Epilogue 1
Jamie
Two weeks.
I've been at the rink at six AM every day for two weeks and every day the ice has been empty and I've skated alone and done the work and gone home and done it again the next day.
Not because I expected him.
Because this is where I go when I don't know what else to do with myself. This has always been where I go. The ice at six AM, before the world starts, before anyone needs anything from me — this is the one constant I have ever been able to count on.
Today I come down the tunnel and the lights are already on.
I slow down.
Rhys is at center ice. Fully geared up. Stick in hand. Moving through a slow, unhurried drill like he's been here long enough to already be warmed up. He sees me come through the tunnel and stops. We look at each other across the ice.
He looks good. Tired, maybe. The two weeks sitting somewhere around his eyes. But here. Present. Looking at me with those eyes that don't miss anything and never have.
"You're late," he says, with his signature smirk.
I step onto the ice.
"You're about two weeks late," I say in between my smile.
His mouth moves. That real smile. The crooked one with the laugh lines that I have been thinking about every single morning for fourteen days.
We skate toward each other slowly. Meeting at center ice. The rink is empty and bright around us. The cold air. The silence of this place at this hour that has always felt like mine and now feels like ours.
His smile softens.
For a second neither of us says anything.
I spent two weeks trying to figure out what to say.
Two weeks replaying every conversation we've ever had.
Every fight.
Every almost.
Every time I looked at him and wanted something.
I didn't know how to survive wanting him.
Every morning I came here and hoped he would show up.
My throat tightens.
"Rhys."
His expression changes immediately.
Because he knows.
He always knows.
"I spent my whole life thinking love was something I didn’t deserve."
The words come out rough.
"I thought it was supposed to hurt. I thought if you cared enough about something, eventually it would find a way to break you."
The confession feels worse than any hit I've ever taken.
"I don't know how to let people in. I don't know how to stop waiting for them to leave. I don't know how to believe something good can actually happen to me."
My voice breaks.
Just a little.
"But then you happened."
His eyes close briefly.
I keep going before I lose my nerve.
"You kept showing up."
Yesterday.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Always.
"You kept pushing."
A laugh escapes him.
Wet around the edges.
"And somewhere along the way you became the first person I've ever wanted to stay."
The rink goes completely silent.
"I know I don’t deserve you, but I don't want you to stay away from me."
The truth sits between us.
Raw.
Terrifying.
"I want you everywhere, Rhys."
His face crumples.
Just for a second.
"I want your stupid comments and your terrible timing and the way you never leave anything alone. I want you in my room every day. I actually love the way you never ever shut up. I want you in my life. I want every tomorrow you keep trying to give me. Every morning I came here and told myself I was fine. I wasn’t.
I didn’t feel anything at all until I met you. "
My chest hurts.
"I love you."
The words echo in the empty rink.
"I love you, Rhys. And I'm done pretending I don't."
For the first time in my life, saying it feels less frightening than not saying it.
“Jesus Christ, Jamie." His laugh catches somewhere in the middle. "Took you long enough. I love you, too. I just needed some time," he continues. "After the game. I needed to think everything through without being around you, because I can't think when I'm next to you. But god, I fucking love you.”
The words stay there as we both soak them in.
I reach out and grab the front of his jersey and pull him in and kiss him right there at center ice and he grabs my collar with both hands and kisses me back and it tastes like two weeks and relief and peppermint and finally. When we pull back he's grinning.
We skate.
The team files in at eight.
The way they always do — Bennett first with too much energy, Cooper mid-sentence about something that started in the parking lot, Kowalski behind them both looking like he's already tired of them.
The usual noise. The usual chaos of a bunch of guys and shared ice and Fitch somewhere behind them with his coffee and his clipboard.
Rhys skates up beside me at the boards. His hand finds mine. Just that. Easy and unhesitating, fingers lacing through mine, like it's the most obvious place for his hand to be.
It is.
He glances over at the team filtering in and then starts to pull back — old instinct, the reflex of someone who has spent too long making themselves smaller for other people's comfort, for my comfort — and I tighten my grip.
He looks at me.
I shake my head no.
Don't let go.
His eyes go slightly wide.
I turn toward the ice where the team is gathering, spreading out, noticing us the way the team always notices everything — Bennett first, mouth already opening, Cooper stopping mid-sentence, Kowalski at the boards with his arms folded and the expression of a man who has been calmly waiting for this since September.
"I’m gay. Callahan's my boyfriend," I say. Loud enough to carry. "It's not a big deal. If anyone has a problem with it they can fuck off."
Silence.
Half a second of complete silence.
Then Fitch clears his throat. The team is quiet immediately.
Fitch clearing his throat has the same effect as a fire alarm.
"Two things," he says. He holds up one finger.
"Nash has captain back, effective immediately.
He earned it." He pauses. Looks at Rhys.
Looks at me. Looks at our joined hands. Sighs from somewhere deep.
"And for the love of everything I hold dear—" He points at both of us. "No kissing on my ice."
The team erupts.
KISS. KISS. KISS.
Fitch pinches the bridge of his nose. "I want you to know," he says to nobody in particular, "that I had a peaceful life before any of you."
I look at Rhys.
He looks at me.
His eyes are bright and he looks — he looks like the person I have been terrified of wanting for the better part of a year.
I spent months pretending he didn’t get under my skin.
Then he touched me and ruined the lie I kept telling myself.
Kept pushing till I finally cracked open.
He’s loud and annoying and completely, entirely himself.
Standing on the ice in the early morning light holding my hand in front of everyone and not letting go.
“Well,” he says. "The people have spoken."
"The people can go fuck themselves," I say.
"Nash."
"They can."
"Jamie."
I kiss him. The noise that follows could probably be heard from the parking lot.
I don't care. His free hand finds my jaw and he kisses me back and behind us twenty guys are absolutely losing their shit and it lands — the thing I have been locking away and managing and burying since I was old enough to know — just sitting in my chest, completely mine.
Not hidden.
Not managed.
Just mine.
When we pull apart Rhys is grinning so wide it looks like it hurts. "You're going to have to do that again," he says. "For the people in the back."
"I'm your Captain," I say. "Show some respect."
"My boyfriend," he says. "Who I am going to embarrass on this ice every single day for the rest of the season."
"Callahan—"
"Starting now." He lets go of my hand and skates away backward, arms spread wide, grinning at the whole team. "Let's go, Ice Queens!" The cheer that answers him is immediate and loud and genuine.
I stand at center ice.
Watch him go.
Feel the cold air and the bright lights and the sound of twenty people who know.
Who know and don't care and are already moving on and asking for drills and complaining about the hour and being exactly, precisely the team I've been trying to build all season without knowing that this — this one thing — was the thing holding us back.
Not the plays.
Not the conditioning.
Me.
Standing still when I should have moved.
I pick up my stick.
"Alright," I call out.
And I skate.