Chapter 36 #2
She didn’t shut me out because she doesn’t trust me.
She shut me out because she doesn’t know what it feels like to have someone refuse to let her fight alone.
It became instinct for her to step forward and take the first blow, to keep her fear hidden so she could survive instead of asking to be protected.
But she isn’t a burden or liability to me.
She’s the person I chose. I want to stand behind her in both the darkness and the light.
Never again will I let her walk into the fire alone, even if she thinks she has to.
By the time I step out, my jaw is set in a way I haven’t felt since the last time I played through an injury I refused to acknowledge. I pull on a clean shirt, scrub a towel through my hair, and step into the living room, just in time to hear a loud, impatient knock.
I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should even open the door, when I hear a familiar voice. “Open the door, loser. Cooper sent us to help.”
I open the door and find Ramona standing there, arms crossed, expression sharp enough to slice steel. Beside her, Michele is leaning against the wall, holding a coffee she clearly didn’t bring for me.
“Alise is on her way up. I think she broke a land speed record to get here.” Ramona pats me on the cheek before pushing her way inside.
“Morning, sunshine.” Michele lifts her cup in greeting.
I blink between them, completely disoriented. “What—how—”
“Cooper.” Ramona cuts me a look that should be illegal without a permit. “By the way, Alise is very annoyed you didn’t give us a heads-up that you were about to go live and declare your love for your fake girlfriend today.”
“The group chat.” I sigh with a shake of my head.
“Yes, the group chat,” Michele says in a tone so dry it could self-ignite. “But we’d know either way. Your brothers can’t keep their mouths shut. They would’ve been texting us daily.”
“Remind me never to tell any of you my secrets.” I press a hand to my forehead.
“I’ve been a very good secret keeper, thank you very much,” Michele chimes in, brushing past me. “Save the existential crisis for later. We’re here to help you figure out what the hell you’re going to say before you go rogue on the internet.”
Before either of them can launch into full battle-planning mode, the door flies open again, and Alise stumbles in, breathless, hair wild from wind and pure chaos.
“You didn’t do it yet, did you?” she demands, pointing at me like she’s conducting a murder investigation. “Please tell me you haven’t done it yet.”
“No,” Michele says dryly. “We’re still in the pregame warmup.”
“How did you get here so fast? Redwood Falls is an hour away.” I stare at Alise.
She waves a hand. “I might have lied to a cop who pulled me over.”
“Alise—”
“I told him it was a medical emergency.”
Michele chokes on her coffee. “You did WHAT?”
“A potentially broken heart is a medical emergency.” Alise shrugs, completely unapologetic.
The room is silent for a few moments before the dam breaks.
Ramona laughs, loud and unrestrained. Michele shakes her head, muttering something about needing a therapist. And I finally breathe because this—these women, this family, this messy, chaotic, loyal-as-hell army—is the reason Alycia won’t have to stand alone today.
Ramona claps her hands once. “Fun time is over! It’s time to make a game plan.”
For the first time since Alycia walked out the door, I feel like I might be able to let the world know the truth.
We’ve rearranged my living room twice now.
Michele insisted the lighting was “too serial killer.” Ramona said the background made me look like I lived inside a hockey documentary, not a cozy living room of someone who had a life outside of hockey.
Alise just kept moving my houseplants like she was trying to Feng Shui my moral compass.
Now, I’m standing in front of my kitchen island with a ring light pointed directly at my face—one I’m certain Ramona stole from the PR office this morning—while the three of them watch me like coaches trying to keep an injured player from taping himself to the ice.
“Should he sit?” Michele asks, arms crossed, studying me like I’m a puzzle with pieces in the wrong places.
“No,” Ramona says, adjusting the angle on my phone. “Sitting makes it look rehearsed.”
“It’s already rehearsed,” Alise counters. “He’s been practicing in the mirror for ten minutes.”
“I was not—” I catch myself, inhale hard, and scrub a hand over my face. “Okay. Maybe a little.”
“Nerves are good. It means you give a damn.”
I look between them, the three women I trust just as much, if not more, than my own brothers, and suddenly, the weight of what I’m about to do settles differently.
“All right,” Ramona says, taking her spot beside the island like she’s directing an emotional heist. “Remember to look into the camera like you’re talking to exactly one person.”
“Because you are.” Michele nudges my elbow.
My throat tightens as Alise lifts the index card she wrote in Sharpie: BE HONEST. BE SPECIFIC. BE YOURSELF.
Ramona gives me the cue. The red dot blinks, bright and merciless, and my usual polished smile and practiced tone try to surface, but I shove them back down. This isn’t for anyone but her.
“My name is Kyle Hendrix,” I begin, voice low, a rough scrape of breath, “and I’m done lying.”
The words slip through my lips like they’ve been waiting there for months. Behind the camera, I hear Michele inhale softly, the sound of someone rooting for you without needing to say it. I let my shoulders fall, just enough to let myself speak like a man in love, not a PR puppet.
“The relationship between Alycia Torres and me started as a PR decision,” I say, my gaze locked on the lens as if she’s standing inside it. “We agreed to it. We went along with it. And that part… was fake.”
I feel the tremor travel through me, but I don’t look away from the invisible version of her I’m speaking to.
“But somewhere along the way… between forced smiles and staged photos, I stopped pretending.” My throat tightens. “She never did. She doesn’t know how to fake it when it comes to her heart.”
Alise presses her hand to her mouth, wiping at her eye like dust is suddenly a problem. I take a slow, bracing inhale, letting the truth settle on my tongue.
“I fell in love with her. Not the polished version everyone sees. Not the girl framed by headlines or judged through a camera lens. I fell in love with the woman who stays up too late rewriting press releases so no one else has to. The woman who apologizes, even though she has been hurt. The woman who will walk into a storm alone because she honestly believes she’s easier to sacrifice than to stand beside. ”
Raw emotion twists through me, but I don’t fight it. I let them see how much I feel for Alycia. I let her hear it in my voice.
“She is the bravest person I’ve ever met, and she’s so used to being blamed for things she never did that she was willing to take responsibility for this, too.”
I lean closer to the camera, palms grounded on the countertop, breath shaking.
“But if someone is going to carry the weight of this mess, it’s going to be me. She’s spent enough of her life paying for other people’s mistakes.”
I swallow hard, letting the next words settle into the room with unbearable honesty.
“She doesn’t owe anyone an apology; I do. If the truth changes how people see me, that’s a consequence I’ll take. But leave her out of it,” I say slowly, deliberately, reverently. “She deserves better than to be turned into a convenient villain.”
I pause because the next words deserve space.
“And I need one thing to be absolutely clear: I love her. Not because it’s convenient or tied to some narrative.
I love her because she’s the first person who’s ever looked at me and seen past my last name.
I love her because she’s all fire and fear, and she doesn’t even know how extraordinary she is. ”
“I love her,” I whisper, blinking against the pressure behind my eyes. “And I’m done hiding it.”
Ramona taps the screen to end the recording, and meaningful silence fills the room. Not awkward or uncertain, just heavy with everything that was said and everything still humming in the air.
Then Alise breathes out, soft and reverent, “Holy shit. You just ruined every man alive, you know that, right?”
“If Alycia doesn’t marry you on sight after this, I might.” Michele nods once, the corners of her mouth curving despite her effort to stay composed.
I let out a shaky laugh and shake my head. “Careful. Cole would have an issue with that.”
“Cole only has an issue when someone else tries to flirt with me.” Michele’s smile turns slow and wicked.
“Please. Cole would’ve been in here setting up the lighting if he weren’t at practice.”
“Either way, there is no way Alycia will do anything but promise to love you for the rest of her life after watching that,” Ramona adds, tilting her head with an assessing eye. “Even your brothers would’ve cried listening to that.”
Alise steps forward and squeezes my forearm. “Kyle… that wasn’t a PR message. It was a love letter you accidentally handed to the entire internet.”
A flush climbs up my neck, but I don’t look away. “All of it was for her.”
Pride, affection, and the fierce support that only comes from people who want to see you win for reasons that have nothing to do with hockey ripple through the room.
Ramona exhales. “Well, congratulations. You just became the gold standard for men.”
“Saint Kyle of the Timberwolves.” Michele pats my shoulder like she’s knighting me. “God help every man in Portland who has to compete with whatever the hell you just did.”
I shake my head, laughter catching on something rawer beneath it. “I’m not trying to compete with anyone.”
“No,” Ramona says softly, “you’re just trying to love her right.”
Even though fear is still thrumming at the edges of me, even though the world is about to light up like a minefield when we hit “Post,” the truth settles into my bones with unwavering certainty.
“I’m not trying. I do.”
Three pairs of eyes soften at the same time as Michele holds my phone toward me. “Then it’s time to show her.”
My finger hovers over the button, heart pounding with something that feels like devotion sharpened into resolve.
Somewhere across the city, she’s sitting in a room where people are preparing to use her as a shield.
And she has no idea that in the next hour, the entire world is about to see exactly what she means to me.
That I’m about to stand in front of the wolves… for her.