Chapter 41
KAI
I will do everything in my power to make sure you never take Simon’s place.
Matthias’ warning has me tossing and turning in my bed. I grab my phone from the nightstand to check the time.
I groan. My eyes are so heavy with exhaustion, yet my thoughts are racing out of my control.
What is Matthias going to do to me? He can’t end everything with just one word, right?
Of course he can. He’s an investor. His company is the reason why so many businesses are standing on two legs.
Matthias Valdis was a powerhouse in the NHL. He had power then and he still has power today.
But it can’t just end like this. Not after everything.
The DHU Griffins are six months away from possibly playing in the Frozen Four and winning the national championship. The Vancouver Phoenix are still considering me as a potential recruit.
Pressure breaks into my bones. My other hand scrambles for Diana’s hair clip sitting on the nightstand.
I hold it close, breathing in and out. The faint scent of her rose shampoo clings to the diamonds and the weight on my chest eases under the memory of Diana giggling and scrubbing shampoo into my hair.
It’s only been a few hours, and I miss the feeling of her hands resting on my chest, the soft sound of her voice reassuring me while she looks up at me with those dark eyes, and that subtle pout on her lips.
I want that so badly right now. Not even that, I want to know how Diana’s dinner went.
I was grateful to see the boys after the presentation, but the person I wanted to see the most was her.
I stare back and forth between the clip and my phone.
“Fuck it.” I set down the hairclip and start typing into DXMessenger.
This is a shot in the dark, but are you up? I swear this is not a hookup call
DIANA
I’m glad to hear it because I don’t look very delectable right now
The dinner didn’t go well?
DIANA
Can we talk on the phone? I’m too tired to text.
Yeah, sure
I throw on a hoodie and rush out of bed. I keep my footsteps quiet as I sneak out onto the balcony to answer Diana’s call. On the other line, I can hear the squeak of a balcony door shoving open and the rustle of a phone being nestled against her cheek.
“Can you hear me?” Diana’s voice sounds so tired and worn out that I almost don’t recognize it.
“Yeah, I can. It’s nice to hear your voice.” I clear my throat, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m saying, you know, as a friend.”
“A friend you occasionally give orgasms to?” A bit of life flares back into her voice, making me slouch against the railing in relief.
There she is. There’s my girl.
“What happened tonight? I wanna hear it all.”
Diana sighs. She tells me everything from the start: the tense, quiet meal where no one talked, news of her grandpa’s failing health, and his eventual move-in to the Huang family mansion. That’s when Diana’s voice falls.
“For that reason, my dad is moving the vote to the end of April instead of June.”
Six months.
That’s two months less than the original deadline. That’s all the time Diana has to get everything back on track.
All the time we have together.
“Kai?” Worry unsettles her voice. “A-Are you still there?”
“I–yeah. I was just…taking it all in.” I fidget against the railing. “Six months, huh? How are you feeling about that?”
“Horrible,” Diana groans. “I feel pathetic that I’m still trying so hard to clear my name and get back to the CEO race when everything keeps getting in my way.”
“Maybe…” I hesitate, rolling my hoodie string around my thumb. “I don’t know, Di. What if that’s saying something?”
“Saying what?”
“That maybe taking over the HMG might not be what you’re really meant to do? Instead there’s something more, something better for you out there?”
“But all I’ve known my whole life is how to be good use for the HMG,” Diana stresses. “Even if I did venture into something else, my father wouldn’t have it. He’d make sure we wouldn’t be able to thrive in any other path aside from the one he’s set out for us.”
“That’s not healthy, Di. You’re not a puppet on a string,” I fume.
Diana snorts. I can sense the bitter smile in her voice. “It’s confusing how much I’m scared of what my father puts us through, but I still want his respect.”
I rake my hands through my hair and shrug. “It’s not so confusing, actually.”
“It’s not?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve always heard you say your dad’s pride becomes yours.
He built and primed you to be that way. So, it feels like everything you’re made of binds back to him.
It’s gonna take you a while to realize that you have what it takes to cut the strings and become something you’re proud of without his approval. ”
Diana scoffs. I can tell she’s doing that thing where she’s angling her head and smiling teasingly at me. “Are you always this philosophical after midnight?”
“Trust me when I tell you that philosophical Kai is better than conspiracy theorist Kai. He drives Rowan insane.”
Diana laughs. A smile breaks across my face as I take in the sound. I swear the city lights glimmer brighter because of it.
“Tell me that your night was better,” she implores. “How did your presentation go?”
My smile falls. I glance down at my socks that scratch against the concrete. “It was also a shit show.”
“Why? What happened?” Despite how gentle she sounds, her voice has an edge that promises broken noses on my behalf.
I tell her everything.
At the end of my rant, there’s a clang on the other line as if Diana had smacked something. “I’m so tired of people like Simon and his dad! They have all the money in the world and use it to come after people who are just minding their business. Make it make sense.”
“In Matthias’ defense, he had a few pucks chucked at him throughout his career. It’s very likely that he’s fucked in the head beyond reason.”
“Judging by Simon’s personality, it’s clearly genetic.”
I burst out laughing. What I love most about Diana is that she doesn’t hesitate to rage with me.
“I have a better idea,” she fires on. “Why don’t we tie him and Simon to Wallace’s zamboni along with my brothers? Then all of these horrible men can sweep the ice like a sausage link.”
The visual makes me double over. Diana’s laugh fills the other end of the phone, clashing with mine, and for a split second, it’s like she’s standing right here with me.
The dumbest smile still lingers on my face even when our laughter peters out.
“āiyā,” Diana suddenly hisses.
I straighten up. “What’s wrong?”
“Andrea just texted me. She wants me to clear out my things from the office tomorrow.”
“I thought her takeover was only temporary?”
“Not to her. She wants me to get it done first thing in the morning,” Diana grumbles. There’s a rustle on the other end. “Ugh, and it’s already 1:30 a.m.”
I pull my phone away to check the time. My shoulders drop when I realize she’s right. “Shit, yeah.” I frown. “If you gotta go, that’s fine—”
“No, no, I don’t mind staying on. Talking to you helps me panic a little less.”
That dumb smile takes over my face again, and my heart stutters. I’m sinking too deep into this, but I’m too high on her to pull away now.
“You gave me ideas on how to torture Simon and Matthias Valdis, so I also owe you one.”
I go back inside and climb back into my bed. I leave the phone on speaker, adjusting the volume until I can hear Diana without waking the boys. I lay back on the pillow, propping my arm behind my head as I stare at the ceiling.
Diana’s bed sheets rustle in the background. “What do you have planned for tomorrow?”
“Team bonding at nine in the morning. We’re going to do the Grouse Grind.”
“The Grouse Grind?” Diana lets out a breath. “I respect what you do. I really do. At the same time, I don’t know how you do it. Hockey sounds so brutal.”
I shrug. “It can be. But it also gets exciting because you never know what’s going to happen on the ice. One single move made in one split second can change everything. It’s like you’re playing against time and feeling invincible while doing it. There’s no other feeling that comes close to it.”
“What was it like when you started playing it for the first time?”
I close my eyes, smiling lazily in the dark.
“It was like sword fighting and flying at the same time. At least, that’s how five-year-old Kai thought about it.
I remember I was running around the front yard of my parents’ house with my Uncle Manu in Mo’orea.
We thwacked a tennis ball back and forth with these brooms and just tried running as fast as we could.
At the end of the day, Uncle Manu said, ‘Wait till you try this while gliding on ice.’ He made it sound like the coolest thing in the world… and it was.”
The small bedroom surrounding me fades away, and I slowly feel cold winter air streak across my face as I tell Diana the story of my first skate at the Shipyards. She giggles at the part where I tripped and wiped out Uncle Manu’s ex-girlfriend.
“After that, I begged my parents to let me live with him in Vancouver so that I could play hockey. They agreed back then because their business was taking off and no one back home had a lot of time to look after me. Playing hockey gave me purpose and direction, and Uncle Manu did everything he could to let me keep playing.”
“I really like Uncle Manu,” Diana muses. “He’s fun to talk to.”
“I saw you guys talking after the first game.”
That moment gave me the kind of hope I haven’t felt in a long time. Watching Diana talk and laugh with Uncle Manu while I settled down from the high of winning a game made me feel like I was living the life I’ve always dreamed about.
I know what we have isn’t meant to last. Friends with benefits rarely do. But it’s with Diana that the future I want doesn’t feel completely out of bounds. It grows into a fate that feels secure in my bones the more I think about it.
“Oh, yeah,” Diana chuckles. “Uncle Manu told me an adorable childhood story about you.”
I groan. “He did not.”
“He told me about the time little Kai would bob down the stairs on his ass instead of doing his homework.”
“Traitorous bastard,” I mutter. Diana giggles, making me smile. “In that case, you owe me a childhood story to even the scales.”
Diana scoffs, “I do not.”
“Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing there are tons of them that are probably embarrassing.”
“I—” Diana bursts out laughing.
“What?” My eyes fly open as I beg into the phone, “Come on, tell me!”
“Okay, okay!” Diana tries to stifle the laugh breaking apart her words. “This one is…this one genuinely makes me laugh whenever I think about it. I was in kindergarten, and it was picture day.”
She had a cold that was so bad that her nose was running like a faucet the whole day. She ended up having her photo taken with a giant glob of snot hanging from her nostril. It wasn’t until the pictures arrived that her mom was horrified and called the school, raging.
I laugh into my pillow, fighting to keep myself quiet. “Please tell me you still have the photo.”
“Unfortunately, not.” Diana chortles “My mother had it shredded.”
My head is worn out from laughing and whispering so much that it’s too weak to turn over every worry running through it. I close my eyes just as a yawn breaks through.
“I probably should’ve asked if you snored in your sleep,” Diana murmurs.
“I’m surprised all that stalking you’ve done on me didn’t yield any answers,” I drawl.
“I only looked you up once and that was for research.”
“Didn’t know that the number of injuries I’ve had were so newsworthy.”
“If I were there, you’d have another one to add to your roster.”
My smile softens. “Hey, princess?”
“Yes, Kai?”
“I’m really glad I get to go through all of this with you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I can hear the smile in her voice. “So am I.”
A comfortable silence settles between us. Somewhere between blankets shuffling and gentle breaths rippling across the speaker, I finally fall asleep. I get lost in hazy dreams of snow flurries, a snotty nosed five-year-old, and wiping out on skates.