18. Grant
Chapter eighteen
Grant
The lodge without Laurie feels different.
Major stands in the kitchen doorway, ears forward, watching for Laurie. When she doesn't show up, he looks at me with the kind of reproach only a dog can deliver.
"I know."
He huffs and walks to the boot room. Lies down facing the door.
I stand in the kitchen surrounded by evidence of everything Laurie and Bethany accomplished. Clean counters. Functional appliances. The broken hand mixer finally removed from its corner of shame. Curtains that let light through windows I'd forgotten could shine.
The lodge still creaks. The floors still protest. But it works now. It breathes.
I walk through the main room. Past the fireplace Laurie scrubbed until the stone showed its original color. Past the mismatched furniture she arranged in the space. Past the signed Gretzky photo she rehung after finding it face-down in a storage closet.
"This belongs where people can see it," she'd said. "History only matters if you remember it's there."
Upstairs, the hallway smells like lemon cleaner.
The bedrooms Laurie and Bethany occupied are empty. Beds made. Surfaces bare. No trace of the woman who brought this place back to life.
I close the door.
Downstairs, I grab my coat and walk out the back toward the old practice rink. Snow crunches under my boots. The mountain air bites cold and clean.
The rink sits quiet under the pines.
She'd been right. About the rink. About the lodge. About me.
***
The Outlaws facility hums with late-night activity. Maintenance crew prepping ice. Equipment staff organizing gear. A few players finishing workouts in the weight room.
I walk past the locker rooms toward the executive offices. Through glass walls, I see the polished version of the franchise. Branding. Sponsor logos. Championship banners. The image we sell to fans who want hockey to feel heroic.
But the truth lives in the margins. In the players fighting for roster spots. In the kids from rough backgrounds who need more than talent to survive this league. In the men who don't make highlight reels but show up every day because the game is all they have.
Laurie understood that without needing it explained.
She saw past the polish to the purpose underneath.
I unlock my office and sit in the dark. City lights glow through the windows. My desk holds the usual debris of contracts, facility reports, sponsorship proposals, and legal briefs.
I see Vivian's last email, timestamped two hours ago:
Grant—Can you provide a written timeline of your relationship progression?
As if love follows a strategic plan. As if I could map the moment Laurie stopped being my sister's friend and became the woman I think about first when I wake and last before sleep.
I think about the hearing. The prepared statements. The carefully documented evidence that the lodge serves team purposes. The fiancée narrative we've allowed to stand because it simplified the optics.
Laurie's voice cuts through the silence:
I'm not your convenient story.
She wasn't.
She never was.
I built my life on control because control prevents disaster. I learned in the military that hesitation costs lives, that emotion clouds judgment.
But Laurie didn't weaken my judgment. She clarified my purpose.
The lodge matters because it offers dignity to men who've been overlooked. She showed me that. Not through reports or strategic planning, but by treating forgotten spaces like they deserved care.
I hurt her by offering help without partnership. By making decisions for her instead of with her. By confusing protection with control.
She needed me to trust her.
I open my phone. Call Vivian.
She answers on the second ring.
"Grant. It's late."
"Laurie and I aren't engaged. We were never engaged. The misunderstanding happened, and I let it stand because it seemed strategically useful. But it was a lie."
Silence.
"Vivian. Did you hear me?"
"I heard you. I'm trying to determine if you've lost your mind."
"Grant—"
"At the next hearing, we are telling the truth. All of it."
"Jessie will crucify you."
"Maybe. But at least I'll deserve whatever judgment comes."