Page 25 of Cold Comeback (Richmond Reapers #1)

Chapter seventeen

Thatcher

I woke up to voices in the kitchen.

"Perfect morning light," Blake said as I padded downstairs in boxers and a t-shirt. "We'll capture authentic minor league lifestyle away from the rink—the grind, the dedication."

The crew transformed our kitchen. Our mismatched chairs sat in what Blake called "optimal storytelling configuration." Cables snaked across the floor like trip wires. A camera operator crouched beside our ancient coffee maker.

"Thatcher!" Blake's face lit up when he spotted me. "Great timing. We want to capture your morning motivation routine."

I blinked, brain still foggy. "My what?"

"Your daily inspiration ritual. How you prepare mentally for excellence." He gestured at the cameras already rolling. "Be natural."

Natural. Right.

I moved toward the coffee maker, aware of twenty different angles capturing every step. The camera operator shifted to get my "good side" as I reached for a mug.

"Tell us about your morning philosophy," Blake prompted. "What drives you to be better every day?"

I opened my mouth to give the standard response about dedication and team-first mentality. Then, I stopped.

What was my actual morning routine? When no one was watching, what did I do first? I tried to remember mornings before the cameras, but came up blank. Did I check my phone? Stretch? Stare out the window?

The realization hit hard: I didn't know what I did when nobody looked.

"I, uh..." I stared at the coffee mug in my hands. "I make coffee?"

"And what thoughts go through your mind during that process? Gratitude? Goal-setting?"

"Thoughts about... coffee?"

Blake's smile never wavered. "Let's try again. Camera's rolling—speak from the heart about your transformation journey."

Transformation journey. As if my life were a carefully planned narrative arc instead of a series of stumbles and recoveries.

Pluto wandered in wearing the same Virginia Beach t-shirt as the day before and immediately launched into what he called his bachelor cooking philosophy for the cameras. He demonstrated how to make breakfast quesadillas using whatever was left in the fridge.

A dish towel caught fire.

"Shit! Shit! Fuck!" He waved the flaming towel around our kitchen while I lunged for the fire extinguisher.

"Keep rolling!" Blake shouted to his crew. "This is gold!"

Bricks appeared at the top of the stairs, saw the cameras, and tried to look effortlessly athletic while carrying his gear bag. He made it three steps before the bag caught on the railing, sending shin guards and elbow pads cascading down the stairwell.

Knox emerged from the living room, took one look at the chaos—Pluto frantically fanning smoke, Bricks chasing runaway equipment, and me wielding a fire extinguisher—and delivered his assessment with perfect deadpan timing:

"This is why grown men shouldn't live like feral cats."

The camera crew ate it up. Blake practically vibrated with excitement as he reviewed the footage on his handheld monitor.

"Perfect!" he announced. "Lovable dysfunction around the redemption story. Audiences will connect with this authentic minor league chaos."

I watched him frame my teammates as comic relief characters in my narrative. They weren't people anymore. They were supporting cast members in the Thatcher Drake Comeback Special .

The protective anger rising in my chest was real, the most genuine thing I'd felt all morning.

Two hours later, Blake positioned me in our living room for what he called a heart-to-heart interview. The lighting setup had taken thirty minutes to perfect. I sat on our couch where the shadows fell correctly across my face.

"Let's dive deep," Blake said, settling across from me with his clipboard. "What really drives you, Thatcher? What gets you up every morning?"

I opened my mouth to answer and...

Nothing.

Not rebellion or media-trained responses. Emptiness. A terrifying blank where my answer should have been.

What drove me? I scrambled through possible responses: hockey, teamwork, personal growth, redemption. They were all scripts I'd memorized without understanding.

"I..." The silence stretched long enough that Blake leaned forward, concerned. "I guess..."

Panic struck—pure existential terror. I couldn't access an honest answer because I didn't have one.

"Hockey is mostly about hydration," I heard myself say. "And horoscopes."

Blake blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Hydration and horoscopes," I repeated, my brain scrambling to fill the void with absurdity. "I consult my chakras before every faceoff. Mercury in retrograde impacts my passing accuracy."

It only got worse. Words kept spilling out, increasingly ludicrous, because being ridiculous was easier than admitting the truth: I had no idea what drove me because I had no idea who I was.

"My greatest inspiration is how the ice reflects my inner spiritual journey," I continued. "Sometimes I meditate with my skates on to achieve optimal puck consciousness."

Blake nodded enthusiastically, scribbling notes. "This is fantastic! The authentic personality is coming through. Audiences love quirky depth."

Rachel appeared behind him, beaming. "We can use this as transition material—show his sense of humor developing through adversity."

They ate it up. My identity crisis was content that they could package and sell.

After the interview wrapped, I stared at Blake's laptop screen as he scrubbed through footage from the past three days.

Multiple versions of me flashed across the monitor. Day one: Media-trained Thatcher gives careful, professional answers. Day two: Rebellious Thatcher pushes back with sarcasm. Today: Whatever the hell it had been.

I couldn't tell which one was real. They all looked like strangers.

If none of them were real, what was underneath?

"Thatcher."

Gideon stood in the doorway, expression tight with concern.

"We need to talk," he said.

I followed him upstairs to my room, legs unsteady. He closed the door and faced me.

"What the hell was that down there? Chakras and puck consciousness?"

"Authenticity," I said, but my voice cracked on the word.

"That wasn't authentic. That was you having a breakdown on camera."

"How do you know the difference?"

Gideon frowned. "What do you mean?"

The panic that had started in the interview came rushing back, twice as strong. "What if how I feel about you is only me reflecting what you want to see? What if I'm a mirror that learned to talk?"

His face went pale. "Thatcher—"

"I watched three versions of myself on that screen, and I couldn't tell which one was real.

I didn't know what I actually wanted for breakfast, let alone what drove me.

" I couldn't stop myself. "What if there's nothing underneath?

What if I'm only an empty room that echoes whatever people expect to hear? "

"You're spiraling—"

"What if I don't actually love you?"

Gideon stepped backward like I'd hit him. The hurt in his eyes slammed me in the gut, but the ache felt distant, like it was happening to someone else.

He spoke quietly. "You don't mean that."

"How would I know if I meant it or not? How would you?"

He opened his mouth and closed it. Then, he tried again. "Because—because you weren't performing for anyone when I fell asleep on your shoulder during movie night. You helped Bricks at 2 AM when no cameras were rolling."

"What if those were just—"

"What if they weren't?" Gideon's hands clenched into fists.

I stared at him, thrown by the anger in his voice.

"You think I don't know what it's like?" he continued.

"You think I haven't spent years wondering if the captain everyone looks up to is just an act?

If the guy who gives speeches and makes decisions is just me performing what I think leadership looks like? "

"That's different—"

"It's not different!" He was breathing hard. "It's the same fucking fear, Thatcher. That we're both only empty rooms reflecting what people need to see."

For a moment, we stared at each other across three feet of space that might as well have been the Grand Canyon. His shoulders sagged. "I can't convince you that what you feel is real. That's something you have to figure out for yourself."

He ran both hands through his hair. "And I can't—I can't sit here and watch you tear apart everything we've built because you're scared it might not be authentic."

He paused at the door. "When you figure out whether you want me or only think you should want me, let me know."

He left, closing the door softly behind him.

I sat on my bed and stared at the wall, trying to feel something definitive about his absence. Relief? Sadness? Fear?

Instead, it was like watching someone else's life through thick glass.

I tried an experiment. Sitting perfectly still, I attempted to identify something I genuinely wanted to do. Not what I should do, what would look good, or what would help someone else… what I wanted.

Ten minutes of stillness produced nothing but increasing anxiety.

In desperation, I pulled out my phone and called the one person who might be able to confirm I'd once been a real person.

"Thatch?" I heard the concern in Gina's voice. "It's not even noon. What's wrong?"

"I think I might not be a real person."

A pause. "Okay. Tell me what that means."

The relief of her taking the statement seriously instead of dismissing it nearly broke me. "The documentary people keep asking me what drives me, what I want, and who I am. I don't know. I don't know if there's anything real underneath all the performance."

"Where are you right now?"

"My room. Alone. I was trying to figure out what I want to do when no one's watching, and I got nothing. I'm starting to panic."

"Thatch, listen to me." Her voice was gentle but firm. "You've been a mirror for so long, you forgot mirrors don't have their own image. But you're more than a mirror. You're a person who learned to disappear. There's a difference."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because mirrors don't call their sisters when they're scared. Mirrors don't choose to help teammates with their panic attacks at two in the morning. Mirrors don't fight documentary crews to protect their friends."

I hadn't thought about those moments as choices. Perhaps she had a point.

"Remember when you were seven?" Gina continued. "You built that blanket fort in the living room. It wasn't for anyone but you—Mom and Dad weren't even home. You wanted a small space that was entirely yours. You sat in there for hours, humming to yourself."

The memory surfaced slowly—the satisfaction of the perfect architecture and sensation of complete privacy.

"That kid is still in there," she said. "He only learned to hide really, really well."

After we hung up, I sat in the quiet of my room and tried to feel my way back to that seven-year-old. What had he hummed in the blanket fort?

Without thinking, I started humming something low and rough. The melody stuck in my head for days, the one Bricks started on the bus. "Shenandoah."

I stopped, startled. How long had I been humming that song without realizing it?

It was small. Barely anything. But it was mine.

I stared at my phone for twenty minutes, typing and deleting messages to Gideon.

Finally:

Thatcher: I think I've been so busy being what people want that I forgot to be anything at all. I don't know if what I feel for you is real, but I want to find out. Want to help me figure out what being looks like?

I hit send. No response. The read receipt showed he'd seen it, but the typing dots never appeared.

I set the phone aside and hummed a few more bars of "Shenandoah," trying not to check for replies every thirty seconds. Maybe that was how authenticity started—not in grand gestures or perfect answers, but in small, unwitnessed moments when you chose to exist instead of perform.

It wasn't much, but it was mine.

The phone buzzed once.

Gideon: I don't know either. But yeah. We can figure it out.

It was a cautious agreement to try.

It wasn't much, but it was real.