Chapter 38 - Nate
After that night at the farm with Dad, I only went back to my penthouse once to grab some of my things.
I drive into the city when I have to. I show up for practice, for games, for meetings.
I do my job. I lead the room. I answer the questions.
I wear the suit. I smile in ways that feel like old muscle memory.
And then the second, I can get away... I drive home.
The rhythm finds me before I mean for it to.
I put my head down and work. No chirping, no bullshit. Reeves watches me like he’s waiting for me to explode again. I don’t. I just skate harder and keep my voice level when I talk in huddles.
In the locker room, PR hovers with their folders and their bright, eager eyes.
“We’ve got a couple of follow-ups on the...”
“No Tessa questions,” I say, calm but sharp enough that they hear how serious I am. “No Tessa segments. You want me, you get me. You bring her into it, you lose me.”
“Nate, the fans...”
“I said no.” I meet her eyes. “She’s off limits.”
They’re not used to me saying no. They’re used to me letting them spin my life like a highlight reel. But something in my tone must be a warning, because she presses her lips together and nods.
“For now,” she says. “We’ll… pivot.”
For now, is the best I can get. I know that. I take it and walk. Coach doesn’t push. He just squeezes my shoulder once on the way past and says, “Good practice, Carson.”
I catch the subtext.
Keep it together, we need you.
I nod and take the weight. It’s familiar. The only difference is I’m not letting it swallow me whole this time.
When practice is over, the boys peel off to their condos, the bars, the restaurants that know their orders by heart. I drive west.
The land starts to open up the further I get from Summit City, city lights fading to highway signs, then nothing but fields and dark, sleeping farmhouses.
By the time the Carson farm appears on the horizon, my shoulders have dropped two inches.
Mom has a crockpot going most nights now that I’m here. She pretends she’s not thrilled I keep showing up, but she makes enough food for an army, and I’m not stupid.
She slides a plate in front of me without asking what my plans are.
“Your dad’s in the north pasture,” she says. “Fence needs work again. The weather is working it hard.”
I don’t say anything, but I put my dish in the sink when I’m done and head out.
Dad doesn’t look surprised when he sees me climbing over the fence line with a tool bucket in hand, but Eli does. We have barely talked, and I don't know whether he is just giving me space or if he heard what happened with Tessa and is pissed.
“You know how to use those?” Dad calls.
I roll my eyes. “You taught me, didn’t you?”
“Seems like you forgot a lot of what I taught you lately,” he says mildly.
“Yeah,” I say. “Trying to fix that.”
We fall into the work. It’s simple in the way nothing in my life has been for years. Pull, hammer, staple, step back. Move down. Repeat. By the time the sun drops low, my arms ache from something that isn’t the gym. My lungs feel cleaner. My head is quieter.
And somehow, even with sweat on my neck and mud on my jeans, I feel more myself than I have in a long time.
The first big snowstorm of January hits hard, blowing in off the mountains and dumping white across the valley.
Mom frowns at the weather report. “Road will be a mess.”
I stand at the window in my parents’ kitchen, watching the flakes swirl, and all I can think is:
She lives out there. Alone.
I don’t let myself overthink it; I grab my keys.
Dad looks over from the kitchen table, one brow raised. “You going to the city?”
“No,” I say. “I’m going to Hawthorne Ridge.”
He studies me for a beat, then nods. “Take the truck. Better in this weather.”
I switch keys and drive slowly. The closer I get to her property, the more the snow thickens. Her long drive is buried, drifted over, the ruts completely hidden.
I pull onto the shoulder, put the truck in park, and just sit for a second, engine ticking.
I promised her I’d give her space. This isn’t breaking that. I’m not going to the door. I’m not asking for anything. I just… can’t stand the idea of her truck sliding off this icy hell and no one knowing until morning.
I throw the truck in four-wheel and ease into her drive, following instinct more than sight. When I get close enough to see the line of her porch, I stop and kill the engine.
I move efficiently, finding her shovel and salt, and getting to work. It takes over two hours to clear enough that she could get out in an emergency. My cheeks burn from the cold, breath puffing out in hard white clouds. Snow soaks into my jeans. My fingers go numb.
I don’t knock, I don’t text. I don’t even look up at her windows.
I just stand at the bottom of her steps for a second, shovel hanging in my hand, and let the quiet sit in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, even though she’s not there to hear it. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Then I drive away.
I do it again the next storm.
Sometimes I fix little things when I’m there, and she’s not looking.
It’s the first time in a long time I've done things for someone, knowing they might never know I did. It feels… right.
Terrible in what that says about me... But right.
The shelters come next.
It happens by accident. Or maybe not. Maybe the universe is nudging me like it’s been trying to do for months.
One afternoon after a game, Coach mentions they got a request from the downtown shelter for some gear. It’s the kind of thing that usually goes straight to PR to spin into a feel-good segment. This time, I catch it before it gets there.
“I’ll take it,” I say.
Coach glances up. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Just… don’t bring a camera crew.”
His eyes linger on my face, something like approval softening his usual gruffness. “All right, Carson. I’ll tell ’em it’s off the books.”
I drive over after dark with a couple of boxes in the back of my truck. Hood up, hat low, no team jacket. Just sweats and an old coat that smells faintly like the barn.
A woman at the desk recognizes me anyway, but she doesn’t make a thing of it. Just gives a small smile, eyes tired but kind.
“You’re taller in person,” she observes.
“People keep saying that,” I laugh.
We unload together. Gloves, hats, socks, and winter jackets. There’s a kid sitting in the corner with a battered hockey stick, watching a muted game on the old TV mounted to the wall. He doesn’t realize who I am until I’m standing right beside him.
His eyes go wide. “You’re...”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “You play?”
He shrugs, like he doesn’t want to care, like caring hurts. “When I can.”
We talk for ten minutes about stickhandling and edge work, about how to get more power out of a shot even when the stick you’re using is half-splintered and three inches too short.
I show him how to re-tape the blade. He shows me the scar on his chin from his first fall on the ice.
On my way out, the woman at the desk touches my sleeve.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “we see more of who people are in places like this than on TV.”
I don’t know what to do with that. So I nod, say thank you, and leave. When I get to my truck, something in me settles. I call my financial planner and make a few requests, a few changes.
A week later, I’m at a rural free clinic day out near Hawthorne Ridge, the kind Tessa volunteers for when she can. They needed extra unskilled hands to carry supplies, set up stalls, and keep the kids occupied while their parents talked to the vet.
I show up without telling anyone I’m coming. For a few hours, I’m not Captain Carson. I’m just Nate, the guy holding the back end of a wary dog while he gets a shot or distracting a kid with questions about their favourite animal so they don’t freak out when the needle appears.
One of the vets, Dr. King, who I know works with Tessa, watches me for a minute and then says, “She’d be proud of you, you know.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know about that.”
“You’re here aren’t you?” he shrugs. “You’re trying. That counts for something.”
The letters start because I can’t keep it all in my head anymore without something cracking.
It’s late, the house is asleep, and the only light is coming from over the kitchen sink. My mind is too restless for sleep, and my brain won’t shut up. I find myself at the table with a pen and a stack of yellow notepads that my mom keeps for grocery lists.
I stare at the blank paper until my throat aches.
Then I write:
Tess,
You once told me I talk around the hard things until you pull them out of me.
I don’t have you here to do that anymore, so I’m going to try on my own.
I’m not sending this. I don’t think you’d want to read it right now. But I need you to know, even if it’s just ink on paper in a drawer, that I see what I did. That I see you more clearly now than I did when I had you.
The words come slowly at first, clumsy. Then they start to spill.
I write about the night at the gala. About the way, I ignored every warning sign because I was too scared to face the truth, and I let fear turn me into someone I didn’t recognize.
I don’t ask for forgiveness.
I don’t try to justify anything.
I just… lay it out.
The parts I’m ashamed of.
The parts I never wanted to look at.
When I’m done, my hand cramps, and there are tear stains on the paper. I fold the letter and put it in an old shoebox in my closet.
The next night, I write another.
About the farm, how I see her in every corner of it now, about the stupid, sharp ache in my chest when I pass the stall she likes best or the fence post she leaned on that day she told me I was more than what the world saw.
The box fills slowly.
I don’t know if she’ll ever read them.
I don’t write them for that.
I write them so that if she ever asks, “Do you understand what you did?” I can honestly say, “Yes.” And if she never asks, I’ll still know I did the work of facing myself.
The vision keeps coming back.