CHAPTER TWELVE SEVEN GAMES, SEVEN TRUTHS #3
“Seven games,” Tyler shouted.
“Seven truths.”
“We owe one more.”
“Hotel.”
Their helmets struck together as teammates collided around them. Cameras recorded the two captains at the center of the pile, one holding the other upright.
After the handshake line, Walsh waited near the tunnel. He and Brock stood without speaking for several seconds.
“You really walked away from me,” Walsh said.
“I walked toward something else.”
Walsh looked at Tyler waiting by the bench. “He worth it?”
Brock’s answer came without hesitation. “Wrong question.”
“What’s right?”
“Am I honest enough to be worth him?”
Walsh studied his former partner, then offered a hand. Brock accepted.
Tyler pretended not to have heard, but the words followed him all the way to the shower.
Teammates buried them beneath a celebration against the glass. Walsh remained near center ice watching the team Brock had chosen carry him forward.
In the handshake line, he stopped in front of Brock.
“You look happy,” Walsh said.
Brock glanced at Tyler. “I am.”
At the hotel, the final ritual began.
The locker room after Game Seven had been too crowded for honesty.
Players wore division-champion caps and sprayed water from bottles because champagne remained reserved for later rounds.
Tyler gave the game puck to the rookie goaltender who had survived overtime.
Brock gave the wolf chain to the entire defensive unit.
Reporters asked about Chicago, contracts, and whether two captains had become a competitive advantage.
“It was never a disadvantage,” Tyler said.
Across the room, Brock watched him answer. The visible arousal beneath both men’s base layers had nothing to do with the reporters and everything to do with the truth still owed.
They dressed in formal silence. Brock buttoned Tyler’s cuff when tired fingers missed the hole. Tyler straightened Brock’s tie. Each brief touch promised privacy without rushing toward it.
On the bus, their hands met beneath one jacket. No one teased them. After seven games, the team had learned some victories required quiet.
They undressed each other without urgency. Seven games had marked both bodies. Tyler’s hip was purple from a check. Brock’s ribs carried fresh tape. Their arousal became visible beneath the last layers, familiar and still powerful after exhaustion.
They entered the shower together.
“Final truth,” Tyler said.
Brock looked at him through the water.
“I love you.”
No competition had prepared Tyler for the force of three words spoken without protection.
He stepped closer. “That is not a confession you save for Game Seven.”
“I tried after Game Two.”
“Magazine covers distracted you.”
“Game Three.”
“Ledger.”
“Game Four.”
“You were busy.”
Tyler laughed, then felt tears arrive with no warning.
Brock wiped them away beneath the water. “Your truth.”
“When did you know?” Tyler asked.
Brock considered. “Northwoods. You said you were built around me, then looked furious because the words escaped.”
“That was fear.”
“Same doorway.”
“You waited until now?”
“Game One, I still thought love meant telling you to take New York. Game Two, I almost said it after the magazine covers and worried you would laugh.”
“I would have laughed.”
“I know.”
“Then kissed you.”
“I know that now.” Brock touched Tyler’s wet hair.
“Game Three, your ledger truth made me understand you had been as afraid as I was. Game Four, coaching stopped looking like death. Game Five, I believed Walsh for one second. Game Six, walking away from him felt like choosing you. Tonight, I ran out of reasons to delay.”
Tyler listened to the seven games become one confession.
“My truth,” he said, “is that I knew in Detroit.”
Brock stared. “That early?”
“You removed my suit like the exhausted man underneath was the prize. I wanted to tell you. Instead, I criticized your tie.”
“It was a bad tie.”
“Terrible.”
“And Northwoods?”
“That was when love became more frightening than losing hockey.”
“Now?”
Tyler pressed one palm to Brock’s heart. “Now it is the reason I can lose something without losing myself.”
Tyler pressed their bodies together, making desire unmistakable but not substituting it for speech.
“I loved you before I knew how to stop keeping score,” he said.
Brock’s face opened completely.
They kissed beneath the shower while victory waited outside the glass.
Later, seven damp towels covered the hotel bathroom floor because neither captain had remembered where the first one went. Tyler lay naked across Brock’s chest while the series replayed silently on television.
“We told more than seven truths,” Brock said.
“Overachievement.”
“Do we keep the ritual?”
Tyler looked toward the closed bathroom door. “Truth before release?”
“Could be dangerous.”
“Could be slow.”
“You hate waiting.”
Tyler rested more fully into him. “I’m developing range.”
Brock kissed his forehead. “I love you.”
Tyler let the words remain visible between them instead of answering with a joke.
“I love you too.”
For the first time in seven games, neither man delayed anything.