Chapter 43 - Nate
I’ve been waking before dawn for weeks now, long before the farm stirs, long before the first tractor engine grumbles awake.
There’s something about the cold that steadies me.
The way my breath ghosts out in front of me.
The way the sky is still dark and quiet, like the world hasn’t made up its mind yet. It matches how I’ve been feeling.
But today… something’s different. There’s a pulse under everything. A quiet, electric hum threads through my ribs. Not peace, exactly, but momentum. A sense that the ground is finally shifting in the right direction.
I shower, pull on jeans and layer a flannel over an old long-sleeve thermal, then head downstairs.
My mom is at the counter, slicing bread for toast, her homemade loaf, the kind she only makes in winter. My dad is at the table with the paper and a mug of coffee big enough to double as a soup bowl. Eli’s jacket is slung over a chair from when he came in after chores.
It smells like butter and the wood stove. It smells like my childhood. It smells like the version of me I left behind.
My dad glances up. “You’re up early.”
He studies me, eyes narrowing slightly. My mom turns, sensing something in the air.
“You okay?” she asks, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
And for once, the answer isn’t I don’t know, or I’m fine.
“I will be,” I say.
My mom nods, slow and soft, like she’s been waiting to hear that exact sentence. “Good.”
I pour coffee, wrap my hands around the mug, and stare at the rising steam.
Because today is the day I tie up every loose end.
Today is the day I finally step into the version of myself I’ve been clawing my way toward since the night everything broke.
And tonight…
tonight I’m going to Tessa.
Tonight she’ll hear everything.
Before I leave, I call my agent. He freaks out, obviously. I have never deluded myself into thinking we were friends. I know his whole job is around me, making money so he can make money.
“You’re WHAT? Nate... Jesus Christ, you can’t just...”
“I can. I’m not asking,” I tell him. “I’m telling you. After this season, I’m done.”
I call my financial planner next. She’s calm, almost relieved. It surprises the hell out of me.
“You’ve been burning the candle at both ends for years, Nate. You have more than enough to walk away. I’ll send new projections today.”
"And everything we talked about?" I ask.
"It is all in motion, Nate, exactly as you requested."
I hang up and breathe for a second. I feel it, another layer sheds... Another part of the weight on my chest goes with it.
Next, I message the guys:
Me: Selling the penthouse.
Me: If any of you want it before I list it, let me know.
McKenna: ???
Jensen: ???
Anders: WHAT???
I ignore it for now, because none of the logistics matter yet.
Not until it's all done and I've told her everything. I gather the letters I’ve written to her, pages and pages of truth I didn’t have the courage to say out loud and tuck them into my duffel, next to the t-shirt she used to sleep in, and I couldn't give back.
Then… I call her.
The second the first ring goes through the speaker; I hold my breath.
She answers softly, breathily, like she’s been debating whether she should. “Hello.”
My chest goes tight.
“Tess,” I breathe. “Hey.”
I can hear her woosh of breath through the line, and I can only hope it is because she feels the same about hearing my voice, that she misses me, too.
“Hi, Nate.”
God, I missed her. Missed hearing my name from her full lips.
“I, uh... I need to tell you something.” My voice comes out lower than I expect.
Another pause, another deep breath and then softer, “Me too.”
Those two words spark something inside me. “Can I come to you?” I ask. “Tonight?”
She hesitates just long enough to cause my heart rate to escalate, and then, with a tone that makes me feel like she is smiling, she says, “Yes.”
I swallow hard, nodding even though she can’t see me.
“I have practice and a quick meeting to deal with at the arena,” I say. “I’ll come straight after.”
“Okay.”
“Tess?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be there tonight. No matter what.”
She’s quiet for a beat. “I’ll be here waiting for you,” she finally whispers.
The call ends, and I sit on the edge of my bed and press the phone to my chest, eyes burning.
Tonight.
Tonight, everything changes.
Practice is a blur; I go through the motions, skates, drills, plays. Reeves watches me like he knows something’s different but doesn’t know whether to trust it. To question it.
I don’t say anything, not yet. I will once I give the team my notice, once I tell Tessa, we can have the guys over and tell them together.
After practice, I shower, pull on jeans and a hoodie, and head upstairs to the executive floor.
The GM’s assistant barely looks at me as she opens the door. Ray Decker sits at the far end of the long table, flipping through a stack of papers with that smug half-smile he always wears when he thinks he’s already won.
“Carson,” he says. “Didn’t expect you until next week.”
“Won’t take long,” I say, sitting across from him.
He raises a brow, looking amused. “By all means.”
I steady my breath. Just say it. “This is my last season.”
He stills. He doesn't look shocked exactly, more calculating.
“I’m retiring after the last game or if the team makes the playoffs. I won’t re-sign. I want to walk away on my own terms.”
He leans back in the chair, slow and deliberate.
“Is this about whatever is going on with you and that girl?” he asks. Then he scoffs and shakes his head like I am a disappointment. "Nate, you are throwing away your career for a girl?"
I laugh under my breath. “I am not throwing away anything. I have had a great career, and now I want more. I am retiring for me.”
He smirks. “Right. And the girl?”
I say nothing because I’m not giving him another single piece of her.
He studies me for a moment, then reaches into a file and pulls out a stack of glossy photos.
“Tough timing, Carson,” he says, sliding them across the table.
I look down, and my heart stops. They are all pictures of Tessa.
It takes me a minute to realize what they are.
In one, she is walking out of a clinic, her hand low on her stomach, her face pale, her hair whipping around her.
The next photo shows her at a pharmacy, buying prenatal vitamins.
But the one that hits hardest, the one that takes my breath away.
.. She is in the parking lot, unlocking her truck…
with what looks like an ultrasound photo in her hand.
My vision narrows to a pinpoint, and my pulse pounds like a war drum in my ears.
Ray taps the photo with the ultrasound. “You sure it’s yours?”
The asshole says it with a smirk. A fucking smirk. For the first time in my career, I don’t explode. Not outwardly anyways. But inside, I am fighting the urge to drag him across the fucking table.
I pick up each picture, and I know I am making the right choice. I cannot believe I ever let this man... this team think they had the right to my life like this. To violate the privacy of someone like this. I tuck the pictures carefully into my duffel, next to Tessa's letters.
Then I lift my eyes to the GM of the team I have given too much to.
“I’m going to pretend,” I say softly, “that you didn’t just say that.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I’m already standing. “Meeting’s over.”
He calls something after me, some threat, some dig, but it barely registers. The only thing that matters now is getting to her. I burst out of the back doors of the arena into the cold.
The sky is heavy with low clouds, snow hanging on the edge of a storm. The air stings my lungs, but I welcome it, anything to ground me.
I need to hear it from her. I know she wasn't keeping this from me because she didn't want to tell me. I know this must be what she said she had to tell me tonight.
I hurt her, broke her trust and then... but none of that matters anymore because she is carrying my child. Hope swells in my chest so violently it hurts.
I get in my truck; my hands shake as I shove the key into the ignition.
Tonight, everything will change.
I’ll tell her I’m choosing a life with dirt and sunlight and her voice in my ears instead of noise and pressure and false narratives written by people who don’t know me.
Tonight, I get to make things right.
Tonight, she will tell me I am going to be a dad.
The engine turns, the truck rumbles to life. I pull out of the parking lot, tires crunching over old snow. The road stretches out in front of me, empty but somehow promising.
For the first time in a long time, I’m not afraid of the future because I know exactly where I’m going. I am going home, to Tessa, to my baby, to the life I should have chosen all along.
With a smile on my face, I press down on the gas, and I drive.