Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TOLREK
Three days. That’s how long I let myself believe this could work.
Every morning started the same. Beau’s cold nose on my ribs at five thirty, his impatient whine cutting through whatever dream I’d been having.
I’d take him around the block while Haley stayed warm in my bed, and when I came back, she’d be in my kitchen making coffee in one of my t-shirts that hit her mid-thigh.
She’d started keeping clothes at my apartment. I’d cleared space in my closet without discussing it. These were the kind of decisions that should’ve required conversation, but we were already past talking about what this meant.
After breakfast, we’d leave for the rink separately. Her first, because analysts arrived before players. Me twenty minutes later.
At the facility, we kept it professional. She stayed in the press box or her office. I stayed on the ice or in the locker room. We didn’t seek each other out. When we passed in corridors, we’d nod and keep walking, playing colleagues so convincingly I almost believed it myself.
But I always knew where she was in the building. It was like tracking the net during a game, a type of peripheral awareness I couldn’t shut off even when I tried.
Practice sessions felt sharp. My reads were getting cleaner each day, my positioning instinctive. I hadn’t moved like this since before the injury. Jim noticed. The coaching staff noticed. The team definitely noticed.
Brashe skated out of the goal and around me after one particularly good sequence. “You’re playing like someone who’s getting laid regularly. I like it.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, whatever’s working for you, keep doing it.”
I kept doing it.
Evenings were ours. We’d meet back at my apartment, both of us pretending we hadn’t been counting the hours until we could stop performing. Beau would lose his mind when Haley walked through the door, as if she’d been sent overseas instead of sitting in a press box forty feet above me.
We’d take him to the park once it got dark, walking close together, sometimes holding hands. Talking about this and that and everything in between. Getting to know each other better.
Then a late dinner, taking turns cooking. Once we ordered in because neither of us could wait long enough to prepare food before we were pulling each other’s clothes off.
The sex got better each time, though I didn’t understand how we kept finding new ways to wreck each other. We were learning what we liked. I savored making her gasp and dig her nails into my shoulders. And I pretty much came whenever she said my name in a breathless way when she found her pleasure.
On the second night, she showed me Plundering John.
I came out of the shower to find her on my bed, naked, with a purple silicone dildo that was—I had to admit—impressively sized for a human-made toy.
“You wanted to watch,” she said with that challenging glint in her eyes I was learning meant trouble.
I sat in the chair across from the bed, naked and still damp from the shower, and watched her work herself into a fever. The toy was thick enough that I could see the stretch, and jealousy surged through me that a piece of silicone was inside her instead of me.
But I felt something else underneath the jealousy. Awe, maybe. She was letting me see this. Letting me watch her chase pleasure without shame, her body arching as she worked the toy deeper. A flush spread across her chest, and her thighs trembled when she got close.
This was trust. This was her being completely unguarded.
And I couldn’t take it anymore.
I lasted maybe four minutes before I was on the bed, pulling the toy out and replacing it with my cock.
“Bigger,” I said against her mouth, thrusting deep enough to make her cry out.
“Yes.”
“Better.”
“So much better.”
“No ridges.”
“I’m addicted to your ridges.”
“As you should be.” I plunged into her harder, driving her to the brink and beyond.
The toy sat in her bedside drawer now, and I took a certain orc pride in knowing she wouldn’t be touching it again.
Three days of this. Three days of pretending we weren’t together at work and then coming home to a life that felt more real than anything I’d built in years.
Tonight was Friday and the regular season opener, the first game that actually counted.
The arena was packed by the time the team took to the ice for warm-ups.
Twenty thousand people, give or take, spread out around us, all of them loud enough that I could feel the noise in my chest. I went through my usual routine.
Edge work, positioning drills, plus a few practice shots that weren’t about scoring but about feeling the puck on my stick.
The ice felt good tonight. Fast but not too fast. The kind of surface that rewarded clean execution.
Haley would be in the press box by now. I didn’t look up to confirm it, but I knew.
We lined up for the anthem, and the crowd stood. The singer’s voice carried through the building. I felt the weight of what was about to begin settling over my body and it felt good.
The puck dropped and the season began.
I played out of my mind. There was no other way to describe it. Every read was clean. Every positioning decision felt instinctive. I anticipated plays before they developed and adjusted my gap before forwards could exploit it.
A forward came at me hard in the second period, the same kind of hit I would’ve retreated from a month ago. My body wanted to protect my left side. My brain said no fucking way.
I skated into him, taking the contact, absorbing it through my core like I used to. Haley had shown me I could still do this. The impact rattled through my ribs, but I stayed upright, stripped the puck, and sent it up ice to Crim for a goal.
The crowd roared.
The assist wasn’t highlight-reel material, but it was the kind of play that made everyone around me better. I’d forgotten what it felt like to play without fear, to trust my body to do what it was built for.
In the second period, I killed a penalty with positioning that forced their power play into low-percentage shots.
In the third period, I logged nearly ten minutes, including the final two when we were protecting a one-goal lead. I didn’t give their forwards an inch.
We won 3-2. The crowd exploded as the final buzzer sounded.
In the locker room afterward, the energy was exactly what a season opener should be. Players celebrating, music too loud, and everyone riding the high of a win that actually mattered.
Jim came through, offering praise to players who’d done their jobs well. When he reached me, he gripped my shoulder. “Career night, Tolrek. That’s the defenseman I knew we were getting.”
“Thank you, Coach.”
“We need to talk soon. I want to understand what clicked.” His expression was open, no suspicion in it. “You’re playing like a completely different player than the one who showed up to training camp.”
My chest tightened. “Just settling into the system.”
“It’s more than that.” He studied me for a moment. “But we’ll talk tomorrow. Breakfast?”
“Of course.”
His smile widened. “Good. Six thirty.” He named a diner nearby. “Enjoy tonight. You’ve earned it.” He moved on to the next player.
I sat at my stall and tried to remember how to breathe normally.
I entered the diner the next morning, promptly at six thirty. Jim lifted his arm from where he sat at one of the booths, and I joined him.
“Thanks for making time, Tolrek,” he said.
I slid into the booth across from him. “Happy to.”
We both studied our menus, ordering when the server came by. Jim chose black coffee, toast, and eggs. I ordered the same, though I wasn’t hungry.
“Hell of a game last night,” Jim said once the server had left. “The press is already running pieces about the trade. How we got a steal. That your old organization didn’t see what they had.”
“I saw those.”
“They’re not wrong.” He leaned back, studying me with the attention he gave game tape. “But I’ve been doing this long enough to know when something changes for a player. And something changed for you.”
I took a drink of water to buy time. “The system fits my style. The defensive pairings are solid. I’m learning to trust my reads again. The line-up is fantastic.”
“That’s all true, but it doesn’t explain the confidence. You’re playing like someone who figured it out.”
The server returned with our coffee and meals. I focused on adding cream to my coffee.
Jim noticed. “You take your coffee black.”
“I’m trying something new.”
His eyebrow went up, but he didn’t say anything more.
“I watched a lot of tape,” I said, which was true. “Your video analysts put together packages that help me see patterns I’ve been missing.”
“Haley’s good at her job.”
“She is.”
“She’s been different lately too.” Jim said it casually, as if he was mulling it over rather than probing. “She’s happier, I think. Less isolated. I’ve been telling her for years to make a life outside this building, and it looks like she finally has.”
My hand tightened on the coffee mug.
The ceramic heated my palm. I focused on that instead of the fact that Jim’s words were carving me open. He wanted to see her settled and taken care of. He was sitting across from me talking about his hopes for his daughter’s future while I was the secret she was keeping from him.
This secret was going to detonate everything when he found out.
“I’m glad,” Jim said. “She’s spent so much time following me from city to city, rarely taking time for herself. I appreciate the dedication, but she’s twenty-eight. I want to see her with someone who can take care of her when I no longer can.”
“Maybe she wants to take care of herself.”
His smile came easy. “You know what I mean. She’s smart, and she’ll always do well. But I know she’s lonely sometimes. We all are, I guess.” He lifted a bite of eggs but didn’t slide it into his mouth. “I worry sometimes that I asked too much of her. That she sacrificed too much to stay close.”
My throat closed. He had no idea that she’d found someone and that person was sitting across from him, nodding along like he wasn’t the complication Jim would never approve of.
The guilt that had been building for days gouged my chest.
“She’s talented,” I said carefully. “Her work speaks for itself.”
“It does.” Jim ate the bite of eggs. “But I want more for her than just work. Everyone deserves that. Even people who love this sport as much as we do.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
We talked for another twenty minutes about defensive pairings and system adjustments and all the safe topics that didn’t put me in a situation where I might need to lie. By the time we left, we’d finished our meals and my shoulders ached from the tension I’d been holding.
“Whatever you figured out, whatever clicked, keep doing it,” he said as we started walking toward the arena only a few blocks away. “You’re playing the best hockey I’ve seen from you in years.”
“I will.”
He clapped my shoulder and we continued, entering the arena. He went toward his office while I stepped back outside and leaned against the front of the building, taking my phone from my pocket.
How did it go? Haley had left me a message.
Alright. We’ll tell him soon. We have to.
Haley’s response came through right away. I’m ready. I love you.
I love you too.
I looked up from my phone to find Crim paused on the sidewalk not far away. He watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. Just…knowing. He nodded once, a gesture that said, I see what you’re carrying, and you’re running out of time.
Then he stepped inside the building.
I stood on the sidewalk, staring at my phone, Crim’s knowing look burned into my memory.
We had four days left in our week. Then we’d sit down with Jim, and I’d watch everything I’d built here either survive or collapse.
Soon, we’d find out if love was enough.