22. Maren
MAREN
I figured it out on a random morning, standing in Ryan’s kitchen in his flannel shirt, and what made it undeniable was how ordinary the day was. Ordinary, but perfect.
He was making breakfast. I was leaning against the counter with my coffee, and he moved around the kitchen without thinking about my being there.
Reaching past me for the spatula, pressing a kiss to my temple on his way to the cabinet, asking if I wanted the last of the coffee before he poured it.
Small things. Unconscious things. That was all it was.
Josh had planned our entire life out loud and informed me of it after.
Where we were going on Saturday, which friends we were seeing, the trip he’d booked and mentioned in passing like a thing already decided, because it was.
Two years of being told the plan instead of asked, of sitting next to him at dinners where he talked about his work and his week and his thoughts and never once turned the question back to me.
I’d been an accessory to his evening, the warm body beside him that made him look like a man with a full life, and when other women found their way into his orbit at those dinners he let them stay there, let them laugh too long and touch his arm, because being wanted in front of me cost him nothing and he liked the math of it.
I’d told myself it didn’t matter. That I was asking too much. I’d gotten very good at wanting less.
Ryan asked me what I thought. About the third-period collapse against Dallas, about whether Theo’s hip was a real problem or a maintenance thing, about calls I’d have made differently or how I perceived a play on the ice or how I wanted to spend a day off together.
He wanted the answer, my real and honest thoughts, and he waited for it.
He listened with interest. A week ago he’d mentioned a stretch later in the season with back-to-back off-days and said he wanted to drive up to Flagstaff and see snow in Arizona.
He’d included me in it without thinking about it but didn’t plan anything without me.
Several weeks ago in a crowded bar I’d watched another woman hit on him, brazen about it, and he’d shut her down without a second of hesitation.
I wanted every morning to be like this one. I wanted his flannel shirt and the low morning light and his hand at the small of my back as he moved around me. I wanted to stop thinking of these hours as something I was borrowing and start thinking of them as something I had.
“Scrambled?” he asked, already knowing.
“Please.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. A quick, warm smile, the kind that didn’t ask for anything, and turned back to the pan.
I took a sip of my coffee and let myself feel this thing with us, this full and inconvenient and completely irreversible emotion in my body.
I’d spent months managing it. Filing it away for someday or later. It was later now.
Breakfast landed it in front of me and Ryan kissed the top of my head on his way back to the stove, which was something he did now, drive-by kisses, and I thought, yeah, there it is.
We ate in the easy quiet that had become ours over the last few weeks. His phone face-down on the table, mine in my bag, the low hum of the city outside waking up. The guys had practice at ten. I had patients starting at nine. Neither of us was rushing.
I was thinking about how to say any of the things I was feeling and whether to say them at all, whether this was the moment, whether I was anywhere near ready to crack that door open, when Ryan set his fork down and looked at me.
“Can I say something?”
I met his eyes. “Yeah, of course.”
Then Ryan said, “It’s time. And I think I should be the one to tell Griffin. Myself. Not us together.”
“Ryan—” He held his hand up so he could finish, and I stopped to let him. The hard set of his jaw told me he needed to say whatever had been on his mind, and this affected both of us, not just me.
“Not because I’m worried about getting caught or because of anything he’d do, or what anyone will say; nothing like that.
I honestly don’t give a shit about any of that.
Because—” He paused, working through it.
“Because what I feel about you is not something I want to keep having to pretend I don’t feel.
Every practice, every dinner at your parents’ table, every time Griffin talks about you to me like I’m just his friend and don’t know you myself, and I’m not the person who—” He stopped.
His jaw worked. “It’s gotten too big to keep in a box, Maren.
And he deserves to hear it from me. Not discover it. ”
“That’s what you want?” I asked. Part of me knew our relationship was headed in this direction but him bringing it up now was a surprising twist, and a smile curved my lips. I could do this. With him. He gave me so much strength.
“It is.” Two words. Zero question in his tone.
“I don’t want you to do this on your own. It isn’t just you managing this…it’s us.” I emphasized the us, knowing he liked when I considered us one, but meaning it regardless.
“Maren, does this,” he pointed between us, “feel like something you’d want people to know?
” He asked it carefully, like he didn’t know the answer and was asking for real, bracing himself for a multitude of possible answers.
“I’m serious. Look at us. If none of the complications existed.
With work, with anything… If Griffin wasn’t— If it was just you and me.
Would you want this to be something people knew about? ”
“Yes.” I said it with no hesitation. Because it was true.
His shoulders relaxed and then Ryan stood before he leaned down to plant a kiss on my lips. “Me too. More than anything.”
His words worked their way through my veins, lighting up as they passed through my heart. I walked to the counter and leaned against it, facing him.
The plates were in the sink and Ryan was rinsing them and I was watching him, arms crossed, having arrived at what seemed like the obvious conclusion on the walk between the table and the kitchen.
I was Griffin’s sister. I knew the exact frequency of his anger, how to move through it, when to let it land and when to redirect.
I could manage this for him. Take the brunt of the ire he was sure to receive.
The silence stretched, or at least it felt like it did.
“I can help you keep the peace. He’s my brother.” My stomach tightened at the thought of not being there when the cat was let out of the bag we’d kept it in.
Ryan turned the water off and set the plate in the rack. “No.” The expression on his face made it evident he had more to say on the topic, but I tried to interrupt anyway. He dried his hands on a dish towel then gave me his full attention.
“Listen to me, solsken.” He leaned back against the kitchen island across from me, arms loose at his sides.
Not defensive, just settled. “Griffin and I are on that ice together every night. We travel together. We eat together. We have history too. We have to trust each other in situations where trust is the difference between a goal and a breakdown in the team dynamic and our careers depend on that trust. That’s not like a regular friendship.
Which we also have. He’s been my friend for over a decade.
What I did goes beyond the personal. I looked my teammate in the eye, over and over, and I lied.
That’s mine to answer for. Not yours. I owe him more than that. ”
I opened my mouth.
“You’re his sister,” Ryan said, holding his hand up again so he could finish.
“He’ll forgive you because that’s what family does.
Especially a family like yours. But me—” His expression broke, briefly.
“What he feels about me when this comes out is going to depend on how it comes out. If you tell him, it’s a kindness.
If I tell him, it’s respect. And right now, after everything, I owe him respect more than kindness. ”
I studied him for a long moment. The logic of it was sound. I hated it for that reason.
“This week?” I asked, knowing I would have to prepare myself for whatever fallout was to come.
“This week.” He let out a breath and then smiled. “I don’t think it can wait anymore.”
I uncrossed my arms. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He raised an eyebrow at me and pressed his body against mine.
“I don’t want to wait either, Ryan. I’m scared. But I agree with you. It’s time. And what we have…it isn’t nothing.” It wasn’t totally okay with me, but his points were valid in the world of bromance and I meant what I said. I knew what we had was real and Ryan showed me every day he felt the same.
“Come here, solsken.” He gripped me under my ass and lifted me onto the kitchen island like I was light as a feather, then kissed me. “It’s going to be fine. And then you’re going to be mine, and everyone will know.”
I squealed for one second, then he began nipping and licking at my neck. Oh my god. He positioned himself between my legs and kissed me deeply, causing a moan to escape from my lips. God, his kisses made me want to do unholy things with him. His hands moved down my sides and settled on my thighs.
In a low, gravelly tone, he said, “Open your legs for me, solsken. I need second breakfast.” I gasped as he pushed my legs wide apart and leaned back to watch him. Then I was sprawled out on the kitchen island like an all you can eat buffet while he devoured his second breakfast.
I was at the arena that evening. Not working, just there for the game, wearing Ryan’s jersey. Now, even if I had a night off, I wanted to watch my team. My guys. Nobody even noticed what jersey I was wearing except Ryan of course.
I was two rows up from the bench, in the section reserved for staff to watch who didn’t really fit on the bench for the entire game.