Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The silence was the worst part.
He reached for his mug. His hand hesitated over the sloth.
Don't.
He grabbed the black one and slammed the cabinet door harder than necessary.
The coffee maker gurgled through its cycle, filling the condo with the only sound besides the refrigerator's hum.
No music drifting from the bathroom. No off-key singing.
No cheerful chatter about dreams she'd had or ideas for the mural or questions about his day that somehow made him want to answer.
Just silence. Clean, orderly, suffocating silence.
He poured his coffee and carried it to the dining table—the same table where he'd laid her down and lost himself completely, where they'd eaten breakfast together on lazy mornings, where her sketches had spread across the surface like beautiful chaos.
The surface was bare now. Spotless.
This is what I wanted, he told himself. Order. Control. Your space back.
The lie tasted worse than the coffee.
He drank it anyway, eyes fixed on the window, watching the grey winter light creep across Greenwood Hollow. His morning routine stretched before him like a prison sentence: coffee, protein shake, foam rolling, drive to the arena, practice.
The same routine he'd followed for years.
The same routine that had felt like security before Edie Anderson had crashed into his life with her glitter pens and tangled cables and smile that made his chest ache.
Now it just felt empty.
He finished his coffee and rinsed the mug, placing it precisely in the dishwasher. The kitchen was immaculate—counters wiped, appliances aligned, spice rack alphabetized. Everything exactly where it should be.
He hated it.
The protein shake went down without taste. The foam rolling happened on autopilot. He moved through each step of his routine like a machine, hitting every mark, maintaining the discipline that had defined his career.
This is what control looks like.
But control had never felt this hollow before.
He found the first trace of her while reaching for his car keys.
A hair tie.
It was tangled around the base of the key hook, one of those fabric-covered ones she favored, the color of old copper. He'd watched her use it a hundred times, pulling her wild red curls back while she worked, twisting and tucking with practiced efficiency.
Tarmek stared at it for too long.
He should throw it away. She was gone—not gone, but gone from here—and keeping her hair tie was pathetic. Sentimental. Exactly the kind of emotional weakness he'd spent his whole life avoiding.
He pocketed it instead.
Weak.
The drive to the arena took twelve minutes, same as always. He pulled into his usual spot, cut the engine, and sat in the cab of his truck while the heater ticked and cooled.
Through the windshield, he could see the edge of the parking structure where her camper was parked. The lights were off—too early for her to be awake, probably. She'd always been a night owl, working late and sleeping later, her schedule the exact opposite of his regimented existence.
Is she warm enough? Did the heater hold through the night? Is she—
He cut off the thought with brutal efficiency.
Not his concern anymore.
She'd made that clear.
He grabbed his gear bag and headed inside, shoulders hunched against the cold, refusing to look at the camper again.
Practice was brutal.
Coach Morrison ran them through defensive drills until Tarmek's legs burned, then shifted to offensive plays that required the kind of split-second decision-making he usually excelled at. Today, his timing was off. His passes went wide. His shots hit posts instead of nets.
"Stonefist! You sleeping out there?"
Korvash's voice carried across the ice, half teasing, half concerned. The big defenseman skated up beside him, visor raised.
"Fine."
"You're not fine. You look like someone stole your protein powder."
"Drop it."
"The little chaos artist finally break you?"
Tarmek's stick cracked against the ice hard enough to make Korvash flinch.
"I said drop it."
Korvash raised his hands in surrender, but his eyes stayed sharp. Knowing. The whole team had noticed the change—the tension, the silence, the way Tarmek flinched whenever someone mentioned the mural.
None of them had been stupid enough to ask directly.
Until now.
"Look, man." Korvash lowered his voice. "I've been married for seven years. I know what it looks like when someone's—"
"We're not married."
"Obviously. But you've got the same look I had when Elena and I had our first big fight. Like someone's scooped out your insides and you're just walking around pretending to be normal."
The accuracy of the description made Tarmek's jaw clench.
"There's nothing to fight about. She wanted space. I'm giving her space."
"Ah."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." Korvash's expression suggested it meant everything. "Just... sometimes space is what people say they want when what they actually want is someone to fight for them."
"She doesn't want—"
"How do you know?"
The question landed like a body check.
How do you know?
He didn't. He'd assumed, based on her pulling away, based on the walls he'd watched her build, based on years of watching her pattern—arrive, connect, leave. Always leave.
But he hadn't asked.
He'd just... let her go.
Like a coward.
"Morrison's calling us back." Tarmek skated away before Korvash could say anything else.
The rest of practice passed in a blur of drills and scrimmages.
He forced himself to focus, to find that controlled intensity that had made him captain, but his mind kept drifting to the hair tie in his pocket and the camper in the parking lot and the woman who'd turned his carefully ordered life into beautiful chaos.
Space, he reminded himself. She needs space.
But Korvash's words echoed in his skull, persistent and unwelcome.
How do you know?
After practice, the team dispersed to showers and training rooms. Tarmek moved through his post-workout routine mechanically—stretching, ice bath, protein shake—hitting every mark with the precision that had become second nature.
Then he walked towards the main entrance.
He didn't mean to. His truck was in the opposite direction, his path home clearly marked in his mental map. But his feet carried him towards the lobby anyway, towards the wall where Edie's mural spread like a window into another world.
He'd avoided looking at it for days.
Hadn't wanted to see her work, her passion, her presence captured in paint and color. Hadn't wanted to acknowledge that she'd created something permanent in a place she insisted on leaving.
But today, he stopped.
The mural was nearly complete.
Tarmek stood in the empty lobby, gear bag forgotten at his feet, and truly looked for the first time.
The wall erupted with life.
Players from every era of Emerald Enforcers history swept across the surface—old-timers in vintage jerseys, modern stars in current colors, all of them captured mid-motion like freeze-frames from the best moments of their careers.
The championship celebrations. The overtime victories.
The quiet moments in locker rooms that no camera ever captured.
But it wasn't just the players that made him stop breathing.
It was everything else.
The details she'd woven throughout: tiny touches that revealed how deeply she understood this team, this community, this place.
The coffee cup from Marge's Diner tucked into a corner, the same cup that half the town carried every morning.
The mountains visible through a locker room window, the exact shade of blue-grey that marked Greenwood Hollow's skyline.
The vintage poster for the hardware store that had sponsored the team forty years ago, faithfully recreated from a photograph in Sam's office.
She'd captured the feel of this place.
Not just the hockey. The people. The relationships. The quirky, tight-knit community that gathered around the Emerald Enforcers like family.
Evidence, Tarmek thought. This is evidence.
Evidence of her humor—the tiny hidden details that made him look closer, then closer again.
A reference to Korvash's obsession with post-game pizza hidden in a crowd scene.
A subtle joke about Morrison's legendary temper worked into a locker room motivational poster.
Her own initials tucked into the pattern of ice scratches, small enough to miss unless you knew to look.
Evidence of her warmth—the way she'd made every player look heroic without erasing their humanity. The gentle brushstrokes that softened hard edges. The color palette that somehow made hockey look cozy, inviting, like coming home.
Evidence of her place here.
She'd woven herself into this community with every stroke, every detail, every inside joke and local reference. She'd paid attention in a way outsiders never did. She'd seen Greenwood Hollow, really seen it, and translated that seeing into something beautiful and permanent.
She belongs here.
The thought hit him like a slap shot to the chest.
She belonged here, and she was planning to leave.
She belonged here, and he'd let her convince herself that running was safer than staying.
She belonged here—with the team, with the community, with him—and neither of them had been brave enough to say it out loud.
Tarmek stepped closer to the mural, searching the painted faces. There, in the corner of a championship celebration scene—a flash of red hair in the crowd. A woman with freckles and a huge smile, arms raised in victory.
She painted herself in.
The discovery made his throat tight.
Edie had included herself in the history of this team, this arena, this place. Not prominently—you'd have to know her to recognize the figure—but deliberately. Intentionally. Like part of her wanted to stay, even while the rest of her was preparing to run.
How do you know what she wants?
Korvash's question again. And this time, the answer was clear.
He didn't know.