Chapter 68 Rewriting the Replay
REWRITING THE REPLAY
Nate
“Turns out ‘enforcer’ actually isn’t my whole personality.”
The building wasn’t impressive, which somehow made it worse.
It wasn’t some rookie penthouse bought on ego and signing bonus adrenaline. It was practical. Brick. Secure entry. A place parents approved of and agents recommended. Nate stood awkwardly on the sidewalk for ages, brooding as if he was bracing for contact.
He’d thrown himself into hits that made arenas gasp.
Skated into fights without hesitation. This felt like stepping into a replay he didn’t control.
The buzzer panel was scratched from years of tenants.
He pressed the number he’d been given and waited, breath fogging in the cold Boston air. The intercom crackled to life.
“Yeah?”
The voice was thinner than he remembered. Not weaker. Just edged.
“It’s Eriksson.”
Silence. Then…
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Alexei said flatly.
“I know.”
A moment later, the lock buzzed.
Nate took the stairs, rejecting the ease of the elevator. Each step felt like a slow march toward a hit he couldn’t dodge, and when he finally got to the door, he was looking for it opened before he could knock.
Alexei Voskoboynikov looked like a kid who’d learned something the hard way.
The bruising around his eye had faded into yellowed shadows, but the orbital fracture had left its mark.
There was a faint indentation at the brow.
A line of tenderness that would probably ache in cold weather for the rest of his life.
His posture was careful, like his equilibrium still didn’t fully trust that Nate wasn’t going to take another swing.
“What the hell’re you doing here?” Alexei asked.
Nate took a breath, attempting to keep himself steady. This was harder than anything he’d ever had to do, except maybe for watching Holly leave the rehearsal space like there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her.
“I came to apologize,” Nate said.
Alexei let out a short, incredulous breath that bordered on a laugh. “Two months later? Nice.”
“You weren’t in a place to hear it before.”
“I wasn’t in a place to remember my own name before.”
Nate held his ground and let the comment sting. It was the least he could fucking do.
“You hit me like you wanted to make an example out of me,” Alexei continued, jaw tightening. “Like I wasn’t a guy with a career and a family and a brain inside that helmet. You hit me like I was a lesson.”
Nate swallowed. He could see it now the way he hadn’t allowed himself to then. The angle. The speed. The split second where he could have eased off and chose not to.
“I was angry,” Nate said.
“At me?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell did I do to deserve that?”
The word burned in Nate’s throat, but he forced it out anyway. “Nothing.”
Alexei’s eyes sharpened at that. The anger didn’t disappear, but it shifted from defense to assessment.
“You had your head down,” Nate added, because honesty didn’t mean erasing context. “But I still had time to pull up. I saw you. I decided to drive through.”
The hallway between them felt narrower.
“You know what it’s like,” Alexei continued, voice lower now but more dangerous for it, “to wake up in a hospital and not remember the hit? To have someone show you the replay on a phone and realize your body just folded like that? To hear doctors talk about long-term cognitive risk before you’ve even signed your second contract? ”
Nate didn’t interrupt.
“My mother flew in from fucking Moscow,” Alexei said. “She thought I was dying.”
There was the human cost. It couldn't be measured in highlight reels or suspension announcements.
Mothers.
Nate’s chest tightened in a way no check ever had. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it was stripped of ego. “Not for the suspension. Not for the headlines. For doing what I did, and for how it’s affected you.”
Alexei searched Nate’s face like he was trying to locate the PR motive.
“You trying to get back in the League?” he asked.
“I’m trying to figure out if I deserve to.”
That wasn’t the answer Alexei expected. It flickered across his expression before he masked it. “You think showing up here fixes it?”
“I know it doesn’t,” Nate admitted. “But I think not showing up makes it worse.”
That hung between them. Nate exhaled slowly, hands loose at his sides instead of clenched. He didn’t step forward but he didn’t back off, either.
“I built a reputation on being the guy nobody wanted to skate against,” he said. “I told myself that was toughness. But there’s a difference between finishing a check and trying to end a shift with a body on a stretcher.”
Alexei’s jaw flexed. “You deliberately hurt me.”
“Yes.” The admission landed like a puck against glass. “I wasn’t thinking about you,” Nate continued. “I was thinking about making a statement. About not being the guy people pushed around. About everything except the fact that you’re a rookie who deserved a clean shot.”
The silence thickened.
“I don’t want to be that guy,” Nate finished. “The one people survive.”
The hallway clock ticked faintly from somewhere inside the apartment. Alexei leaned back against the doorframe, studying him longer this time.
“You always play on that edge?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know it’s why they’re hesitant about bringing you back.”
Nate nodded slowly.
“And?”
“And I don’t want to skate like that anymore.”
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a vow shouted at the sky.
“Think you can change?” Alexei pressed.
Nate shrugged, letting his vulnerability finally show in the way he unclenched his jaw. “I have to.”
Another beat stretched thin.
“You didn’t call,” Alexei said. “You didn’t send a statement. You didn’t tag me in some fake ‘respect’ post.”
“That would’ve made it about me.”
Alexei’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Smart,” he muttered. The hostility hadn’t vanished, but it wasn’t sharp enough to cut anymore. “You know what the worst part was?”
Nate braced.
“It wasn’t the pain. It was watching the replay and realizing you never even looked at me after. You just skated off.”
That one drove deeper than anything else. Nate nodded once. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Been replaying that part too.”
Something in Alexei’s posture shifted. Not forgiveness, but recognition. “You’re still a bastard. You hit anyone like that again, I’ll come for you myself.”
“Fair.”
A breath of air passed between them that felt almost like the start of something steadier. Alexei hesitated, then stepped aside just enough to widen the doorway.
“You want coffee?” he asked gruffly.
Nate didn’t mistake it for absolution. It was conditional territory.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
Jerry - Agent
You out yet? How’d it go?
I told you this wasn’t about optics, and I meant it.
If he slammed the door in your face, that’s still better than not knocking.
Call me when you’re ready. And Nate?
Whatever happened in that hallway — that’s the version of you the League needs to start seeing.
Not the other one.
Sully
You in Boston?
Heard from a guy who heard from a guy you went to see Voskoboynikov.
That true? If it is — good.
But don’t expect the League to hand you a medal for basic decency.
You wanna come back? Keep doing the work when no one’s filming it.
FWD: Internal Note — Voskoboynikov Representation
Client confirms Eriksson visited in person.
No media present. No social mention. No follow-up statement issued.
Client describes apology as “direct” and “not defensive.”
We are not endorsing reinstatement.
But we are not opposing it either.
Monitor conduct moving forward.