Page 37

ERIK

I blink. Then I blink again.

What the hell is Luke talking about? France? Where did that come from?

“I’m not sure I follow,” I say. It’s a struggle to keep the sheer confusion out of my voice.

“My grandmother was French, so apparently that entitles me to a permanent visa for France. That’ll let me live in Europe, and then I can keep my existing job.”

I’m still lost. “But you’d be in France.”

“Yeah, France and Sweden are a lot closer together than Canada and Sweden. It’d be way easier for me to visit you.”

He’s always the one visiting me. He came to Sweden. He’s planning on coming to Minnesota. And he’d be the one making those flights back and forth, not me.

Talk about imbalance.

Sighing, I drag a hand through my hair. “I won’t be able to visit you at all during the season. That’s not fair on you.”

Luke waves me off. “I don’t mind. I have a lot more flexibility in my job than you do, so it makes sense.”

“Why are you so desperate to move, even if it isn’t to Sweden?”

Luke lets out a grating, frustrated noise and mutters a low “oh my fucking god” under his breath. “I’d see you more often than I would if I stayed here, and I’ll take anything. I’d visit you as much as possible because I want to.”

That sounds like a lot of heavy lifting for him, and I’d just take, take, take.

Luke seems to read my mind, because he continues. “And, before you come at me with some bullshit about how it’s ‘unequal effort,’ or how it’s ‘not fair to me,’ have you considered that this, again, is what I want ?”

This is ridiculous.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asks.

“No, we can’t, Luke.” That gets his attention. “You want to burn yourself out by running around in circles for the slim possibility of moving not to Sweden, as you originally planned, but somewhere that’s a three-hour flight away.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Erik! I’m not burning myself out, and even if I was, it would be temporary.” He sighs and looks up, his expression shifting from incensed to…

My stomach drops. He’s holding back tears.

Luke lowers his head to face the camera again. “I found a way to keep my existing job and be closer to you. I finally had some kind of breakthrough after a month of nothing, and I was happy about it.”

Those words make my core tighten even more. If he was trying to make me feel guilty, he succeeded. If he wasn’t , I feel guilty anyway.

Luke continues. “Like, you say that you want me to move, but I’m really not feeling it. You keep shutting me down and finding ways to poke holes in whatever idea I come up with.”

I open my mouth to speak, and my brain blanks. Luke doesn’t deserve to be sad, and he definitely doesn’t deserve to be sad because of me. What can I even?—

“To confirm, you want to stay together, right?” he asks, snapping me back to him. “As in, you don’t want to break up with me because of the distance.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck . My stomach sinks even lower, to the point where I’m scared of crapping it out. The thought of breaking up with Luke didn’t even register as a possibility before he called me out.

“I don’t want to break up. God no, I really fucking don’t,” I sputter.

Luke’s expression softens. “Then let me deal with my own shit, Erik. I’m choosing to do this, and I’m choosing you.”

“You’re still choosing a hell of a lot of trouble,” I mumble, out of arguments. Luke is a man on a mission.

“Erik, you’re worth the trouble and then some. You’re amazing, and don’t you dare let yourself think otherwise. I’m so damn lucky to be your boyfriend, and that’s the truth.”

My throat jumps as I swallow down even more guilt that’s rising from my core. Luke was all smiles when he called me. He spent the last five minutes excited to be closer to me, justifying his actions, and in my nonexistent wisdom, I fired back with reasons why he shouldn’t.

Running a hand over my face, I try to turn things around. “I’m sorry if I’m being weird about this. This is the first time a guy has, I don’t know, moved mountains to spend more time with me.”

“I get it.” Luke pauses, taking a long sip of water. “I know this is a lot, but again, I want to do this. I’m going to apply for that visa later today.”

“How’d you manage to get an appointment this quickly?” I decide to ignore my still-spiraling thoughts in favor of talking logistics. It’s a convenient distraction, if anything.

“Oh, I don’t have one. My dad told me to show up with a bunch of documents and they’d tell me what to do.”

That doesn’t sound like a plan.

“That’s very ambitious. Good luck,” I say instead, suppressing a frown.

“Thanks. I’m trying not to get ahead of myself or anything, but I’m excited to live in France now. If I go to the south, you can visit me in the winter if you want to thaw out a bit.”

That manages to make me laugh, even if it’s drier than usual. “Maybe. That’d be nice.”

A notification on my phone interrupts me, saying that I have to prep for my first set of drills. “Anyway, I have to lace up soon—I’ll talk to you later.”

Luke offers a weak smile, which softens the twisting coil of stress from the conversation we wrapped up. “Bye, Erik. Good luck out there today, you’re gonna kill it.”

“Thanks. Take care.”

The screen of my phone goes black after Luke hangs up, and I sit motionless in my room for a few more minutes.

Luke is thinking. Hard. He’s finding ways to move closer to me, to be with me, that I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years.

I’ve never applied for a visa before in my life because my old team in Toronto handled the work permit for me.

On the other hand, Luke is about to march into a foreign consulate armed with nothing but fifty-year-old documents and determination.

He’s so motivated, driven, and selfless, which is why I?—

Oh, god.

Which is why I love him.

The realization hits me like a pile of snow falling off a roof.

Holy shit. I love Luke.

And realizing that? It makes me jump onto my bed, grab my lumpy pillow, and hug it tight while grinning into it, ignoring the conversation Luke and I wrapped up not a minute ago.

Deep down, the feelings were already there, and it still seems early, even though I know it isn’t. We met nine months ago and have been dating for almost three, and throughout all that time, Luke has managed to be there for me, even when he’s an ocean away.

He’s the whole damn lovable package of kind, caring to a fault, and so fucking hot. He thinks he’s the lucky one? Nah. That’s me. I get to love a guy who’s about to fight the French for a chance to live not with me, but on the same continent as me, and he counts that as a win. And it is a win.

And I ended the call on a grouchy, dismissive note after trying to tear his complicated plan apart. The complicated plan that he’s enacting because he wants to be with me.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, mangling my pillow into a ball.

Christ, I’m such an asshole.

I still need to get ready for training, so I can’t call Luke back. I send him a hurried series of texts instead.

Really sorry if I was dismissive with you

I wasn’t expecting your plan but that wasn’t an excuse for me to be like that

I really appreciate you doing all this, for real

I heave myself off of the bed, slip into a camp sweater, and make my way to the staff offices, still kicking myself for being a shitty boyfriend. Luke adores the hell out of me, and this is how I treat him?

Sheesh. My inexperience sure is showing.

One of the camp directors, Richard, greets me at the rink and tells me to leave my stuff by the bench. The ice isn’t ready yet since the power went out overnight, so I’m leading a video and theory session first. A text from Luke comes in, and I check it as I dump my gear onto the bench.

Luke Tremblay

Don’t worry about it. You’re good

Heading to the consulate now. Will keep you posted

As I’m typing out a reply, I get a low-battery notification. I scramble around in my bag for my charger, cursing the one cable that I brought with me. It’s too loose and always slips out, and I was too stubborn to pay airport prices for a replacement.

I find an outlet and plug my phone in right as Richard calls me over. “Norberg, you’re up now.”

Oh well. I set my phone down on the ledge above the outlet and head into the office, ready for my first go as a coach.

Coaching is okay, but I still prefer being on the ice.

“Okay boys,” I call out. “Lace up and meet me on the ice in fifteen. We’re going through scoring drills first.” This is a U20 camp, composed mostly of American and Canadian AHL hopefuls.

They settled down pretty quickly at the beginning of the video review, so I’m optimistic that they’ll be an easy group to handle.

I’m already dressed appropriately, but my skates are on the bench. After lacing up, I march over to where my phone is charging and… my phone isn’t there. The charger is. The cord, however, is dangling off the other side of the ledge.

I take a peek over and sure enough, my phone is on the ice. Reaching down, I try to grab it, and my fingernails catch.

What the hell?

My phone is stuck—no, it’s frozen. It won’t budge.

I spot a technician and wave him over. “Hey, uh, my phone is frozen in the rink.”

His eyes widen. “What? How did that happen? We haven't resurfaced the ice since last night.”

“I was charging it, and it must have fallen,” I unplug my charger. “Still not sure how?—”

The end of the cable is black and burnt off, and everything clicks.

My phone fell onto the rink. The cable shorted, overheating the phone, and that thawed some of the ice.

And of course, the water froze again, sealing my phone in.

Jesus fuck.

“Is the phone okay?” the technician asks, and I let out a huff.

“Not sure, but it can wait.”

I’m not about to make the camp thaw the whole rink just so I can get my phone, so I skate to center ice for my scoring drills. My stupid phone can wait for the ice to melt after the day is over. It’s waterproof, anyway.

“Hey, Erik,” Richard says as I’m about to summon the campers. “One of the technicians said that your phone fell in the ice?”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. It isn’t completely submerged, and it can wait until I’m finished with the session.”

Richard raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I can get someone to fix a heat gun on it and pry it out if you’d like.”

I nod. “That would be great, thanks. I thought the rink would have to thaw before I could get at it, and I didn’t want to disrupt the camp.”

“Sounds good, I’ll get on that,” he says before skating away.

The scoring drills begin, and I split my time between telling the campers to ignore the loud process of extracting my phone from the rink, and to not intentionally pelt the goalie with slapshots. After about half an hour, Richard skates over and hands me my phone, not saying a word.

His expression tells me everything I need to know.

My phone, dripping wet and cold to the touch, sits dead in my hands.

I stare at it for a couple of seconds before I call a ten-minute break and skate over to the sanitation closet.

After a quick search, I grab a bag of spill absorbent that we usually use to deal with post-drill barf, tear it open, and jam my phone in.

A few frustrating minutes later, I take it out and the damn thing still won’t turn on. The stupid cable must have fried the chip or something.

Fuck my life. I didn’t bring my laptop with me, and the only phone number I remember is my parents’ landline, which I’m not sure they even have anymore. I can’t even take my phone card out and put it in another phone because my provider in Sweden switched to using those virtual cards.

Resigned, I slink over to the computer in the management office and try to log in to whatever account I can access without getting a code sent to my phone.

That turns out to be my email and nothing else.

I type out a note to my parents to let them know I’m alive, and I ask them to message Nils on whatever platform they can find him on.

I also guess Luke’s work email address and write something to him, only for it to bounce back.

Then the email to my parents bounces back.

Oh, come on.

That’s all I have time to do because I have to give up and get back on the ice.

At least there aren't any scouts today to witness my chaotic first day as a coach. Whatever leadership and team culture management skills I have were absolutely not on display.