Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TOLREK
Beau sat on my lap while I stared at my phone, studying footage from my last practice. I looked alright. No hesitation or guarding my left side.
My phone buzzed. Beau’s ears perked up. I expected Haley to confirm she’d made it to her father’s place safely.
Her text made my stomach drop. He knows. Someone told him. I don’t know what to do.
I called immediately, but it only rang twice before going to voicemail.
Frowning, I called again. It went straight to voicemail this time.
The third call went the same way.
My hand tightened around the phone hard enough that the case creaked. She never sent calls straight to voicemail. Something was wrong.
I grabbed my keys before I’d fully decided to move, Beau’s whine barely registering as I headed for the door.
After crossing the road to her building, I took the stairs two at a time because waiting for the elevator wasn’t an option.
She’d given me a key three days ago. We’d been cooking dinner at her place when she’d set it on the counter between us.
“Here,” she’d said. “In case you get here before me sometime.” As if this wasn’t a declaration. Like she wasn’t saying: I want you to have access to my space, my life, and all the parts of me I don’t show anyone else.
I’d made a copy of mine for her the next day, leaving it on her pillow with a note that said, Same.
Now I used it, my hands steady despite the panic clawing through my chest.
I found her in the living room, pacing a groove into the carpet. Still in her work clothes, now wrinkled. Mascara tracked down her face in dark streaks. Her breath came in hitching gasps, the kind that meant she’d been crying for a while.
This was the first time I’d seen her cry.
The knowledge was a hit I hadn’t braced for. We’d been together for weeks. She’d been vulnerable with me in every other way. But she’d never let me see this.
It gutted me that her father had been the one to break her this badly.
“Tolrek.” Her voice cracked on my name.
I pulled her into my arms, and she collapsed against me, sobbing so hard I felt it in my bones.
“I’m here,” I said, tightening my arms around her. “I’m here.”
She tried to explain through sobs, her words coming out broken and gasping. “I heard—heard them talking—Dad and Adam Bryant.”
“Breathe.”
“Dad laughed.” The words tore out of her. “He actually laughed when Bryant said we were involved. He said I knew better. That I’d never do anything like that, that I’d never compromise my position with the team.”
Her legs went out.
I lowered us both to the couch, and she curled into me, pressing her face into my chest.
“He was so certain,” she gasped. “So sure I’d never do this that it was a joke to him.”
I stroked her hair, letting her cry. Trying to fix it right now would be wrong. She needed to process this first.
“He’s going to think I lied to him,” she said when she could speak again. “Betrayed him. That I chose you over him.”
“You did choose me.”
“I did.” She pulled back enough to look at me, her face blotchy and wet. “That’s what makes it worse.”
We sat on her sofa for at least ten minutes while she cried herself out. When the sobs finally slowed into hiccups, she eased out of my arms and slumped on the cushions beside me, drawing her knees up.
“We need to decide what we’re doing,” I said. “Right now.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice came out hoarse. “We could wait for him to confront us, but that feels cowardly.” She wiped at her face. “Or we go to him now, but I can’t. I’m—”
“Terrified.”
A broken laugh escaped her. “That’s an understatement.”
“We could deny it,” I said, though everything inside me protested doing something like that.
Her eyes snapped to mine. “Could we?”
“No.” I laced my fingers through hers. “I’m done hiding. We’ll tell him tonight, like we planned.”
“What if he makes you leave?” Her fingers dug into my shirt. “What if he threatens your spot? Everything you’ve built here—it could all fall apart because of me.”
I cupped her face, making her look at me. “Then I lose my spot. But I’m not losing you. I can survive anything but losing you.”
“You don’t know what he’ll do.”
“I know what I’ll do. I’ll choose you every time. No matter what it costs.”
Some of the tension left her shoulders. “Okay.” Her voice shook but held. “Tonight.”
We sat for a few more minutes. Eventually she went to the bathroom to wash her face. When she came back, her eyes were still red but her expression had steadied.
I stood and held out my hand. “Whatever happens, we’re on the same side.”
She gave me a nod.
Her father’s house sat in a quiet neighborhood fifteen minutes from the rink. Tree-lined streets. Cars in driveways. Kids’ bikes abandoned on front lawns. The kind of area where people built lives instead of just passing through.
We’d driven here in my truck, Haley staring out the window the entire way. She hadn’t said a word since we’d left her apartment.
Now we stood on the sidewalk outside a two-story white colonial with dark blue shutters. A porch light glowed beside the front door even though it was barely evening.
“I used to love this house,” Haley said quietly. “We moved here when I was sixteen. This was the first place that ever felt permanent.”
Her hand found mine. Squeezed once.
We climbed the porch steps together.
She didn’t knock, just opened the door and called out, “Dad?”
“In the kitchen,” Jim shouted.
The entryway opened into a living room that looked like a shrine to hockey.
Team photos covered one wall, dating back at least two decades.
The other held images of Jim and Haley. Jim in different jerseys, different cities.
Haley with him in most, growing from a kid to a teenager to the woman beside me now.
She’d followed him to every city. She’d made herself part of his world because she thought that’s what he needed.
The kitchen sat at the back of the house. Jim stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. He glanced up when we entered, and I watched understanding hit him in stages.
First: surprise at seeing me here.
Second: confusion about why I’d come with his daughter.
Third: the moment where he put it together.
The wooden spoon clattered against the pot.
“Both of you,” he said. Not a question but an accusation.
He turned off the burner and moved past us into the living room. We followed.
He didn’t sit. Just stood near the empty fireplace with his arms crossed on his chest, looking between us. Waiting for someone to confirm what he already knew.
Haley spoke first. “We’re together.”
“How long?” His voice came out flat and carefully controlled.
“Since training camp started.”
I watched him count backward through the weeks. All the times we’d been in meetings together. All the moments he’d praised my improvement without knowing where it came from. The tape sessions where his daughter had helped me become the player he needed.
“Dammit, Haley.” He dropped onto the couch like his legs wouldn’t hold him anymore. “What were you thinking?”
“I’m in love with him.”
“You don’t—” He stopped. Started again. “You can’t possibly understand what you’re risking here.”
“I understand perfectly.” Her voice shook but held steady. “I know what people will say. I know how it looks. I don’t care.”
“You should care.” He looked at me now, and I found pain under the anger. “You came to this team when nobody else wanted you. I gave you a chance. I put you on the first line. I trusted you.”
“I know.” The words felt inadequate, but they were all I had. “I didn’t plan this.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Both of you did.” He shook his head. “Sneaking around behind my back for weeks.”
“We weren’t sneaking,” Haley said. “We were being private. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you yet.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.” She walked over to stand in front of him, forcing him to look up at her. “I was going to tell you tonight. We both were. We agreed on it days ago.”
“Very considerate.”
The sarcasm made her flinch.
I stood and joined her. “This isn’t her fault.”
“No?” Suddenly, the room felt too small for the three of us. “Because it seems to me like you took advantage of—”
“Don’t.” Haley’s voice cracked through the air. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Her chin lifted. “I’m not some helpless victim who got seduced by a player. I made a choice. I chose to be with Tolrek knowing exactly what it could cost.”
“Including your job?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Haley—”
“I’ve spent my whole life following you around.” The words spilled out of her now. “Every city you coached in. Every team you joined. I followed because I thought that’s what you needed. I thought if I stayed close and worked hard and never caused problems, you’d finally see me.”
“I always saw you.”
“No, you didn’t. You saw the work I did.
You saw the analyst who made you look good.
You saw the daughter who never asked for anything.
” Tears streamed down her face, but her voice held strong.
“I made myself invisible because I thought that’s what love looked like.
Sacrificing everything to be what someone else needed. ”
Jim’s face crumpled. “I never asked you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to ask. It’s what I thought a good daughter did. What Mom would have wanted.” She wiped at her face. “But I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not giving up the first real thing I’ve had in years because you’re afraid of what other people might think.”
Silence filled the room.
Jim slumped, looking tired in a way that had nothing to do with the season.
“This sport destroys relationships,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen it happen over and over. The trades, the travel, the pressure. It tears people apart.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t. But we’re going to try anyway.”
Jim’s gaze shot to me. “You love her?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to stay when things get hard?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if we trade you or if you get offered a better deal somewhere else?”
“Then we figure it out together.”
“That simple?”
“It’s that complicated. But I’m not walking away from her. Not for the team or for my career.” I looked at Haley. “Not for anything.”
Jim’s shoulders sagged.
“I need time,” he finally said. “Both of you need to leave.”
Haley’s breath hitched.
“Dad—”
“Please.” The word came out broken. “I just… I need to think.”
Haley turned and walked to the door. I followed.
We were halfway down the walkway when Jim called out. “Haley.”
She stopped and turned.
He stood in the doorway, backlit by the entryway light.
“I’ve always been proud of you,” he said. “Even when you were invisible.”
Her face crumpled, hope and hurt tangling together.
But he didn’t say anything else. Just closed the door.
I drove home. Haley stared out the window, tears sliding down her face.
Everything I wanted to say felt inadequate. There was nothing I could say that would fix this.
Beau met us at the door with his usual enthusiasm, jumping and spinning and making sounds that suggested we’d abandoned him for years instead of an hour.
Haley picked him up and buried her face in his fur. She started crying again, softer. It gutted me.
I guided her to the bedroom, and we lay down facing each other, Beau wedged between us. I pulled her close, tucking her head under my chin.
Neither of us was hungry. Food felt impossible.
The room darkened as evening turned to night. Beau eventually relocated to his bed in the corner, leaving us alone.
“What if we did all this, and I still lose both of you?” Haley whispered.
I pulled her closer. “I promise you won’t lose me.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she was too exhausted to argue. Eventually her breathing evened out, and she fell asleep in my arms.
I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’d just cost us both everything that mattered.
Finally, gray light filtered through the windows.
Haley’s phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She didn’t move.
I reached over her to check it, in case it was important.
The text from Jim made my stomach drop. Practice at 10. We need to talk after. All three of us.
Haley stirred. “What is it?”
I handed her the phone.
Her sigh rang out as she read. “Here we go.”
Sitting up, she pushed her hair out of her face.
“Well.” Her voice came out flat. “We can cross telling my dad off the list.”
Beau jumped onto the bed. He climbed into Haley’s lap and licked her chin.
“At least someone’s having a good morning,” she said, scratching behind his ears.
“Plundering John never caused this much trouble,” I said.
That got a real laugh out of her. “Pretty sure John would’ve been easier to explain.”
“Less satisfying though.”
“Significantly less.”
We sat together, Beau making happy sounds as Haley petted him.
“Shower?” I asked.
“Together?”
“If you want.”
“I do.”
We showered without speaking, the water too hot and the space too small. I washed her hair, working my fingers through the tangles gently. After we dried off and dressed, I made coffee while she stood at the window looking out at the city waking up.
“Ready?” I asked when it was time to leave.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Me neither.”
We were going to do it anyway.