when things settled down, the literal next day. I was twenty-five and I’d just gotten everything I’d worked for my entire life.
I sat in my apartment that afternoon and realized I was terrified. ”
“Of what?”
“Of doing exactly what I’d been doing. Making it to the top and still living like I was nobody. Hiding. Going through the motions of a life without actually living any of it.” I took a deep breath. “So I decided to get the tattoo. As a reminder. One life, and I was wasting mine.”
“That’s not embarrassing,” Evan said. “That’s—”
“I’m getting to the embarrassing part.”
“Mmhm.”
“Miguel came with me. We drove to this tattoo shop downtown, nothing fancy, just a place André recommended, and I was acting very cool about the whole thing. Very unbothered. Very ‘I do this all the time.’”
“You were terrified.”
“I was terrified,” I confirmed. “I’m scared of needles.”
He gasped, then chuckled. “Oh no.”
“The needle touched my skin and I felt the blood drain from my face. Miguel looked at me and said, and I quote, ‘Are you going to pass out?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not, I’m fine,’ and then I nearly passed out.”
Evan laughed—a real one, the kind I could feel through the phone.
“The artist had to stop. Miguel had to go find orange juice from a market down the street. I had to put my head between my knees in a tattoo chair while my younger brother told me to breathe.” I shook my head. “He never let me forget it. He still brings it up at Christmas.”
“You got a tattoo about living while being afraid of a needle,” Evan said.
“The irony was not lost on me.”
“What changed?” His voice had shifted—still warm, but quieter. Genuinely asking.
“I watched other people do it,” I said. “Griffin. Marco Morelli and étienne Savard. They were living, actually living, and I was still sitting in my house being careful.” I paused.
“I’d had the tattoo for five years and I was still doing exactly what it told me not to do. Half a life. Just the hockey half.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m calling you from a hotel room in Portland after a loss, and it’s the best part of my day.” I said it simply because it was simple. “That’s new.”
The silence that followed was the warm kind.
We talked for another hour, about nothing and everything, the way we’d learned to do. At some point I stopped thinking about the loss and started thinking about Thursday, and by the time we said good night I was almost looking forward to Seattle.
Almost.
Seattle was colder than Portland and considerably louder. The arena held more people, every seat was occupied, and by the second period the noise had reached the kind of level that reverberated through your chest.
I scored in the second.
It wasn’t a complicated goal. It was a rebound off the right post that I was in position for because I’d been watching their goalie favor his left side since the first period.
I put it top shelf, the red light lit, and the crowd noise dropped.
My teammates were on me before I’d fully processed what had happened.
In the middle of the pile, with Fortin’s arm around my shoulders and Thompson shouting something that got lost in the noise, I thought about Evan.
Not in words. Just warmth—the kind that makes you want to share every good thing with one specific person.
He was in his apartment watching. I’d just scored, and I wanted him to know it was partly his.
We won 4–1. The locker room was the exact opposite of Portland: loud and loose. Coach allowed himself a grim smile that was as close to celebration as he got.
I was back in my hotel room by eleven thirty.
Nico
4–1. We’re coming home winners.
The response came in thirty seconds.
Evan
I know. I watched. I cheered.
Nico
You cheered?
Evan
Alone in my apartment. I may have frightened my neighbors.
I sat on the edge of the hotel bed and felt my chest soften.
Nico
Evan Beckett. Cheering alone in his apartment.
Evan
Don’t make it weird.
Nico
It’s not weird. It’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.
Evan
You scored. I had to do something.
Nico
I thought about you. When I scored.
A pause. Longer than his usual response time.
Evan
Get some sleep. You have a flight tomorrow.
Evan
I’ll see you Thursday.
Thursday could not come fast enough.
The flight home was louder than the flight out.
A win did that, even when you’d split the trip.
You took what you could get. Thompson had his Switch out and was deep into trying to beat his high score.
Fortin was asleep before we hit cruising altitude.
André sat beside me and didn’t talk much, which was its own kind of comfortable.
I texted Evan when we landed.
Nico
On the ground. See you in an hour.
Evan
I’ll be here.
I drove home, showered in eight minutes, and pulled into Evan’s parking garage before the hour was up.
I stood at the keypad beside the elevator. The roadie had been two days. It had felt like two weeks.
I pressed Evan’s apartment number.