CHAPTER 30
Daisy
It’s two in the morning and I’ve given up pretending sleep is coming.
I lie on my back in the bedroom that used to be mine—technically the guest room now—staring at the faint glow of the ceiling fan as it spins overhead.
Somewhere along the way, my parents replaced the narrow twin with a real bed, updated the dresser, and swapped out my posters for neutral art meant to offend no one.
And still, the room carries echoes of who I used to be.
The mattress is comfortable. Familiar, even. I’ve slept here plenty of times over the years—holidays, long weekends, moments when I needed grounding—but tonight, nothing settles. No matter how I turn or pull the covers tighter, my body refuses to rest.
Posters once lined the walls and textbooks were stacked in uneven towers and I used to fall asleep believing the world would eventually make sense if I just worked hard enough.
Now the room feels akin to a museum of a former version of myself. Safe. And yet completely foreign.
I turn onto my side, the sheets whispering softly. A muffled sound breaks through the quiet.
Scratching.
I turn onto my side just as Roscoe jostles on the rug beside my bed, nails rasping lightly against the door. He lets out a low, impatient huff—the sound he makes when he needs to go out.
“Come on, Roscoe,” I murmur, pushing myself upright.
I sigh and push myself out of bed, slipping on my robe and old slippers—the ones my mom never threw out, threadbare but loyal. The house is quiet as I ease the door open and follow Roscoe down the stairs, careful not to make a sound.
Everyone else is asleep. The kind of deep holiday sleep that comes from full dinners and long conversations.
Roscoe waits impatiently at the front door, tail giving a single, hopeful wag.
“Okay, okay,” I whisper. “I’m coming.”
Roscoe is jumping straight up on his hind legs when I reach the entryway, front paws slapping against the window beside the door, tail going wild. His whole body vibrates with excitement and urgency.
“What is it?” I ask, kneeling and scratching behind his ears, trying to calm him. “What do you see?”
He doesn’t stop. Frowning, I lean closer, following his gaze, and glance out the window.
There he is.
Grizz.
He’s curled into himself on the rocking chair on my parents’ front porch, jacket pulled tight around his broad frame, head tipped slightly to the side like sleep claimed him before he could fight it. One long leg is stretched awkwardly, his hands folded together in his lap.
Grizz is here.
On my parents’ porch.
Asleep.
My breath leaves my body in a silent rush and my eyes roam all over him, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
The porch light casts a soft glow over him, illuminating the familiar angles of his face—so out of place here, and yet impossibly real.
Roscoe barks again, tail thumping against the wall, but I barely hear it. I open the front door slowly, careful not to let it creak.
Roscoe bolts past me the second the door opens, barking like the apocalypse just arrived. He barrels straight for Grizz, circling him, barking inches from his face, tail wagging violently like he can’t decide whether this is a threat or the best thing that’s ever happened.
“Roscoe!” I hiss, mortified. “Oh my God—Roscoe, stop!”
Grizz jolts awake, disoriented, blinking hard, surfacing from his slumber. He pushes himself upright just as Roscoe jumps on his hind legs, paws landing square on his chest.
“Whoa—hey—” Grizz mutters, half laughing, half defensive, hands coming up instinctively. “Jesus.”
“Down,” I whisper-shout, grabbing Roscoe by the collar. “Down, you menace.”
Roscoe ignores me completely, barking louder now that he’s confirmed this is, in fact, a human. Porch lights flick on across the street. Then a neighbor’s door opens. Great.
Grizz rubs a hand over his face, groggy and apologetic all at once. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask stunned.
“I got in just after midnight,” he says. “Didn’t want to knock. Didn’t want to… make a scene. Figured I’d wait until morning.”
I stare at him incredulous, Roscoe still barking.
“Well,” I say, “mission accomplished. No scene at all.”
Roscoe barks again and another light flips on two houses down.
I grab Grizz’s sleeve. “Come inside,” I say. “Now. Before the entire neighborhood thinks we’re being robbed.”
I drag Roscoe back in with one hand and usher Grizz through the door with the other, closing it softly behind us. The house settles around us again, quiet returning in waves.
We sit in the living room, the lamplight low, Roscoe finally appeased and sprawled out on the rug. I’m on one end of the couch, Grizz on the opposite.
A soft sound comes from the hallway.
“Daisy?”
I freeze for half a second before my mom appears in the doorway, wrapped in a pale blue nightgown, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes blinking as they adjust to the light. She takes in the scene—the hour, the dog on the rug, me on the couch in my robe—and then her gaze lands on Grizz.
There’s no alarm in her expression. Only calm curiosity. “Oh,” she says gently.
Grizz is on his feet instantly. “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he says, his voice respectful. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I—”
She lifts a hand, stopping him before he can spiral. “You must be Grizz,” she says, offering a small, warm smile. “I’ve heard about you.”
She looks between us once, taking in more than she lets on, then nods like she’s reached a conclusion she doesn’t need to announce.
“Well,” she says, matter-of-factly, “it looks like this might be a long night.” She gestures toward the kitchen. “I’m going to put on a pot of coffee. Let’s let your father sleep and we can fill in whatever details he misses in the morning.”
Relief floods Grizz’s face so fast it’s almost painful to witness. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
She smiles again. “You’re welcome.” Then, to me, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, sweetheart.”
She disappears down the hall, leaving the room warmer than she found it.
I look at Grizz—rumpled, exhausted, eyes shadowed, very much here—and shake my head. “How did you even get here?”
He exhales, collapsing back onto the couch like his body is only now realizing it can stop moving. “Train.” He sighs, rubbing his neck. “Got me as far as Philly. Service got interrupted.” I blink. “So I took a cab,” he continues. “Made it to Delaware before we blew a tire.”
“You’re making this up. No cab driver is going to drive you from Delaware to DC.”
“You’d be surprised at what a cab driver would do for the right price. At any rate, the genius’s spare tire was flat, so we had to call a tow truck. Waited around forever. Nothing.”
“Jesus, Grizz. Then what?” I prompt.
“And then,” he says, “I hitchhiked.”
I stare at him. “You hitchhiked?” I repeat.
“Yeah.”
“Grizz,” I say, “you’re a professional hockey player. You know that, right?”
“Got that part,” he mutters. “But it’s the holidays and every other method of transportation was either booked or took way too much time to coordinate. You know that’s not my strong suit.”
“People get killed when they hitchhike,” I feel compelled to point out.
“Yeah, but that’s usually the actual hitchhiker who does the killing. I mean, what are the chances I’d be picked up by a serial killer?” He gives a faint, tired shrug. “Truck driver picked me up. He was nice, used to play hockey when he was younger. Big, stay-at-home defenseman apparently.”
It’s insane. Completely insane. And yet looking at him, sitting on my parents’ couch at two in the morning after crossing multiple states by sheer stubborn will—I know it’s true.
“Seems you went through an awful lot of trouble to get here,” I say incredulously. “Why did you do this?” I sit there in the dim light of my childhood living room, knees pulled close, robe wrapped tight around me, watching him intently.
Grizz doesn’t meet my eyes at first. He leans forward, elbows braced on his thighs, hands clasped tight. He looks wrecked. Spent. Like he ran here on more than adrenaline.
“Hockey was my whole life,” he says. “It was my escape. My way out. My salvation.” His voice roughens. “Where I grew up, hockey was the only thing that made sense. The only thing that gave me permission to leave. To survive.”
I nod, my heart squeezing so hard, it hurts to breathe.
“Hockey got me out of Saskatchewan,” he says.
“Got you away from your dad,” I whisper.
“It gave me a new life. A new name. A chance to become someone else.” He exhales, rubbing at his cheek. “Most importantly, it gave me a chance to be someone better.”
I shift, resisting the urge to hug him. “Grizz—”
“Just… stay with me,” he says. “One minute.”
So I do.
“I thought hockey was everything,” he goes on. “Goals. Wins. Banners. Validation. Proof that the pain was worth something.” He swallows hard. “I thought if I kept winning, I’d shed my past.”
My throat burns and my eyes sting. I know what this is costing him to unveil the truth of his feelings. Grizz and vulnerability don’t go hand in hand.
“But here’s the truth,” he says, lifting his eyes to mine now, raw and unprotected. “None of it matters if I don’t have someone to share it with.”
My breath catches. Is he saying…?
“Hockey will leave me one day,” he says, angling toward me. “It always does. Bodies fail. Careers end. The lights shut off.” His voice cracks. “And when that happens, if I’m alone… then everything I’ve been running from will still be waiting for me.”
He stands then. My eyes track him as he approaches me.
“I spent my entire life terrified of becoming my father,” he says.
“Terrified that I’d hurt the people I loved.
Fearing that I’d destroy anything good.” His voice drops.
“But I finally realized something.” He stops in front of me.
“Running isn’t how you break free. You don’t escape the past by being alone. ”
He reaches for my hands, pulls me up from the couch so I’m standing in front of him.
“You build a future that’s stronger than your past.”
His thumb brushes my knuckles.
“And you, Daisy,” he says, voice shaking now, “are that future.”
My heart shatters open.
“I love you,” he says, a confession and a vow all at once.
The room spins. Tears spill before I can stop them. I can’t believe I’m hearing this.
“I love you too,” I whisper, stepping into him, pressing my forehead to his chest.
He lets out a sound that’s half sob, half relief, arms coming around me. He buries his face in my hair, breathing me in.
“I’ve loved you for a long time,” he admits. “I was just too scared to say it. Too scared to believe I deserved it.” He pulls back enough to look at me, eyes wet and shining. “I should’ve said it when I first felt it. I should’ve said it before I let fear decide for me.”
His hand cups my face.
“So I’m saying it now. And I’m going to keep saying it. Today. Tomorrow. And every day after. For as long as you’ll tolerate me.”
A laugh breaks through my tears, shaky and real. “How about I tolerate you just this side of forever?” I ask with a watery laugh.
“That’s an offer I’d be a fool to reject,” he says, smiling so brightly, I feel warmed to the depths of my soul.
“We do have a problem, though,” Grizz says, and I stiffen slightly.
“What’s that?”
“I heard through the grapevine that you took that job in Los Angeles.” He angles his head, cocks an eyebrow as if he can’t quite believe I’d dare try to move so far away.
“Grapevine?” I ask, frowning in confusion. “Who? I mean… wait… how did you know I was here?”
Grizz chuckles, pulls me back into him, his arms going around my waist. “I was wandering aimlessly around New York, sunk in a depression over losing you—”
“You were not,” I exclaim skeptically, slapping him lightly on the chest.
“True story.” He holds up the scout’s honor sign. “And Julian found me. Invited me into his home for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“And he told you I was here and about the job,” I muse. What a busybody the owner of the New York Vipers is.
“More than just told me where you were, he sort of made me take my head out of my ass. While I’d like to believe I’d come to the same conclusion on my own, he made me see the risk of putting my heart out there would be worth it. And so… here I am.”
I don’t answer with words.
I kiss him.
It’s slow and deep and certain, a kiss that feels like coming home after being lost for years.
Behind us, Roscoe erupts into joyful chaos, barking as if he’s announcing the end of the world. Or maybe the beginning of a new one.
Grizz laughs into my mouth, pulling me closer, and for the first time in a very long time, the past loosens its grip. “About that job,” he murmurs. “You can’t go out west. I don’t know if I can get a trade out there.”
“We’ll talk about it later, but I’m sure we can work out something,” I reply, pulling his mouth back down on mine.
And we kiss, under my parents’ roof, in the middle of the night, with a barking dog and love finally spoken out loud.