Chapter 19
THEO
His head throbbed the next morning. He vaguely remembered falling asleep curled up with Rowan, but he woke up alone. The bed next to his was neat, unslept in.
He could hear the shower running.
Carefully, he rolled over to grab his phone off the side table, and the sharp spike of pain that shot through his head and churn of nausea made him regret it instantly.
His phone was tethered to a charging cable.
Rowan must have plugged it in. He entered his passcode, and with it came the memory of having to admit to Rowan he had never changed it.
Ninety percent of the reason was laziness—his passcode was such deep muscle memory by now that he barely thought about it—and the last ten percent was an inability to move on.
The instinct to dwell. To press on a bruise.
He would have lived a healthier adulthood if he’d ever just moved on.
Alas.
He had a ton of messages, but flicked to his thread with his mom first, since it was the most recent. She and Rowan had exchanged a number of texts throughout the night as Rowan restlessly woke to check on him. Theo didn’t even remember that.
Distantly, he could remember a time when being in regular communication with each other’s parents was a normal thing.
He sent Rowan’s parents photos he took of Rowan, since he knew they were mostly getting photos from Rowan’s perspective, and he knew that Theo’s mom always kept the same kind of close eye on Rowan as she did her own kid, since she had moved to Michigan with Theo.
Theo was thoroughly unsurprised that he didn’t have a single message from his dad. He’d probably reach out later, when he knew Theo was fine and thus wouldn’t have any responsibility to be there for his injured child.
After sending his mom a little update that he was feeling okay (or was at least alive), he flipped back to his main message screen. He had a text from Vic with a video of the fight, which Vic had sent with a warning that it was brutal. Theo hit play immediately.
He watched himself catch a pass from Vic, and then get absolutely leveled at the blue line, his body falling limp to the ground.
Milliseconds later, Rowan flew into frame, his stick and gloves hitting the ice before he even got to Erik Jones.
The camera angle switched, and his own limp body disappeared.
The angle was tight on Rowan and Jones. Rowan couldn’t tell what they were saying, but he could tell that Rowan was blazingly angry.
Rowan thew the first punch, and it went downhill from there pretty quickly. There was a reason Rowan had never fought before. He was terrible at it. Great at scoring goals. A little lackluster elsewhere.
Regardless, it was...hot. He could feel blood rushing between his legs.
On video, the fight ended, and the camera zoomed out.
His own body was still on the ice, now with trainers helping him get up.
He didn’t remember this, but he watched as Rowan, face and knuckles bloodied, followed him off the ice, barely pausing to check in with a ref.
Seeing how unsteady he was on his own feet made the beginnings of his erection flag.
The camera caught Rowan’s face as they headed down the tunnel. His anger had disappeared. Now he looked scared.
The shower shut off, and Theo closed out of the video and put his phone back on the nightstand. He feigned sleep. So recently, he had wanted to push Rowan off of a cliff. Now, he could feel the ancient echoes of ache he had for his first love. His only love.
He heard Rowan move around the room, putting his clothes on. When there was a knock at the door, Rowan answered it. Theo finally rolled back over to see what was going on. There was a cart with food on it. Rowan had gotten room service.
“Hey, how’s your head?” he asked.
“Hurts,” Theo said. Any more coherent thought was stuck inside his head.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to go down to get breakfast with the guys. I texted Vic, so he knows. I wasn’t sure if you’d be feeling nauseous, so I got a few things.”
“I’m not hungry,” Theo said, sitting up, the motion making his head spin. He caught himself on the edge of the mattress with his hands and realized he was only wearing boxers. He had been sleeping next to Rowan in only his underwear. He didn’t remember much of the night before.
“You should eat something.” Rowan grabbed a plate of toast off the cart and brought it to him. His stomach grumbled and Theo wasn’t sure if it was from hunger or nausea. He would give the toast a try.
Rowan ate a breakfast sandwich and then packed up their stuff. He picked out an outfit for Theo to wear on the bus to LA.
Rowan gave him a glass of orange juice and drank a cup of coffee himself.
“What is happening?” Theo asked, downing half of his juice.
“We have a travel day. Tomorrow we play the Fame.”
“No, I mean, like, this.” He motioned between him and Rowan.
“You were hurt.”
“I gathered.”
“You were hurt, and...it wasn’t okay with me.”
“I am...really confused about this.”
“Okay.”
“Are you not?”
“I haven’t been thinking about it too hard. You needed someone. I’m fine with that being me. I want that to be me.”
“My head hurts too much to think this through.”
Having Rowan here taking care of him, here feeding him and getting him packed up, was comforting. But it didn’t erase the years of hurt he’d been carrying around with him his entire career.
Rowan gave him a nod and didn’t push. Theo got up and brushed his teeth and got dressed, and Rowan gave him his space.
“I’m going to go down to breakfast, I guess,” Rowan said. “Unless you need help?”
“Nah,” Theo said. Having five minutes to himself would be good.
“Okay. Stay off your phone, alright?”
“Sure.”
Then Rowan was gone. Theo let out a breath and sat down on the end of the bed.
He had a couple minutes before he had to be on the bus, so he ignored Rowan’s direction and unlocked his phone to call his mom.
“Rowan?” she answered.
“It’s me, Mom.”
“How’s your head, sweetie?” she asked, her voice automatically a notch lower.
“Not great. Sounds like Ro told you I’m out for a while.”
“Yeah. Ro, huh?”
“I don’t know, Mom.”
“I thought you two hadn’t been connecting this season.”
That was a nice way to phrase it. If anyone knew how brokenhearted and angry Theo was, it was his mom.
His mom got the immediate aftermath of Rowan leaving him behind.
She had borne witness to the soul-crushing embarrassment Theo felt when he had been relegated to two more years of junior hockey than Rowan had.
She hadn’t been with him in Carolina, but he hadn’t hidden how much he had been struggling in those years, too.
“It’s hard to explain. He got the flu, and I took care of him. And then this. I guess he felt like he owed me.”
“I don’t think you want to hear this, but I don’t think that he is doing anything for you out of a sense of obligation. You probably haven’t seen the video yet.”
“I saw.”
“I’ve watched that boy play a lot of hockey, and I have never seen him like that on the ice. He was feral for you.”
“Please never use that phrase again.”
“Alright, alright. Should I come down to stay with you?”
Theo thought about the calendar coming up. They would go home after they played the Fame, have a practice, play the Northern Lights at home, then fly out to the East Coast to play the New York teams and New Jersey.
“Yeah, maybe. We’ll talk about it later. I don’t think they’ll make me go on the East Coast trip, but maybe I’ll feel totally better by tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll look for tickets. Let me know when you get home, alright? I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
“Love you, Mom,” he said, hanging up. The idea of Rowan across the country from him felt kind of awful. He didn’t know what was going on. It scared him. But maybe the distance would be good. He had a tangle of weird feelings to sort out.
And then he remembered Felix Becker. In his mind, when he thought about Felix, he thought about him coming out of Rowan’s bedroom shirtless.
He was angry; he was jealous. He was sure there was an element of gay yearning happening. That had never fully gone away, no matter how sad, upset, resentful, embarrassed, and left behind he felt.
Whatever was happening with Rowan felt volatile. It felt like he wasn’t in control of it. It scared him.