Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TOLREK
Haley and I remained outside her office.
The silence after Jim’s footsteps faded was different from the careful silences in hallways. Those could be prevented. This one was the aftermath of almost being caught. I felt exposed, as if we’d been balancing on the edge and hadn’t fallen, but only barely.
“That was close,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
“He didn’t notice.”
“No.”
But he could have. If I’d been standing six inches closer or looked at her with everything I was feeling inside, he might’ve seen.
It wouldn’t take much.
“I should go,” I said.
“Yes.”
Neither of us moved.
Her office door hung open behind her. One step and she’d be inside. One step and I could follow, close the door, and be with her in a place where neither of us had to pretend.
Jim’s footsteps had faded, but they could return. Anyone could walk around the corner. The building was emptying but there were still plenty of people around.
“Thursday,” she said. “Four o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.”
Before I turned, I glanced at her once. Not the way I’d been careful not to look all day. She held my gaze for a second and didn’t pretend she hadn’t.
Then I walked.
The parking lot was nearly empty. The sun had started to set, pulling long shadows across the pavement. I drove to the garage, barely paying any attention to my movements.
Beau met me at the door with his usual enthusiasm. I fed him, took him out for our evening walk, and tried not to look up at Haley’s window when we passed her building.
I looked anyway, finding her light on.
I kept walking, looping around the block, Beau trotting ahead of me, oblivious to everything except the important work of investigating every smell the sidewalk offered.
Jim wanted to have coffee to talk defensive structure. He’d ask about the reads I was making on the ice, ones I’d only started making again because his daughter had shown me footage of myself and told me: This is who you were. This is who you still are.
I’d never been good at lying. I wasn’t going to start now.
But I was going to have to sit across from Jim and drink coffee and talk about hockey while carrying the knowledge that I’d had his daughter’s taste in my mouth.
I’d made her come apart in a hotel gym at midnight.
I was planning to do it again on Thursday at four o’clock when we were supposed to be reviewing tape.
Beau stopped to investigate the fire hydrant in front of Haley’s building.
My phone was in my pocket. I could text her. Something simple, like, Are you free? or Can I come up? Or nothing at all, just her name, because she’d know what it meant.
My hand moved toward my pocket, but I stopped it halfway there.
This was the edge I’d been walking since the hotel gym.
Before that, even. Since the park bench where she’d handed me a sketch and looked at me like I was worth seeing.
Every time I'd stood in her doorway without crossing it, I'd been moving toward this.
Now I stood on a sidewalk at night, staring at her window like a male with nowhere better to be.
I’d learned what it felt like to be measured and come up short in someone else’s system. I’d spent the last year protecting myself, hesitating before contact, because getting hurt again wasn’t something I could survive.
And then she’d shown me footage of myself and told me I was extraordinary.
Beau tugged on the leash, ready to keep moving.
Renkar would’ve told me I was being an idiot. He would’ve laughed and said something about how I always made things more complicated than they needed to be. You want her? Go get her. Stop standing around like you’re waiting for permission from the gods.
But Renkar wasn’t here, and I was standing alone with his dog and my brother-shaped grief. Going to her door would be the easiest thing I'd ever done, and the most selfish.
Jim trusted me. He’d put his faith in me when my last organization hadn’t. He’d looked at my tape and seen something worth keeping. He’d brought me here, given me ice time, and told me today that I was settling in well.
This was how I was repaying him.
The fact that I’d do it again, that I was planning to do it again on Thursday at four o’clock, didn’t make it better. It made it worse, because I knew what I was doing, and I was choosing it anyway.
I forced myself to get moving.
Beau trotted ahead, his tiny legs scampering, keeping the leash taut. He had no idea what I was wrestling with. He just knew we were walking, and that was enough.
We looped around the block, passing the dry cleaner that was closed for the night, the bookstore with its dark windows, and the bar that wouldn’t open for another hour. The normal city sounds felt loud because my head was too full.
When we got back to my building, I stopped at the entrance and turned back, looking up.
I could be at her door in under a minute.
My feet didn’t move.
Renkar had always jumped in without looking and trusted he’d land somewhere safe. I was the one who calculated angles and read developing plays and made sure I knew where everyone would be before committing to contact.
Except with Haley, I’d stopped calculating. I’d just moved, and now I was standing in the weight of that decision, trying to figure out how to hold what I wanted against what I owed.
Beau whined, a small sound that meant he was ready to be inside where it was warm, and his water bowl waited.
I went inside.
The apartment was dark when we entered. I didn’t turn on the lights, just stood in the doorway and let my eyes adjust.
The sketch still hung on the wall across from the couch. Beau, rendered in confident lines, looking exactly like himself. She’d seen him clearly enough to capture something true, and she’d handed it to me like it was nothing.
Tal’haig. Being seen.
Only fated mates did something like this.
I’d known what it meant the second she’d given it to me, even if she hadn’t. Its meaning had carved itself into my chest where it would live for a lifetime.
And I was going to lose her, because this couldn’t last. Eventually Jim would find out, or the team would make it impossible to hide, or the season would grind us down until there was nothing left but the exhaustion of pretending.
I still wanted her badly enough that staying put felt like something breaking.
Beau jumped onto the couch, raking his back legs across the cushion before settling into his spot. He looked at me with his tiny, earnest face, waiting for me to join him.
When I sat, he immediately climbed into my lap, rolling to expose his belly for rubs.
I sat in the dark with my brother’s dog and stared at the sketch on the wall until exhaustion finally pulled me under.
When I woke up three hours later, still on the couch, Beau asleep on my chest, my phone was in my hand.
I’d typed out a message, Are you awake?
I hadn’t sent it.
Now I deleted it.