Page 3 of Actions and Reactions (All It Takes #5)

Ivan Jankowski—Eagle

I’ve never been known for my patience.

Mom has said many times I could never wait for anything, even as a baby, and if anyone were to ask for her opinion today, not much about my personality has changed since then.

Waiting isn’t something I care to do. Thinking things over, mulling over a decision, giving people time... I do none of it.

I act.

As a hockey player, when I’m on the ice that attitude has served me well—it hasn’t in literally every other aspect of my life, but I am trying to get better.

I fucked up the most important and essential relationship in my life because of my inability to stop and think.

Hindsight is not kind to me .

It’s not like I’m unable to think things through. I can very easily see where things went wrong, looking back. I know what I should’ve done, should’ve said, should’ve kept quiet.

But knowing all those things doesn’t change the fact that it’s been seven years since I had a single conversation with the other half of me.

Who knows whether Silas even is my other half anymore. It could be that he’s changed beyond our friendship... I wouldn’t know.

And friendship isn’t the correct word to use for what we had. I don’t think the word exists really, but if I were at gunpoint and someone demanded to know what we were to each other, I would go with soulmates.

At least, that’s what it felt like to me, and the dark hole in my chest that becomes impossible to ignore whenever I think about him tells me I still feel that way about him today

I haven’t only been avoiding him at every family event since we were fifteen. I’ve also made sure to never be alone in a room with him since he moved to Vegas to work for the Pirates three months ago.

But with July comes the off-season.

And though I still feel the immense sense of triumph that comes with winning the Stanley Cup, fact is, I’ve always spent my off-season with my family, and this year, Mom and Aunt Elle have decided enough is enough.

Why did it have to be this year? I don’t know, but I suspect it has something to do with us working for the same organization now .

It’s the only thing I can think of that could push them to intervene after so many years of staying out of it.

Mom and Dad have respected my wish of not talking about Silas and not asking me what happened for all these years, and nothing else has changed in all this time besides Silas’s new job, so...

So I’m here, sitting in a small chartered jet, doing what I hate most in the whole world.

Waiting.

Worse, I don’t even know exactly what will happen when Silas arrives.

I texted him the details of the flight last night, only an hour after our moms had sent the texts, and he wrote back with a very simple “see you then.”

Which I hated, of course.

Every single detail I’ve heard of Silas in the past seven years, I’ve hated, but it’s time to deal with... everything.

No matter how hard it is, I know we need to at least clear the air. If only for the sake of our jobs.

I want to believe we can have a good working relationship.

I’ve never shied away from PR. Not when I was first drafted to Portland or when I got traded to the Pirates my second season.

It’s not only the fact that my stepfather is a media mogul that’s made me aware of the power of PR, but also my father’s career.

It would’ve been so easy for the general public to dislike the great Hulk Jankowski—he was mean on the ice, relentless, and unapologetically hungry for the win—but he made it his mission in life to be likable off the ice .

Even people who hated the LA Empire loved Hulk. He was always funny and charming in interviews, and even players who he’d crushed against the boards had to admit they liked him as a person.

I know it was all thanks to Mom’s influence.

They were friends for a good decade before they got married and started popping out babies, and being a supermodel, Mom knew more about PR than most people.

So yeah, I know I need to have a good working relationship with Silas now that he’s the head of PR for the Pirates.

No, I want to have a good working relationship with him. I do.

Do I wish Gab had given the job to literally anyone else in the world?

Of course I do—I did.

But after the way Silas handled Charlie and Santa’s picture coming out, I have to admit he’s very good at his job. Once that realization hit a couple of months ago, I also realized how dumb it was of me to ever think he wouldn’t be great at any job.

Silas was even hungrier for success than me. The fact that the picture of success has changed doesn’t mean that hunger went away.

Knowing there are still things I know about him better than almost anyone in the world gives me hope that maybe we can... heal?

Is that the right word?

I have no clue, but I do know it’ll be better if we’ve done some talking before we’re in front of our families. That would save us some awkwardness and possibly a lecture or two.

Being an adult means very little when you have parents like ours.

They do want what’s best for us, though, and we all know it—Silas and Charlotte with Paul and Elle, and Lex and me with Mom and Dad. But they’re meddlers and they don’t believe in letting us make huge mistakes to learn a lesson.

Small mistakes are okay, though.

“Hey.”

The soft but deep voice startles me out of my thoughts.

I look up sharply and it’s to see Silas wearing gray sweats and a simple white T-shirt. He’s standing in the aisle, looking anywhere but at me.

“He-hello,” I stutter.

Fuck, all that waiting did nothing.

How the fuck am I supposed to talk to him after all this time? What are we supposed to talk about?

You know, besides the whale in the room.

We’re beyond elephants now.

“Please take your seats,” the nice flight attendant tells us, appearing out of nowhere. It feels like a lifeline, though. “We’ll start taxiing shortly.”

I nod and busy myself making sure my already buckled seatbelt hasn’t magically snapped open during the last minute.

I can feel Silas moving to the seat in front of mine—the one directly facing me. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not.

I mean, if he had any intention of ignoring me for the five-and-a-half-hour plane ride, then he’d probably sit somewhere else, right?

Anxious thoughts fill my head for the next twenty minutes. I try to come up with a way to ease into a conversation, but when the seatbelt sign turns off and we’ve both been served our bottled waters, I realize the perfect words will never come.

Patience isn’t my only fault, I’m also blunt and not delicate with my words, so I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise when my words come out short.

“I want to apologize.” It’s a simple enough sentence, but Silas looks up, clearly confused.

I feel a ridiculous sense of hope bloom in my chest when I recognize the look right away. His blue eyes are wide and his mouth set in a grimace. That’s the way he’s looked all his life when he doesn’t understand something and it’s about to annoy him.

“Why?” he demands, his voice as clipped as mine.

“Because telling you I loved you and would give hockey up for you when you’d just lost hockey against your will was a very selfish thing to do.”

His face goes blank.

I guess he didn’t expect me to say it right out loud or something?

He presses his lips together and looks down at the table between us .

“We were kids,” he mutters, as if that’s any excuse for either of us.

Yes, we were kids, and in an awfully emotional situation, but we knew each other better than anyone back then.

The words still sting, though. Like he’s belittling what I was feeling in that moment, and what he was going through.

Is that why he said those cruel things to me? Because he was immature?

“If I can be honest,” I admit. “I’d probably react differently if the same tragedy happened today, but I won’t diminish the way I felt then by calling that love childish.”

It wasn’t.

It was elemental, it was inevitable... it still haunts me.

“All right,” he mutters, still not looking at me. But I see him take a deep breath and squeeze his eyes shut tightly.

I clench my fists on the armrests and force myself to give him time to work through whatever’s happening. We have hours here, after all.

“I’m sorry for how I reacted too,” he says at last, speaking through gritted teeth.

There are so many things I could say to that. You were just a kid who believed he’d lost everything. You were heartbroken, you were furious, you were breaking inside.

But I don’t say any of those things.

Even though they’re true.

“Thank you,” I say instead and nod. I open my mouth to say something else, not really knowing what since I’m winging this whole thing, but he beats me to it.

“I’m gay,” he blurts out loudly .

The shock freezes my lungs but speeds up my heartbeat.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Now I really don’t know what to say next.

“No one knows.” He leans in, sounding frantic now, and his eyes are like harsh lasers pointed straight at me. I see the insecurity and fear in them. I recognize it like I know the road leading to my childhood home, and for some reason, just that closes the hole in my heart a little bit.

He’s still the same , I think, with a kind of relief I’ve never known before.

Is the fear there because he thinks I’m going to say something cruel like he did? Does he think we’re in any way in a situation where that would be excusable?

We’re not.

But I still don’t know what to say.

“Uhm,” I stall. I used to be able to tell Silas every ridiculous thought that passed through my head, and now I can’t even figure out if I should ask something or just reassure him...

Instinct and years of conditioning that my brain hasn’t forgotten take over.

“Why?” I ask with a straight face, no emotion except what I can’t help but show through my eyes.

His shoulders drop and his face relaxes, and even though it lasts less than a second, his lips curve upwards.