Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nico
Wednesday morning, Coach pulled me aside after practice.
“Briggs. My office. Now.”
I followed him, already knowing this wasn’t going to be good.
He closed the door and didn’t bother sitting down. Just stood there with his arms crossed, jaw tight.
“What the hell is going on with you?”
“Nothing. I’m—”
“Don’t.” He cut me off. “I benched you in Utah because you were a liability out there. Last night you almost got yourself thrown out of the game fighting over a clean hit. You’re playing angry, you’re playing stupid, and I’m done being patient about it.”
“Coach—”
“I don’t care if you’re scoring goals, Briggs. You know what I care about? Discipline. Team play. Showing up with your head in the game instead of wherever the hell it’s been for the past ten days.” His voice dropped, harder. “You’re one of my best players. Act like it.”
I stood there and took it because he wasn’t wrong.
“I need you focused,” he said. “We’ve got a tough stretch coming up and I can’t have you playing on emotion. Get your head sorted out or you’re sitting fourth line until you do.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here.”
I left his office and headed to the locker room, that conversation sitting heavy in my gut. Coach wasn’t wrong. I’d been off. Distracted. Playing like half my brain was somewhere else.
Because it was.
André caught me at my stall. “You good?”
“Yeah. Coach just giving me a reality check.”
He nodded but didn’t push. “You coming tonight?”
“Coming where?”
“The annual charity dinner. Every player’s supposed to be there.” He raised an eyebrow. “You forgot?”
Shit. The charity dinner. Children’s hospital fundraiser. Black tie, press coverage, photos with donors. I’d gone every year since I joined the Lasers.
“Right. Yeah. What time?”
“Cocktails at seven, dinner at eight.” André studied my face. “You are coming, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
He clapped my shoulder and walked away, and I stood there trying to figure out how I’d completely forgotten about it.
I pulled out my phone and looked at it for a long moment.
This was the first year I could have brought someone.
Every year before, I’d walked into that ballroom alone because I had no one to bring, or at least no one I could bring without it becoming something I wasn’t ready for.
This year was different. This year I could have stood next to Evan in front of cameras, donors, and teammates and said this is my partner. This is who I am.
Except Evan couldn’t be in a room full of press cameras ten days after going viral. He couldn’t smile for photos while sports blogs were publishing his daily routine and clients were dropping him over the association. I knew that. I understood it completely.
That didn’t make it feel any less like I was going to spend three hours being publicly, visibly alone in the first year I didn’t have to be.
I typed a message and deleted it. Typed another.
Nico
Have a team thing tonight. Charity dinner. Probably won’t be done until late.
His response came a minute later.
Evan
Okay. Have fun.
I looked at those two words. Have fun. Fine with more words. That was all.
My phone buzzed again.
Evan
Actually, can you come over after? Even if it’s late?
That was the real answer. Not have fun… that.
Nico
Yeah. I’ll text you when I’m done.
Evan
Thanks.
I put my phone away and started changing out of my practice gear.
I could do this. Show up, be present, get through it.
But the exhaustion had already set in, and I hadn’t even left yet.
The afternoon passed slowly. I went home, tried to nap, and couldn’t.
I texted Evan that I was heading out. Got no response, which was fine. Which was probably fine.
I was at the hotel by six fifty-five in a suit that felt like someone else’s clothes. The dinner was exactly what I’d expected.
Hotel ballroom, round tables with white tablecloths, silent auction items along the walls. Players in suits, most with dates. Donors in black tie, eager to meet the team and write big checks.
I stood during the cocktail hour with a drink I wasn’t drinking, making conversation I didn’t care about.
André appeared at my elbow with Naomi. “You came.”
“Said I would.”
“Where’s Evan?”
The question hit like a hard check—the kind you see coming and still can’t quite brace for. “Home. This isn’t really his thing right now.”
Naomi gave me a look that said she understood more than I’d said. “Well, we’re glad you’re here.”
They drifted away. I stayed by the bar and finished my drink.
A major donor approached—one I recognized from previous years. She asked about the season, my goal total, and whether we’d make the playoffs. I gave her the answers she wanted and excused myself as soon as I could.
By the time dinner started, I was ready to leave.
I sat at a table with Fortin and Thompson and their dates, picked at food I didn’t taste, and counted down the minutes.
“You okay?” Fortin asked quietly during the main course.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“You’ve been missing beer nights,” he said. “Haven’t seen you out with the team in weeks.”
“I know. I’ve been busy.”
“With your boyfriend.”
“Yeah. With Evan.”
“He doing okay? I saw some of the stuff online. That blog post was fucked up.”
“He’s managing.”
Fortin nodded. “Just… don’t disappear on us completely, yeah? We miss you.”
My chest tightened. “I’m not disappearing.”
“Okay. Good.”
I left at ten thirty, the earliest I could without it being obvious.
Evan let me in, and I could see immediately he’d been having a bad night. His phone was face up on the coffee table, screen still lit.
“Hey,” I said.
“How was it?”
“Long.” I set my keys on the counter. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just couldn’t stop checking things.”
I crossed to the couch and sat beside him.
Pulled him against me without saying anything, and he came willingly, tucking himself into my side.
His breathing slowed almost immediately.
His hand found my knee. This, the way he fit against me, the way his body trusted mine even when everything else between us was complicated, this still worked.
His breathing slowed. His body relaxed. And for a moment, it felt like we were okay.
A few minutes passed. Maybe more.
“Did other people bring dates?” he asked quietly.
“Most of them. Yeah.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. You could have brought someone this year. Everyone else had their person there. And you were alone because of me.”
“I’m used to going to those things alone.”
I heard it as I said it. That wasn’t honest.
“But you didn’t have to be alone this year.” He pulled back slightly to look at me. “You could have brought me. Except you couldn’t. Because I can’t handle a public event right now without falling apart.”
I didn’t say anything. Because he was right. I understood why he couldn’t go, but that didn’t make it feel any less like we were already losing things I’d only just gotten.
“It’s one event,” I said. It came out the way fine came out. Technically true, emotionally nowhere near the whole story.
“It’s not just one event. It’s everything. I can’t go to your games. I can’t go to team dinners. A woman recognized me at the grocery store and I ran to my car.” He looked at me. “How am I supposed to stand next to you in public? What kind of relationship is that?”
“The kind we’re figuring out.”
“Are we? Because it feels like we’re just surviving. Barely.”
I held him tighter, but I didn’t say we’ll figure it out. I’d said that too many times already, and we both knew it wasn’t landing as a promise anymore. It was landing as a way of ending the conversation.
We sat there for a moment in the quiet.
“Have you thought any more about Wesley?” I asked. Not pushing, just asking.
“Yeah.” He nodded against my chest. “I looked him up. Read some interviews he did after Griffin came out. About what the first few months were like for him.” A pause. “He’s not Ryan’s team.”
“No.”
“I know that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not ready yet. But I’m getting closer.”
I nodded and let it sit. Didn’t tell him it was a good idea, didn’t ask when. Just let it be what it was… Evan moving toward something in his own time, which was the only way he ever moved toward anything.
So instead, I just held him, and he let me. We stayed like that while neither one of us said the thing we were both thinking—that we were losing ground faster than we were gaining it and neither of us knew what to do about that.
We moved to his bedroom eventually. We tried. Kissed, touched, went through the familiar motions. But we couldn’t get there. Not really. We made each other come, but it felt empty. When it was over, we lay in the dark, and neither of us spoke.
There wasn’t anything to say that we hadn’t already been not-saying for almost two weeks.
I don’t know when I fell asleep. When my alarm went off at seven, Evan was still beside me, breathing slow and even. I lay there for a moment, just looking at him before I got up. I kissed him goodbye while he was still asleep and quietly let myself out.
Driving to the rink, I kept coming back to the same thing—not what we’d said or hadn’t said, but what had been missing when we’d reached for each other. The feeling of being in the same bed as someone you were losing and not knowing how to stop it.