Chapter 39
thirty-nine
Jackson
Walking back into the arena feels wrong in a way I can’t immediately explain.
It should feel familiar. It is familiar.
The smell of the ice, the low hum of voices echoing through the halls, the sharp bite of cold air that always hits just before you step out where it matters, it’s all exactly the same as it’s always been, exactly the same as the place I’ve spent years of my life working toward, dreaming about, building everything around.
But none of it lands the way it used to.
It feels like I’ve stepped into something I recognize without belonging to it anymore.
For a second, just inside the doors, I hesitate.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice.
But long enough for it to register.
I’ve left her.
That thought sits heavier than anything else.
Not logically, because I know exactly where she is, I know Elijah is with her, I know there’s security at the building, I know Christian has locked everything down so tightly nothing gets near her without him knowing first, but none of that quiets the instinct that says I shouldn’t be here.
That I should be with her.
Zach slows slightly beside me like he feels it too.
I don’t look at him.
I don’t need to.
We’re both here because she asked us to be.
Because she looked at us and told us she needed life to keep moving. Because she said she wasn’t going to let this break her again.
And neither of us had it in us to tell her no.
The locker room goes quiet when we walk in.
Not completely. Not in a way that makes it obvious. But enough. Enough that I feel it. Enough that I know everyone’s aware of it.
A few of the guys glance up, then back down, like they don’t know how to handle it, like they’ve heard enough to know something happened but not enough to understand what that actually means.
Michael is the first one to move.
He crosses the room without hesitation, his expression serious, grounded in a way that tells me he knows more than the rest of them.
Of course he does.
Killian wouldn’t keep that from him.
“Hey,” he says, stopping in front of me, his voice low. “I’m really sorry, man.”
The words land clean. No awkwardness. No performance. Just… real. I nod once, my throat tighter than I expect.
“She’s home,” I say. “She’s… she’s healing. We’re getting through it.”
His jaw tightens slightly, like he’s holding something back, something darker, something closer to what actually happened.
“I’m glad,” he says. “Really. And… it’s good to have you back.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
Because I’m not sure I am. But I nod anyway.
“Yeah.”
He claps my shoulder once, firm, grounding, then steps back, letting the moment pass without dragging it out.
The rest of the room slowly starts moving again after that. A couple of guys nod at me.
One of them mutters, “Good to see you, man.”
Another says something about the team needing us back. It’s normal. It’s supposed to feel normal.
It doesn’t.
I move through the motions anyway, grabbing my gear, sitting down, pulling everything on piece by piece like my body remembers how to do this even if my head feels like it’s somewhere else entirely.
It’s automatic.
All of it.
Tape. Pads. Jersey.
My hands move without thinking.
But the entire time, there’s something under it.
A constant pull.
A quiet, persistent thread in my chest that keeps dragging me back to her.
Is she awake?
Is she resting?
Did she eat?
Is she in pain?
Did she...
I cut the thought off before it can finish. Because that’s where it goes. That’s where it always goes now.
Back to the worst possible version of things. Back to what it felt like to hold her and feel her slipping. Back to the moment everything stopped.
“Jackson.”
I blink, realizing I’ve been staring at nothing.
“Yeah?”
Coach is standing near the doorway, watching me.
“You good?”
No.
“Yeah,” I say anyway.
He studies me for a second longer than necessary, like he doesn’t believe me, like he knows something’s off but doesn’t have enough to push it.
Then he nods.
“Get on the ice.”
I push myself up. The cold hits harder out there. Sharper. Cleaner. And for a second, just a second, my body falls into it.
The rhythm.
The movement.
The muscle memory that doesn’t need my head to be fully present to work.
I skate.
I pass.
I shoot.
Everything lands where it’s supposed to, everything moves the way it’s supposed to, everything feels… right.
And at the same time, it doesn’t. Because there’s a disconnect running through it.
Like I’m watching myself do this instead of fully being inside it.
Like part of me stayed behind in that apartment, sitting beside her, touching her, making sure she was breathing, and the rest of me showed up here because I was told to.
Zach is the same.
I can see it in the way he moves.
Precise.
Controlled.
But not fully there. We both are. And somehow, we’re still good. Still better than most. Still doing exactly what we’re supposed to do.
Because this is ingrained. Because this is what we’ve trained for. Because this is what we are.
The thought lands wrong. Because I don’t know if that’s true anymore. Practice ends in a blur.
By the time I’m back in the locker room, pulling my gear off, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath the entire time.
“Jackson.”
I look up.
One of the staff is standing at the door.
“PR wants to see you.”
Of course they do.
I glance at Zach.
He’s watching me, already reading the tension in my shoulders.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I say honestly.
He nods once.
“Go.”
I don’t argue.
The meeting room is too warm. Too bright. Too… normal. There are two people already sitting there, laptops open, papers spread out, expressions polite but focused in that way that tells me this isn’t optional.
“Jackson,” one of them says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah.”
“First of all,” the other one adds, “we’re really glad to hear Lia is doing better.”
I nod. “She’s home.”
“That’s great,” she says. “We’re all really relieved.”
There’s a beat.
“We do need to talk about your return.”
Of course we do.
“You’ve been pretty absent the last couple of weeks,” she continues carefully. “Which we understand, given the circumstances, but we need to start re-establishing your presence.”
My jaw tightens slightly.
“I thought Michael was doing a lot of that.”
“He has been,” she says, “but he’s stepped back from being the primary face, and you’re our rookie. You’re… the future of the team. We need you to step into that role more consistently.”
I lean back slightly in the chair, tension settling deeper into my chest.
“I don’t really want to be the face right now.”
They exchange a quick glance.
“We understand that,” she says, “but part of the agreement with your new agent was that while you’d have more flexibility for personal matters, you’d remain active in your public presence.”
There it is.
The trade.
The cost.
“We’ve got media lined up,” the other adds. “Social reactivation, interviews, content. We need to show that you’re back, that the team is stable, that everything is moving forward.”
Everything is moving forward.
The words feel hollow.
“Do I have a choice?” I ask.
A small pause.
“Not really,” she says gently.
Of course not.
“Fine,” I say.
“We’ll start easing you back in,” she continues, already shifting into planning mode. “We’ll work with you on rebuilding your brand moving forward.”
Rebuilding.
That word sticks. Because I know exactly what that brand is. What it’s been. What it’s built on. By the time I leave the room, my chest feels tight in a different way.
Zach is waiting just outside.
He looks up immediately.
“You okay?”
“No,” I say, scrubbing a hand through my hair. “They want me to be the fucking show pony again.”
His mouth tightens slightly. “Yeah. I figured.”
“I don’t have the capacity for that right now,” I admit. “I don’t want to stand in front of a camera and pretend everything’s fine.”
“I know.”
I pull my phone out without thinking, opening my socials.
It’s a mess. Notifications stacked on top of notifications. Messages. Tags. Mentions. Girls. Fans.
The same persona I built sitting right there waiting for me to step back into it.
“Look at this,” I say, turning the screen toward him. “This is what they want me to be.”
He glances at it.
Then back at me.
“I built this on being single,” I continue, the frustration pushing sharper now. “On being that guy. The one everyone watches, the one everyone wants, the one who plays into it.”
The words feel wrong in my mouth now.
“I’m not that guy anymore,” I say. “I don’t want to be that guy.”
My chest tightens.
“I’ve got her,” I add, quieter now. “She has everything in me. We’re… we’re about to have a fucking family, and I’m supposed to go out there and pretend I’m still… that?”
Zach is quiet for a second.
“I get it,” he says finally.
I shake my head, looking back at the screen.
“I want people to know she’s mine,” I admit. “I don’t want to hide her. I don’t want to act like she’s not the most important thing in my life.”
The words settle between us.
Real.
Heavy.
Zach exhales slowly.
“Then we need to figure out how we handle that,” he says. “Not today. Not right now. But… soon.”
I nod.
Because he’s right. But I don’t have it in me to deal with that today. I lock my phone and shove it back in my pocket.
“Let’s just go home,” I say.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Yeah.”
Because that’s the only thing that matters right now.
Not PR.
Not the team.
Not the image.
Just her.
The second we step outside, the air feels different. Lighter. Cleaner. Like I can breathe again. But the pull is still there. Stronger now. Sharper.
“I just need to get back to her,” I admit, my voice lower, more honest than anything I’ve said all day. “I need to see her. Touch her. Make sure she’s okay.”
Zach nods once.
“I know.”
And for the first time since we walked into that arena, I feel something settle.
Not calm.
Not completely.
But enough.
Because we’re going back.
Back to where we’re supposed to be.
Back to her.