CHAPTER TWELVE SEVEN GAMES, SEVEN TRUTHS
The Milwaukee Frost entered the playoffs with two captains, one unresolved payroll, and a first-round opponent that knew exactly where Brock Lawson carried his scars.
The Chicago Forge had employed him for eight seasons.
His photograph still hung in the United Center’s lower corridor: Brock in a black-and-red jersey, beard longer, face younger, one glove raised after a conference championship.
Several current Forge players had shared that room with him.
Their captain, Derek Walsh, had been Brock’s defensive partner and closest friend until a contract dispute ended both relationships.
“They’ll come after him,” Tyler said during the series meeting.
Coach Keller paused the scouting video. “They’ll come after both of you. Chicago wants Lawson angry and Hayes distracted by it.”
Onscreen, Walsh cross-checked an opponent after the whistle.
“Don’t give them either,” Keller said.
The contract meeting had produced a temporary truce rather than a solution. Milwaukee agreed to negotiate with both captains as a unit. Tyler agreed not to sign New York’s offer before the playoffs ended. Brock declined to accept the coaching job while he remained medically cleared to play.
Catherine found enough projected cap space to make a shared future possible if ownership increased payroll and both men accepted creative terms. Possible was not guaranteed. It was enough for hockey.
At the press conference before Game One, reporters asked which captain would remain next season.
Tyler leaned toward the microphone. “Both captains are focused on Chicago.”
“That is not an answer,” one reporter said.
Brock looked at him. “Team voted. Seems like an answer.”
The clip spread across Milwaukee within an hour. Fans arrived at the airport wearing shirts printed with TWO CAPTAINS, ONE FROST. Tyler photographed one and sent it to Brock from the other side of the terminal.
Brock replied with a picture of the Captain’s Ledger inside his carry-on.
YOU brOUGHT IT?
HISTORIC DOCUMENT.
WE ARE NOT USING IT.
SECURITY BLANKET.
Tyler smiled at his phone. Truth could replace the ledger without making its history worthless. It had carried them until they learned to return without a debt.
That evening, Tyler opened the Captain’s Ledger to a fresh page.
Brock stood across the kitchen in sweatpants, reading glasses, and no shirt. The sight still produced an immediate response beneath Tyler’s lounge shorts.
“No points during the series,” Tyler said.
“Playoff goals don’t count?”
“They count for the team. Not us.”
Brock removed the glasses. “New system?”
“Seven games possible. After each one, we shower together and each tell one truth before anything physical happens.”
“Victory or loss?”
“Especially losses.”
“What kind of truth?”
“One we would rather use sex to avoid.”
Brock looked at the empty ledger page. “You’ve been planning this.”
“Since the guest room.”
“No commands?”
“No rewards. No debts.”
Brock considered the terms, then closed the ledger without writing them down.
“Agreed,” he said.
GAME ONE
Chicago welcomed Brock home with a tribute video and booed him when he appeared.
The contradiction unsettled him. Tyler saw it during warmups. Brock watched his younger self deliver hits across the giant scoreboard while fans applauded the memory, then listened as the same crowd jeered the Frost jersey on his back.
Walsh met him at center ice.
“Should have retired in red,” he said.
Brock answered by winning the opening faceoff cleanly.
Chicago won the game four to two.
The Forge targeted Brock from the first shift. They finished every check, talked after whistles, and reminded officials of his reputation whenever bodies fell near him. Brock remained controlled until Walsh struck Tyler behind the net.
Brock’s gloves dropped halfway.
Tyler caught his wrist.
“Not worth it,” he said.
Brock kept the gloves on.
Chicago scored during the next shift while both captains were still angry.
The Forge widened the lead in the second. Walsh blocked Brock’s shot, carried the puck the other direction, and scored while pointing at his former partner.
Brock returned to the bench breathing through his nose, the old signal that violence sat one decision away.
Tyler climbed over the boards for the next shift. “Give me the puck.”
“What?”
“Give me something useful to do with your anger.”
Brock’s first pass reached Tyler at full speed. Tyler entered the zone and scored over the goaltender’s glove. His second pass created Milwaukee’s other goal.
For eleven minutes, they nearly erased the deficit.
Then Tyler tried to force one more rush. Walsh stripped him and scored into the empty net.
Four to two.
In the handshake after the horn, Walsh leaned close to Brock. “Still cleaning up for pretty forwards.”
Brock’s glove closed.
Tyler placed his own over it. “Hotel.”
Brock looked at him, physical tension evident even through equipment. “Command?”
“Promise.”
The word carried them through the locker room, media, and silent bus ride. Their knees touched beneath the seat divider. Neither moved away, but neither used the contact to avoid what waited.
At the hotel, they entered the shower naked and silent.
Their arousal rose quickly beneath the hot water, visible and close enough to touch. Tyler wanted to press Brock against the tile, turn the loss into force, and leave no room for disappointment.
He kept both hands on Brock’s shoulders instead.
“Truth,” Tyler said.
Brock looked into the water. “Part of me wanted them to cheer when I scored against them.”
“Why?”
“Because I gave that city eight years and still need proof they remember the good parts.”
Tyler traced the scar across his chest. “They remembered.”
“Your turn.”
Tyler’s body remained aroused between them, demanding the familiar escape. “I was relieved when Walsh hit me because I knew you’d look at me instead of them.”
Brock’s eyes lifted.
“Ugly truth,” Tyler said.
“Still true.”
They did not celebrate the loss. They dried each other, climbed naked into the hotel bed, and lay face to face without seeking release. Desire remained hard between their bodies until exhaustion softened it.
Brock held Tyler all night.
GAME TWO
Milwaukee won three to one.
Tyler scored twice. Brock blocked six shots and assisted on the empty-net goal. Their power line controlled the third period so completely that Chicago’s crowd fell silent.
Back at the hotel, victory followed them into the shower.
Tyler removed Brock’s suit first. Jacket, tie, shirt, trousers—each layer placed neatly aside while Brock watched Tyler’s physical response grow beneath his own formal clothes. Then Brock undressed him with the same attention.
They entered the water already fully aroused.
“Truth,” Tyler said, though his hands wanted everything else.
Brock reached behind him for shampoo. “I collected your magazine covers.”
Tyler blinked. “What?”
“Three years. Sports Monthly. Men’s Fitness. Pride issue of Out.”
“You hated me.”
“I told myself it was scouting.”
“Shirtless scouting?”
Brock worked shampoo into Tyler’s hair. “You had terrible defensive positioning.”
Tyler laughed so hard he had to brace against the glass.
“Where are they?”
“Box in my mother’s attic.”
“I want them framed.”
“Absolutely not.”
“My truth,” Tyler said, turning beneath the water. “I recognized you before the first day in Milwaukee because I watched the clip of you hitting me dozens of times.”
“Why?”
“You looked down at me after. The camera caught your face. You were terrified I was hurt.”
Brock’s humor disappeared. “I was.”
“I liked that the strongest man on the ice looked afraid for me.”
The truth changed victory into tenderness, then tenderness into a prolonged celebration neither rushed. They left the shower only when the water cooled and continued in the dark hotel room until both captains were physically exhausted.
Before sleep, Brock opened a protected folder on his phone.
The magazine covers waited inside.
Tyler stared at younger versions of himself: shirtless beneath studio lights, skating through artificial snow, wearing a white suit at Pride. Every image carried a date from before Milwaukee.
“You scanned them,” he said.
“For scouting.”
“You organized them chronologically.”
“Opponent research.”
“There is a favorite?”
Brock hesitated, then selected a cover Tyler barely remembered. He stood in an empty rink wearing an unfastened dress shirt, no smile, and no polished campaign expression.
“Why that one?” Tyler asked.
“You looked lonely.”
The answer made the teasing disappear.
Brock enlarged the photograph. “I wanted to know who was behind the face everybody bought.”
Tyler took the phone and placed it facedown. Then he drew Brock over him, holding his gaze.
“You found him,” he said.
“Still looking.”
“Good.”
Their celebration continued more quietly, shaped by the knowledge that desire had begun years before either admitted it.
GAME THREE
The series moved to Milwaukee.
Chicago won in overtime after Tyler’s pass struck a skate and became the deciding breakaway.
He sat in front of his stall for ten minutes after the room emptied, still wearing half his equipment. Brock removed each piece without speaking.
At the loft, they undressed on opposite sides of the glass shower. The loss remained between them. Their bodies reacted as skin appeared, but neither used attraction to deny grief.
Water began.
Brock went first. “I blamed you for the turnover for exactly four seconds.”
Tyler nodded. “I blamed you for not stopping it.”
“Exactly four?”
“Closer to six.”
They stood beneath separate rain heads.
“Real truth,” Brock said.
Tyler looked at the old ledger visible through the glass on the kitchen island.
“I created the Captain’s Ledger because I needed an excuse to keep returning to your bed.”
Brock’s breath stopped.
“I could call it competition,” Tyler continued. “I could say a goal earned something, pretend I was collecting instead of choosing. I thought if everything had a score, wanting you could not humiliate me.”
Brock crossed the shower.
“You never needed an excuse,” he said.
“I did then.”
“And now?”