Chapter 15
Jamie
I don't sleep.
Ceiling gets lighter at some point.
That's all that happens.
I kissed him back. My fucking teammate.
My body feels wrong, I’m crawling out of my skin. He’s too close to everything I’ve built. I kissed him. Back.
I get up at four AM. Go to the rink. Skate until my legs stop working then skate more because that's what you do when your head won't stop. You skate long enough and eventually there's only the ice.
Only the puck.
Only the sound of your own breathing.
No room left for anything else.
I was maybe nine the first time my father figured it out. Hadn't done anything. Hadn't said anything. Looked at someone I wasn't supposed to look at for half a second too long and he saw it on my face before I even knew it was there.
He didn’t say a word.
Told me to get my skates.
Drove to the rink at ten at night. Put a bucket of pucks at center ice and stood at the boards with his hockey stick and watched me shoot.
When my arms gave out he walked onto the ice and cracked the stick across my shoulders and said again.
When I fell he grabbed my jersey and hauled me back up.
When I cried he hit me harder and said don't you dare.
For hours.
Until my hands bled inside my gloves and I couldn't see straight and when it was finally over we drove home in silence and he put the stick back in the closet like it was nothing.
I learned that wanting things hurt.
I learned that being seen hurt more.
He didn't have to explain it.
I understood.
Every time after that. Any time something slipped through before I could catch it. Skates on. Ice. Pucks. Hockey stick to the back if I slowed down or complained, only when the rink was empty. Belt when we got home.
No crying at all or the punishment was worse.
Hockey was the cure.
The answer to everything wrong about myself.
Every mistake.
Every weakness.
Every feeling.
Every part of myself he couldn't beat out of me no matter how hard he tried.
I spent years curing myself.
I skate until the rink staff shows up. Go home. Sit on the floor with my back against the bed and stare at the wall until it's time to do something else. Rinse and repeat the same for the next two days.
The text comes in on the third day.
Rhys:
hey. you good?
I stare at it for a long time.
I'm sitting on my dorm room floor with my back against the bed and my phone in my hand and my shoulder aching and my head full of static. I've been staring at the ceiling for an hour trying to convince myself that what happened in that locker room was something I can put in a box and close.
I can put it in a box.
It didn’t mean anything.
I'm not gay.
Not here.
Not on this team.
Not in a way that touches anything that matters.
No one here can know.
Jamie:
Fine
I type back.
Dots appear.
Rhys:
you sure?
Jamie:
Yes. It's fine. We're good.
A longer pause this time.
Rhys:
okay
Then:
Rhys:
same time tomorrow?
I close my eyes.
I put the phone down, pick it up, and stare at it.
Then I decide to ignore him and put the phone face down on the floor and sit in the silence and tell myself this is fine.
It's fine.
I shower quickly, change, and head across campus to the coffee shop. Through the trees and a couple smaller buildings dotting throughout, it sits right at the edge of the student union, small and always slightly too warm, perpetually smelling like burnt espresso and something spiced and vanilla.
I’ve worked here since freshman year. Most guys on the team are funded by parents who send money to them constantly, without thinking about it — mine don’t. The job gets me tuition reimbursement and a single dorm room to myself and I have never once taken either of those things for granted.
I don’t mind the work. I actually like it. During slow stretches I run plays in my head, work through positioning problems, think about what we could be doing differently. It’s just another way to stay focused.
The afternoon rush has already thinned out by the time I get in. I work through the quiet — restocking cups, wiping down the two small tables by the window, getting ahead of the closing tasks for tonight.
The door dings.
“Well.” That voice. That specific tone, light and smug at the same time, like everything is a joke only he knows the punchline to. “Don’t you look cute.”
I don’t look up. I just clean the table harder.
Two days of no sleep. Two days of nonstop hockey.
Two days of my father’s voice running underneath everything, like water breaking through a small crack in a dam, drowning my thoughts until it’s all I can hear.
And Rhys walks in like it's nothing. Like everything is always nothing.
“Just tell me your order, Callahan.”
I hear him approach, but I keep my eyes down. The thing about Rhys is he takes up all of the air in a room without even trying — I can feel him crossing toward me before I see him in my peripheral vision, this gravitational thing that I am actively choosing to ignore.
He gets close. Too close. He always does this.
His breath near my ear before he speaks. “How about you surprise me,” he says.
Something in me snaps like a cable pulled too tight. I step back and turn on him. “What is your problem? Why do you always have to be like this? Make everything into a fucking joke?”
His expression shifts. The smirk immediately drops. “You sure you’re okay?”
“It’s not a joke, it’s never a joke, you do this constantly and you know exactly what you’re doing—”
“You’re unbelievable.” His nostrils flare. “After everything, after running out on me. I say two words to you and you freak out. Not everything is me fucking with you, Nash. Fucking lighten up.”
I need to stop. I can feel the edges of my control getting thin and I know this feeling, know what comes after it, and I need to walk away and get back behind the counter and remember that I am at work and I am a captain and I am better than this. I turn and start back toward the counter.
His hand closes around my wrist. Not hard. Just firm — stopping me. Holding me there. I go very still, my body tense.
“What the fuck is your problem? You’ve been avoiding me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Just leave if you’re not going to order.” I snap.
"I'm not going anywhere,” he huffs.
"Fine, then stand there and shut the fuck up."
"You're avoiding me,” he repeats.
"I'm working." I slam the cloth down on the table and turn around. "What do you want?"
He looks at me. Arms crossed. Serious look on his face. "I want to know what's going on with you."
"Nothing is going on with me. Callahan, just back off."
"I'm just asking if you're—"
"I said back off." I step toward him. "You want to know what's going on? Nothing. What happened was nothing. We move on. End of conversation."
"Nothing," he repeats.
"Yes."
"Right." He nods slowly. "Okay."
"Good."
"The morning sessions?"
"Done."
"The—"
"All of it. Done." I pick the cloth back up. "No more being alone, just hockey with the team. That's it."
"You know you don't have to do this," he says.
"Do what?"
"This." He gestures at me. At all of it. "Blow everything up. Act like nothing happened. I'm not going to—"
"Nothing happened."
"Would you stop—"
"Nothing happened." I turn on him and step directly into his space. "Say it back to me and repeat it, because you’re not understanding. Nothing happened." I repeat the last sentence slowly, dragging the words out.
He doesn't respond, just stands there, glaring at me.
"Say it."
"No." His jaw is tight, but his eyes are pleading with me. "Because something happened and you know it and I'm not going to stand here and—"
"Then fucking leave." I step closer. We're chest to chest now. Neither of us moving. Both breathing hard. "I don't know what you think happened, but you're wrong. You're reading into something that isn't there."
"I'm not reading into anything." He doesn't back up not even an inch. "You kissed me back."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bullshit."
"Watch yourself."
"You kissed me back, Nash." His voice is harder now. "Stop lying to my face."
"Get out of my face."
"Make me."
"You need to leave," I say very quietly, silently begging him with the defeated look in my eyes. Please stop pushing me.
"I need you to stop pretending."
"I'm not—"
"You're gay?" He says it flat. Right to my face. "That's what this is, right? That's what's freaking you out? And that's fine. You hear me? It's fine. I'm gay, too. The team doesn’t care—"
"Don't." The word comes out like something breaking. "Don't you dare."
"Why not? It's true, right—"
"I'm not." My voice is shaking. I hear it shaking and I hate it. "I don't know what the fuck you think happened, but I am not—"
"Jamie—"
"I'm not." I step into him hard enough that he has to take a step back. "You hear me? I'm not. I am not going to let you stand here and take—"
"Nobody's taking anything from you—"
"You already did." My voice cracks on it and I hate myself for it. "You got in my head and you just — you just kept pushing and now I can't—" I stop. "Just leave it alone. Please. Just fucking leave it."
"I can't just leave it,” he sighs, shoulders lowered.
"Why not?"
"Because you're not okay."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine—"
"I'm FINE." The word comes out too loud.
Too much. I hear it bounce off the walls, so I lower my voice.
"I am fine. I have always been fine. This—" I point between us, "—is not fine.
This whole thing you're doing right now is not fine.
So take your—" I stop. My hands are shaking. I can see them shaking. I can’t stop shaking.
I go cold instead and shove it all down.
"Good for you, Callahan. Seriously. Good for fucking you.
You figured it out. The whole team knows.
Everyone loves you. Nobody cares. Great.
But that's not my life. That's not who I am.
So go fuck whoever you want, do whatever you want, go fuck yourself for all I care. But leave me out of it."
He stares at me. A vein jumps in his neck. "You think it was easy for me?" The words come out clipped.
"Yes."
"You think—" He laughs. Short and humorless. "You have no idea what I’ve been through to get here."
"I know what I see."
"You see what I let you see. What I want everyone to see." He steps toward me again. Right back in my face. "You think I walked into Harlow like this? You think I always—"
"You are taking something from me."
"I'm trying to—"
"Every time you open your mouth about this you're taking something from me.
" My voice has gone very quiet. Very dangerous.
I can feel where this is going and I can't stop it. I feel the heat rising in my skin, the anger bubbling right at the surface, and I’m so close to blowing up.
"You don't get to do that. You don't get to come in here and put words on things and look at me like you know me.
You don't know me. You don't know what happens if anyone here finds out. You don't know what I have to lose—"
"So you'd rather blow this up than just—"
"There is no this."
"Jamie—"
"There is no this." Getting louder now. Getting uglier. "There never was a this. Whatever you convinced yourself was happening — you're wrong. I'm not like you. I'm never going to be like you. And the sooner you accept that and back the fuck off the better."
Something changes in his face. Gets mean. The air between us is violent, the temperature keeps rising and rising, but no one is cooling it down.
"Not like me," he says.
"That's right."
"What does that mean?"
"It means what it means."
"Say it." His voice drops. The situation feels perilous, like it’s hanging over the edge, but I can’t stop what’s happening, I’m too far gone now. "You want to say it. Say it."
"I'm not gay." Each word separate. "I am not like you. I will never be like you. And I need you to get that through your head and leave me the fuck alone."
He looks at me for a long moment, eyes gone black with rage.
"You know what," he says. "Fine. Stay in your head. Be fine." Doesn't look at me. "But don't stand here and act like you're not lying to yourself because we both know—"
"I'm not lying to anyone."
"—we both know exactly what happened in that locker room and exactly what it meant—"
"It meant nothing—"
He looks at me directly. "You can call it whatever you want. Call it nothing. Doesn't change what it was.” His voice is low and tight. “Because you’re not gay like me, right?”
I don’t think. I don’t decide. I just move.
My fist connects with his cheek hard enough that it travels all the way up my arm. He stumbles back into the counter. Catches himself with one hand flat on the surface. Straightens up slow and touches his face. Looks at me with a look I’ve never seen from him before.
Not anger. Something past anger. Something colder and more final than anything he's aimed at me before. I've seen that look on the ice. When someone's trying to start something and Rhys is deciding whether to finish it. That's how I know exactly how badly he wants to hit me back right now.
He doesn't.
His fists close at his sides. Knuckles white. Jaw so tight the muscle in it pops. His mouth pulled with restraint. His whole body is coiled with it — all that anger sitting right on the surface.
He swallows it down.
All of it.
"Fuck you," he says instead and walks out.
The bell above the door rings. The coffee shop is silent once more.
I stand in the middle of it with my hand throbbing and the specific clarity of someone who just did the one thing a captain should never do settling over me like cold water.
My father would probably call that a good hit. Would finally look at me like I did something right.
That thought makes me want to be sick.
I stare at the door.
I really fucked up.