Page 72 of Breaking the Ice

“God, I know that. Iknowthat. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He’d only been agonizing over this for weeks now. Had it been better that he’d spoken up? Or would it have been better to keep the hope buoying him as long as possible? Maybe if he hadn’t forced Gavin to make a choice, he’d have eventually changed his mind.

But who was he fucking kidding? He’d heard the closed door in Gavin’s voice. Saw it in his eyes. When he said he wasn’t ever dating again, he meant it.

“Yeah, you should have,” Hayes said, voice soft. “If you hadn’t, imagine what would’ve happened? You’d have hoped forever and fallen in even deeper, and I think that would’ve sucked even harder.”

“Yeah,” Zach said. But he wasn’t quite sure he believed it. That was the whole problem.

“You didn’t quit, did you?”

“No. No way. I . . .it’s nothisfault, you know? I’m not even mad at him. Not really. He’s as much a victim of this as I am,” Zach said.

Hayes’ silence was telling.

“So yeah, no, I’m still here. We’re still coaching. We’re still friends. We still talk all the time, every night, same as before.”

Hayes still didn’t say anything but now his silence took a disapproving slant.

“It’s really fine,” Zach continued. “I’m learning so much. And the team is winning.”

Hayes sighed. “Zachy, you are so fucked.”

“I am not,” Zach argued, just because he hated how resigned Hayes sounded. Like he was hopeless, and hewasn’t. He was anadult, making adult choices. He wasn’t led around by his dick. Or his poor bruised heart.

“This is why I—” Hayes broke off, muttering a frustratedfuckunder his breath. “This is why I cut it off with Morgan. I wasn’t going to hang around for months or God forbid, foryears, waiting for him to toss me a scrap.”

“Yeah, you’re totally doing so good with that, by the way,” Zach retorted sarcastically.

“Fuck you,” Hayes said, without heat.

“I’m not hanging around for ascrap. This is myjob. I work for him.” Technically he worked for Sidney and for the college, but he didn’t need to go into the details of the chain of command for Hayes right now.

“I know, and I’m fucking proud of you for doing it,” Hayes said. “But do you ever think that this is going to slowly kill you? Being that close but not close enough? You’re never going to get over him without having some space.”

Zach leaned back in his desk chair and squeezed his eyes shut, hating how his heart clenched at Hayes’ soft question.

“Yeah,” he finally admitted.

“But you’re going to do it anyway.”

“What else can I do, Monty?”

“Not let him that close?”

Zach debated asking that if Hayes had the opportunity to be this close to Morgan—but with nothing else—if he would take it. It would be a totally unfair question, because he knew how his best friend would answer.

He’d take all that intermingled joy and pain, no question.

“You know I’m not going to push him away,” Zach said defensively.

“I know. Just think of how this ends,” Hayes warned.

Zach knew exactly what he was thinking and not saying—don’t end up like me—but even if he should be considering the possibility, hecouldn’t. Not now. “Me, becoming a great hockey coach.”

Hayes sighed.

“Hey, I caught your game last night,” Zach said, changing the subject.

“Oh yeah?” Hayes perked up.