Chapter 14 #2
I leaned into him, the adrenaline leaving me hollowed out and tired. “Thank you. For not pretending it’s simple.”
“It’s not simple,” he said. “But it’s worth it.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “We’ll figure it out.”
We moved to the couch, and I sat with his arm around me while my heart rate slowly returned to normal.
But the fear didn’t go away. Nico had chosen this, and I believed him. What I didn’t know yet was whether I could let something good just be good without bracing for the other shoe to drop.
That was the part that kept me up that night, long after Nico had gone home.
Wednesday evening, I was back on my couch watching San Jose play Pittsburgh.
The game was close, back and forth, neither team able to pull away. San Jose scored first; Pittsburgh tied it up. Nico assisted on a goal in the second period with something the commentators called “a high-risk cross ice pass.”
But Pittsburgh fought back. They scored twice in the third period, and despite San Jose’s best efforts, the final score was 3–2 Pittsburgh.
A loss.
My phone rang twenty minutes later.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey.” Nico’s voice was rough, exhausted. “You watched?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about the loss.”
“We should have won that one. Too many mistakes.” He launched into a detailed analysis of missed opportunities and defensive breakdowns, and I just listened.
“Want to come over?” I asked when he’d run out of steam.
“No. I’m exhausted and I have early skate tomorrow. I’d be terrible company.”
“You’re never terrible company.”
“Sweet of you to say, but I’d probably just fall asleep on your couch.” He sighed. “Rain check for Friday?”
“Of course.”
A pause. “Actually… come to my place Friday. I want you to see it.”
I went still. His place. We’d always been at mine. “Okay,” I said. “Yeah.”
“Bring a bag,” he said. “If you want.”
“Okay.”
“Text me tomorrow?”
“Always.”
Thursday was a disaster from start to finish.
I had a client presentation at ten that I should have been prepared for, but when I opened my laptop that morning, I realized I’d barely looked at the material. Too busy thinking about Nico, about the fan at the yogurt shop, about Evan Hunter and everything that name could still cost us.
The presentation went poorly. The client asked questions I couldn’t answer, pointed out inconsistencies I should have caught, and by the end of the call, I could tell they were disappointed.
After they hung up, I sat at my desk and stared at my computer screen.
I was losing focus. Letting my work suffer.
And my work wasn’t just a job—it was the thing I’d built when everything else had been taken from me.
The consulting firm, the clients, the professional reputation I’d constructed under a new name in a new city specifically so Ryan Pierce’s fallout couldn’t follow me here.
If my name ended up in the news again—if someone connected Evan Hunter to Nicolás Briggs and the story got out—these clients would be reading about it.
Some of them would leave. I didn’t need to guess.
I’d seen what happened when my name went public last time, and that was before I had a business with my reputation attached to it.
I opened my private Instagram account, telling myself I was just taking a break. But somehow I ended up on Nico’s profile.
Seven hundred and fifty-three thousand followers.
The most recent post was from two days ago, with a photo of him on the ice during warmups, stick in hand, looking focused and intense. The caption was simple: Game day.
The comments, though.
Marry me
Hottest player in the NHL hands down
Single? Asking for a friend
I would let this man ruin my life
Hundreds of comments. Thousands of likes. People thirsty for him, flirting openly, treating him like he was available.
To them, he was. He was closeted, and I wasn’t ready for any of this to be public, and so to seven hundred and fifty-three thousand people Nicolás Briggs was single, fair game, and whatever they wanted him to be.
I scrolled through more comments, my stomach twisting tighter with each one.
Can’t believe he’s still single
Whoever ends up with him is the luckiest woman alive
He could have anyone he wanted
That last one stuck.
He could have anyone he wanted. Someone who could walk into a frozen yogurt shop without their hands shaking when a fan walked over. Someone whose past didn’t make them a liability. Someone who wasn’t carrying three years of Ryan Pierce’s damage into every public moment.
Someone who wasn’t me.
I closed the app and tried to get back to work, but I kept thinking about the fan in the yogurt shop.
The way his eyes had flicked to me, quick and assessing, before he went back to his table and started typing.
I knew what that look meant. I’d been on the receiving end of it enough times to recognize it.
One curious glance, one search, one connection, and the whole thing unraveled.
And when it did—not if, when, because I’d stopped believing in if a long time ago—it wouldn’t just be my life it dismantled.
It would be Nico’s too. His career, his coming out on his own terms, everything he’d been protecting for fourteen years.
One person who recognized Evan Hunter standing next to Nicolás Briggs, and all of it would be gone.
I forced myself to focus on work for the rest of the afternoon.
But the fear didn’t go away. My past wouldn’t stay in the past; it was just waiting to be found. And when it was, I already knew what it would cost.
Friday evening, I stood outside Nico’s house with an overnight bag and a knot in my stomach.
The house was a two-story Craftsman, newer construction with clean lines and expansive windows glowing with warm light.
The front yard was landscaped simply with low-maintenance plants and a wide walkway leading to the front door.
Everything about it said, “someone with money but not much time to maintain a house.”
I knocked, and Nico opened the door almost immediately.
“Hey,” he said, smiling. “Come in.”
I stepped inside and took in the formal living room: hardwood floors, modern furniture that looked barely used, everything clean and impersonal. Like a showroom.
“I never use this room,” Nico said, following my gaze. “Come on back.”
He led me past the formal dining room—same energy, nice furniture that clearly never saw actual meals—and into the open-concept kitchen and family room at the back of the house.
This was different.
The family room had a large leather sectional, a massive TV mounted on the wall, and windows overlooking a small back yard and a park beyond the fence. But what caught my attention was the walls.
Jerseys.
Everywhere.
Signed jerseys in frames, carefully mounted. Players I’d never heard of, though the signatures and the way they were displayed suggested they were important.
“Let me take your bag,” Nico said, reaching for my duffel.
While he disappeared up the stairs, I walked around the family room, examining everything more closely.
Trophies on shelves, lined up haphazardly—some small, some larger, all gathering a thin layer of dust. A pair of hand weights abandoned in the corner of the room, like he’d been using them and hadn’t bothered putting them away. A signed hockey stick leaning against the wall by the fireplace.
And one framed jersey that stood out from the rest: brIGGS 17. The frame was nicer. This one clearly meant something personal.
“That’s from my first All-Star game,” Nico said from behind me. “My mom insisted I frame it.”
I turned to look at him. “This is your life.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” I gestured around the room. “The jerseys, the trophies, the weights in the corner. Hockey isn’t just what you do. It’s who you are. It’s everywhere.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. It’s just… seeing it like this makes it real.” I took in the wall of signed jerseys, names that clearly mattered to him. “You’re not just a guy who plays hockey. You’re Nicolás Briggs. Number seventeen. An All-Star. Part of this whole world I don’t understand.”
“I’m also just Nico. The guy who leaves hand weights in the corner and can’t be bothered to organize his trophies properly.”
I laughed despite myself. “I noticed that.”
“My mom hates it. She’s threatened to organize everything herself at least a dozen times.”
“Why don’t you let her?”
“Because then I wouldn’t be able to find anything.” He grinned. “This chaos makes sense to me.”
“Good to know you’re human.”
“Very human. And very hungry. Want to order something?”
We ended up getting gourmet burgers delivered, eating them at his kitchen island while he told me about practice and I told him about my terrible client presentation.
“They weren’t happy with my work,” I admitted. “And they had every right not to be. I wasn’t prepared.”
“That’s not like you.”
“I know.” I pushed a fry around in the puddle of ketchup on my plate. “I’ve been distracted lately.”
“By what?”
By you. By wondering if I’m enough. By the fear that being with you could cost me the life I spent three years rebuilding.
“Just… stuff,” I said instead.
Nico studied me for a moment, and I could tell he knew I wasn’t being entirely honest. But he didn’t push.
“I want you to come to a game,” Nico said. “Not now, not if you’re not ready. But I want you there. Someday.”
I looked at him. A game meant the arena, the crowd, the cameras. It meant being in Nico’s world in the most visible way possible.
“After Vegas,” I said. “When you get back.”