Page 164 of Shots & Echoes

My father gave a short, humorless laugh. “Really?” Disbelief flickered in his expression, twisting into something darker. “You think this is just about you? That she’ll walk away from this unscathed?”

I couldn’t breathe past the knot in my chest. Couldn’t move past the reality barreling toward me like a freight train.

“She’s tough,” I said, but the words barely made it out. Because for the first time, I wasn’t sure if toughness was enough.

And then he looked at me—really looked at me. Like he was seeing straight through the layers of anger, of arrogance, of bravado that had held me together for so long.

“But are you?”

The question hit its mark, clean and brutal. I swallowed hard, something inside me cracking under the weight of it.

Because I didn’t know.

I didn’t fucking know.

And as I stood there, staring at the man who had shaped me, I felt the dam start to break.

Callahan’s expression didn’t soften—it barely shifted—but somehow, it still felt like a knife twisting in my gut.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said, voice steady, measured. Almost careful. Like he was afraid of what would happen if he let the full weight of his disappointment settle between us. “But you need to see what you’re doing. She has a future. And you’re going to destroy it.”

The words cut deep, sharper than any blade, and I felt them in my chest. They weren’t meant to be cruel—but fuck, they still left a wound.

I opened my mouth to argue, to deny it, but nothing came out. Because some part of me—the part I never wanted to face—knew he might be right. What if I was the thing that finally broke her? What if, after all the fights she’d won, I was the one battle she couldn’t walk away from unscathed?

Callahan turned, his gaze flickering toward the Team USA jersey still slung in that corner. The same jersey that had meant everything to me once. Now, it meant everything to her. And it was my fucking fault that she might lose it all.

“She’s going to wear that jersey one day,” he murmured, but there was an edge beneath his words, something cold and undeniable. “But no one’s ever going to forget what it cost her to get it.”

The door slammed shut behind him; the sound echoing like a gunshot in an empty rink.

I stood there, breath coming in short, uneven bursts, feeling everything and nothing all at once. Knuckles still raw, chest still tight, stomach twisting with something I couldn’t control.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the guy who threw the hits. I felt like the one taking them.

Every moment with Iris had felt like oxygen, like fucking survival. Every glance, every touch, every whispered confessionin the dark—it had all pulled me back from the edge. But now? Now it felt tainted. Drenched in doubt.

What if my father was right? What if this—us—was just a countdown to something inevitable? What if, no matter how hard I fought to be the one thing she could hold onto, I was the thing that would drag her under?

My fists clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms, trying to ground myself against the sickening truth pressing down on me.

She deserved better.

Better than me.

And yet—I couldn’t let her go.

Wouldn’t.

I sank onto the bed, elbows digging into my knees, head in my hands. The weight of everything pressed down on me like a fucking anvil, suffocating, relentless. The sheets still smelled like her. That familiar mix of sweat, skin, and something uniquely her wrapped around me, clinging to my senses like a ghost I couldn’t shake.

She was in my bed, in my head, under my goddamn skin.

And now? Now it felt different. Heavier.

I love your son.

The words echoed in my skull, a confession I hadn’t been ready for—one I didn’t know what to do with. It was a lifeline, pulling me toward something real, something solid. But at the same time, it was a shackle. A chain wrapping tight around my throat, reminding me of what I was, what I could never be.