Chapter 44
THEO
Theo rolls his shoulders until his neck gives a satisfying crack, his gaze fixed down the long tunnel that leads to the ice like a predator locking eyes on prey.
The walls are painted a tired, scuffed shade of Whalers green, and the narrow passage hums with the ghosts of every blade that ever cut across that matted floor toward battle.
The air’s heavy, thick with anticipation that makes Theo’s skin buzz. He’s wound tight, hungry. The roar of the crowd filters in from beyond the concrete, a dull, rolling ocean waiting to break.
This is it. The final game of the regular season. One shot left to secure their place in the playoffs. Win and they claw their way in. Lose and the entire year collapses under the weight of wasted effort, shattered bones, clenched jaws, and bloodied fists. That future does not exist in his mind.
Jesse brushes past him with a smirk, shoulder checking him, mouthguard clenched between his teeth. He’s back in the lineup, sent down by the Mavericks, and Theo’s not sorry about it. They need him lighting the lamp tonight. “Let’s go, bud. You ready?”
Theo tips his head, eyes narrowed. “You think I’m gonna choke?”
“Nah,” Jesse says, grinning. “Just checking how many bodies I need to drag off the ice when the Storm start throwing elbows.”
Theo doesn’t answer. He flexes his fingers inside his gloves, in a slow, methodical rhythm. One-two. One-two. Breath in. Breath out. Violence on a leash.
Jake steps in beside them. He’s in coach mode now.
His voice is calm on the surface, but Theo can see it in his stare, that edge sharpened by memory and time, the same look he wore back when he’d drop gloves before the anthem’s final note.
“They’re going to play dirty. They’ve been waiting for this.
You know they’re coming straight at you. ”
“Let ’em,” Theo says, voice like gravel. “I’ll keep my head.”
He lifts his chin then, eyes steady and flat, the stillness before the strike.
“Take theirs.”
Jake chuckles, the sound short and rough, and smacks a hand against the back of Theo’s helmet. “That’s my boy.”
The horn screams through the arena with its deep, aggressive wail. Lights flare, shifting from dim to stage-bright. Showtime.
Theo pushes forward and the world breaks open. The chill of the rink bites his skin, sharp and clean. The crowd erupts, the roar flooding in like a wave crashing hard and fast.
His eyes sweep the stands, instinct carving a path through the chaos.
There. A few rows behind the bench.
Mila’s wearing his jersey, sleeves pushed up, her hair tied back in a loose braid he wants to drag his fingers through.
Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, eyes sparkling as she leans over to say something to Natalie, who’s sitting beside her also decked out in Whalers gear, massive soft pretzel in hand.
The sight of Mila in his name, his number, his world, hits him in the chest with the force of a body check. He does not need her to wave. He does not need her to scream. She’s here. That’s enough to make him feral.
He looks away fast, afraid that if he stares too long, he will lose himself completely, so he drops his head and pushes into another lap, pouring focus into muscle and repetition.
But instinct is louder than logic.
He glances back and nearly loses his edge.
His mother is seated beside Mila.
Janet Eagan-Tilbury, flawless as ever, regal in her posture and dressed in high-necked designer black, better suited for a gallery opening in Manhattan than a hockey game in Hartford.
Her hands rest neatly in her lap, fingers interlocked, her mouth composed in a line of cool civility as she leans in toward Mila with the practiced warmth of someone who has perfected polite conversation like an art form.
Seated beside her is Quentin, unbothered as ever, one leg crossed over the other and an arm slung lazily along the back of his chair as if the entire section belongs to him.
He looks every inch the clean-cut trust fund kid in an expensive coat and polished loafers.
He hasn’t seen his brother in years. Since Theo left for college and didn’t look back.
Theo slows, carving a tighter loop near the boards. His grip tightens around his stick, gloves creaking from the pressure.
They never come.
Not once in the years he’s worn the Whalers navy and green have they shown up, despite Hartford being barely an hour from Westport. Their absence has been a quiet constant in his life, not a wound anymore, but something worse. Scar tissue. Something thick and hard that he has learned to live with.
And now they’re here.
It can’t be a coincidence. Mila is the variable. It has to be her. She must have invited them. She must have gone behind his back, not out of betrayal, but something deeper, something stupidly kind and hopeful, the way she always is when she shouldn’t be.
His stomach turns sharply, but it isn’t anger that hits him. It’s quieter and far more dangerous. Gratitude, raw and reluctant, sinks its teeth into him before he can brace for it. It is a weight he does not know how to hold, sharp in its edges, aching in its depth.
It rattles him.
It makes him want to find the nearest wall and slam his shoulder into it until the feeling bleeds out.
Instead, he digs the edge of his blades into the ice, grits his teeth, and rockets forward in a punishing corner turn. The cold cuts against his face, and his breath tears out of him in heavy bursts as the crowd roars in his ears.
Syracuse wants blood tonight.
Let them come.
He’s got more than enough rage to spare. And now he’s got something to win for.
The dressing room is a goddamn zoo.
The walls vibrate with victory. Someone—probably Carter—is blasting music loud enough to shake the ceiling tiles.
The man himself sitting shirtless on the bench with a towel around his shoulders and a beer in hand, grinning like he just won the lottery. Which he might as well have. He scored the go-ahead goal—top shelf, thirty-eight seconds left on the clock—and the team practically knighted him.
Jesse’s flushed, laughing, chirping back at someone while pointing at the scoreboard written on the whiteboard: 4–3 Final. He bagged two goals tonight, both filthy, and hasn’t stopped talking since they got off the ice.
Theo sits in the corner, still half-dressed, steam rising off his skin like a furnace finally shut down.
He’s wiped, but not broken. Not even close.
Every muscle hums with satisfaction. The Storm came at them hard—cheap hits, board battles, a third period that felt like a war—but he didn’t let a single one of them through without paying the toll.
And the crowd? The crowd had screamed for him. Every blocked shot, every bone-jarring hit, every clean steal ripped the roof off the rink. Hartford’s got hockey in its blood, and tonight, Theo and the team gave them something to bleed for.
He tugs on his shirt, slips on his tie in the mirror. Drops of water from his shower cling to his jaw, and his knuckles are raw.
He doesn’t give a shit.
All he wants now is her.
He steps out into the hallway, bag slung over one shoulder, the low hum of celebration still echoing behind him.
Mila stands just beyond the ropes, next to Natalie, number fourteen stretched over her slender back like it belongs there. Because it does.
The second she sees him, she launches. He catches her mid-air, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Arms locked tight around her waist, her legs around his hips, her face buried in his neck.
Christ, he wants to keep her here forever.
She leans in, mouth brushing his ear. “Is this okay?”
She doesn’t need to say what she means. He already knows.
He glances past her, and sure enough—his mother and Quentin. Standing just behind Natalie like shadows misplaced in a dream. His mother’s in a long coat, hair flawless, expression hesitant. In a sea of Whalers merch, they look alien. But Theo doesn’t care. Not tonight.
He nods.
“It’s okay.”
She squeezes him tighter, breath warm against his skin. Then she slides down, feet hitting the floor again, and Theo turns to face them.
“Mom. Q.”
Janet gives a small smile. “You were…” Her voice catches for half a second. She clears her throat. “Very impressive.”
Quentin chuckles. “Honestly? You’re kind of terrifying.”
Theo smirks. “Good.”
“I’m serious,” Quentin adds, grinning now. “I think a puck screamed and moved out of your way once.”
Before Theo can reply, a voice pipes up from somewhere to the left.
“Hey! Hey, Tilbury!”
He turns to see a group of kids pushing forward, markers and hats and programs in their hands. Their faces are painted green and blue, and they're barely containing themselves—all fidgety energy and wide grins like they might combust from sheer excitement.
“Can we get your autograph? That block in the second was sick!”
Theo blinks. “Yeah. Sure.”
He kneels, signs his name with quick, practiced flicks. Takes photos. Knocks knuckles with one of the boys who’s practically shaking. One of the girls tells him she wants to be a defenseman “just like you,” and it punches him straight in the gut, all soft and brutal and unexpected.
When he stands, his mother is watching him.
And her eyes—always so sharp, so distant—are glassy. Rimmed red.
“I’m glad she invited me,” she says softly. “Mila.”
Theo’s throat tightens. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. The words jam up somewhere behind his ribs.
“I’m proud of you, Theodore,” she adds.
Then she presses a gloved hand to his arm, light as snow, and steps back into the crowd.
Theo finds Mila again—waiting just a step behind, steady as ever. She raises an eyebrow as he reaches for her hand. “So,” she says, mouth tilted in that sideways grin that undoes him, “what now, number fourteen?”
He squeezes her fingers, pulling her closer. “You tell me.”
“You need rest,” she says, mock-serious. “The playoffs are coming.”
Theo leans in, murmuring low into her ear.
“We won’t be resting.”
She laughs, breathless, blushing, and lets herself be led through the crowd.
They walk through the parking lot, hand in hand, the night cool around them, the stars quiet witnesses. The hum of celebration fades behind them. The weight of pressure, expectation, feels far away.
For the first time in his life, the words do not twist themselves into knots behind his teeth, do not clog the back of his throat like stones he cannot swallow, do not collapse under the weight of shame.
They rise, clean and quiet, unburdened by fear, not clawing to be spoken but content to exist in the steady rhythm of his breathing, in the way his hand curls around hers, in the simple fact that she is here.
There is no battle raging in his chest, no silent scream behind his ribs, no sharp edge pressing against his lungs with every breath he takes.
There is only her.
Only this.
And for once, the strange, foreign, quietly staggering feeling swelling in his chest is not rage or guilt or duty, but something far more terrifying in its simplicity.
He is happy.
And for the first time, it is enough.