Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ARTHUR
For the last decade, the first thing I think about when I wake up is pain.
Not always sharp. Some mornings it jolts me awake, loud and impossible to ignore. Other days it waits. Until I move. Until I test my weight. Until I remember.
It’s better now. Months of physio and exercises have helped. But even when it’s quiet, it’s never gone. I measure my days by it. How bad will it be? How far can I push before it pushes back?
Then my thoughts shift, as they always do, to work. The players. The schedule. What needs fixing, tightening, sharpening. Who needs pressure and who needs reassurance. How to pull every last ounce out of them and aim it toward the Cup.
That’s what gets me out of bed. Purpose beats pain.
But for the last three mornings, that is not how I’ve woken up.
For the third day in a row, I open my eyes and Elliot is here.
Her long blonde hair is spilled across the pillow in a soft, careless mess, catching the early light through the curtains.
Her breathing is slow and even, the quiet rise and fall of her chest the only movement in the room.
She’s angled toward me, curved into my side like she belongs there, like her body learned the shape of mine long before we crawled into this hotel bed.
My arm is heavy across her waist. Warming her. Anchoring her to me.
And instead of cataloging pain or bracing for the worst or wondering how much Tylenol I can take before I wreck my liver, all I can think about is how good she feels.
I love waking up next to her. I love the weight of her against me.
The faint scent of her skin. The way she fits, not just physically, but in that hollow space in my chest I usually keep boarded up.
My mind immediately starts racing ahead, looking for ways to keep this going. To stretch it. To make it permanent.
That’s where the hesitation creeps in.
This is not as simple as leaving a toothbrush at her place and pretending that is a plan. If it were, I would do it without a second thought. I would happily commute from Vanier every morning if it meant starting and ending my day like this. With her. But real life is more complicated than that.
For one thing, I don’t know how she feels. Not really.
Maybe this business trip is just that for her.
A working vacation. A break from the everyday.
Maybe she’s already thinking about getting on the plane tonight after the game, about slipping back into her routine, her responsibilities, her chaotic yet balanced life.
Maybe I’m already miles ahead of her, building something in my head that doesn’t exist. That can’t exist right now.
And even if, by some miracle, she feels what I’m feeling, it’s still not simple.
Because having Elliot does not mean just having her.
It means Sam too.
It means stepping into a life that comes with responsibility and a kid who has already been let down once. I have no interest in being another man who makes promises he cannot keep. The idea of disappointing her is bad enough. But what if he gets hurt in the process?
I am not cut out to be a father figure.
I’ve known this for as long as I can remember.
God knows my own father never offered anything resembling a useful example.
What he gave instead was absence dressed up as authority, anger without guidance, expectations without safety.
I learned early what not to be, but never learned what to be in its place.
I never once pictured children in my future. Not even as a distant possibility. Some people grow up assuming that is where life naturally leads. I grew up assuming it was something best avoided.
Deep down, I think I know why. Even if I know I’m not my father, some part of him lives in me.
In the way my temper flares when I am pushed.
In the way I shut down instead of reaching out.
In the way I retreat into silence and control when things feel too big.
I have spent my life sanding down those edges, keeping them hidden, but I can’t pretend they’re gone entirely.
And even if they were, how could I risk it?
How could I look at a kid and ask him to trust me. Ask him to depend on me to be a steady and safe presence that won’t fail him in some irreversible way? How could I live with myself if I became the thing I swore I would never be? One mistake. One bad day. One moment where I choose wrong.
I’m not giving up on being with Elliot, but I’m also not seeing a solution. So I guess the only thing to do is to wait. To wait for the problem to sort itself out or for Elliot to tell me what she wants.
For now, I just lie there, awake beside her, wondering how something that feels so right can be so uncertain and fragile too.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table and I snatch it up with reflexes honed by years on the ice, silencing it before it can wake Elliot. She doesn’t stir. Her breathing stays slow and even, her body still warm and heavy against mine.
The caller ID makes my stomach tighten.
My father.
The timing would almost be funny if I weren’t already spiralling.
I consider slipping out of bed, answering quietly in the bathroom. I always take his calls. No matter where I am. No matter what I’m doing. I have never once let it ring out, and I’m not entirely sure why. Habit, maybe. Conditioning. Some part of me that still believes I owe him something.
But then I look at Elliot. At how peaceful she is. How she’s completely unaware of the storm in my head. And I know I do not want his voice anywhere near her.
For the first time in my life, I press decline.
My thumb hesitates, then I switch my phone to do not disturb and set it back on the table.
Elliot stretches in bed next to me, her eyes slowly blink open. Those beautiful green orbs looking sleepily up at me.
“Good morning,” she rasps softly.
I just smile down at her. It is a good morning. And I want more of them.
Arthur: Come home with me tonight.
Elliot: Who is this?
Arthur:
Elliot: Who taught you to use emojis!!!
Arthur: I watched a tutorial
Elliot: Proud of you
Arthur: Come home with me tonight
Arthur: We won’t get in until after midnight and you aren’t picking Sam up until after school tomorrow.
Elliot: Yes, but…
Arthur: But?
Elliot: I’m afraid you’re developing a bit of an addiction to me
Arthur: Maybe. One more night won’t hurt.
Arthur: I’ll quit tomorrow
Elliot:
I smile at my phone before putting it back into my pocket. Despite what I texted, I have no intention of quitting Elliot tomorrow. Or maybe ever.
The energy on the plane ride home is electric. The players are acting more like toddlers on sugar highs than professional athletes. But after beating Florida three to nothing and taking a three to one lead in the series, I can’t blame them.
It’s a hard line to walk. You don’t want to get overconfident, we still need to beat them one more time. Plenty of teams come back from being down by two. But you also don’t want to kill the momentum.
When I talked to them in the locker room after the game, I tried to keep things simple. Celebrate the win. But don’t let it distract you from the ultimate goal. We’ve got one more game to win.
Still, it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. If we beat Florida again in two days, we only have one more series to win before we’re in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Almost close enough to taste it. But there’s still work to be done.
I pull out my phone and start drafting a list for me to prioritize at the office tomorrow. I need to keep my brain busy, because when I don’t I think about Elliot, and the last thing I need is to be getting hard at forty thousand feet.
I barely notice when my assistant coach gets up from the seat beside me. I don’t look up when they return to the seat a minute later.
“Hey, Coach.”
When I look to my left I realize it’s not Don, but Austin sitting beside me. He, like several of his teammates, is sporting Mickey Mouse ears, a clear dig at Florida.
“Crawford. Everything okay?” I checked in on him before and after the game today. He seemed to be feeling fine and given the two goals he scored us in tonight’s game, there’s nothing wrong with his performance.
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.” His oversized mouse ears wobble as he nods. He removes them from his head with a sheepish smile when he sees me looking at them.
“Good.”
He glances around us before lowering his voice. “I guess I just…I mean…it’s like…”
Jesus. It’s like he’s a nervous teen trying to ask me to the prom.
“I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Alright.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah. So…thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He grins. “Cool.” He moves to stand, and I raise my hand to stop him.
“What exactly are you thanking me for?”
He takes a shaky breath and gives an uncertain laugh. “Do you remember when you called me into your office a couple months ago?”
When I thought you were flirting with the girl I liked and I dragged you away like a jealous idiot? “Sure.”
“You said something to me that day. ‘We’re all invincible until we’re not.’ It stuck. When it comes to my game, I’ve always played it kind of fast and loose. Out-skate and out-play. Leave it all on the ice, you know?”
I do know. That was exactly how I played when I was younger.
“And I don’t plan on changing that, but it made me think about being more careful. Maybe playing smarter and not taking unnecessary chances.”
I nod.
Austin looks at me earnestly. “I’d been given those Kevlar socks a couple years ago. That last game? When I went down? That was only the third time I wore them. If I hadn’t put them on…” He swallows hard.
“But you did. You deserve all the credit for that.”
“But you got me thinking about the big picture. Anyway, I just want you to know that I appreciate you looking out for me. I know I can be a pain in your ass sometimes.”
I level him with a stare and ask, “Sometimes?”
He laughs at that. “Most times,” he admits as he stands. “So I guess, thank you for that too.”
“Get some rest, Crawford.”
“Will do, Coach.”