Page 12

EIGHT

SEBASTIAN

I couldn't move from this spot even if I wanted to. I should move but I don't.

Derrick is slumped against my shoulder, the weight of him anchoring me to the couch like gravity has shifted just for us.

His breathing is slow and steady, warm through the fabric of my shirt.

One of his hands rests in his lap, the other curled loosely against my thigh like he reached for something without realizing it.

I haven't breathed right in weeks but now, with him here like this, I don't want to exhale.

I don't want to shift even an inch. I want to pull him into my lap.

Wrap myself around him like I can shield him from the storm still closing in on his life.

Whisper every lie he needs to hear. Tell him that it's going to be okay, that I'll make it okay.

. .but I don't. I can’t guarantee it. What good are promises from a man who's been running since he left Winnipeg?

For three weeks, I've tried to keep space between us.

I've painted until my fingers were stiff with dried acrylics, worked out until sweat soaked through every layer.

I've become a ghost in my own house, slipping from room to room, listening for his footsteps before I enter a space.

I didn't know what I'd do if I let myself want this. . .want him.

Then I watched him break. It damn near killed me to watch him suffer. At the doctor's office, the second Dr. Patel said six more weeks, I saw the fight leave his body. Like someone pulled the plug on the sun. The light behind his eyes just. . .went dark.

I know if this were me, if everything I'd built my life around was suddenly in question, if someone told me I might not play again, I'd shatter completely. I’d react the exact same way, shut down. I'd become nothing.

There's only two, maybe three of us per team who really understand this particular fear. Goalies are rare, we can’t just bounce around from team to team.

Once the position is filled, teams are hard-pressed to replace them, unless the goalie in question is absolutely useless.

That is hardly ever the case. So, there’s no safety nets waiting when the thing that defines you threatens to disappear.

He doesn’t need a trainer barking at him about recovery milestones. He doesn’t need an inspirational speech about perseverance. He just needs someone to stay. To witness this quiet devastation and not look away.

So, I do and here I am, trapped beneath his weight, trapped in whatever this feeling is. . .this strange, tender ache I've spent years avoiding.

The smell of his skin, warm cotton, shampoo, and something faintly citrusy sweet underneath is going to haunt me for days.

The heat of his body pressed along my side has quieted something in me that's been restless for as long as I can remember, which terrifies the hell out of me.

I've spent thirty-two years learning how to need nothing and no one and he's unwinding all that careful work just by falling asleep against me.

I've been here before. Not like this, maybe. Not this slow-burn kind of intimacy that sneaks up on you until you're drowning in it. I know what it means to want someone so badly it pulls the breath right out of your chest.

Lachlan Devereaux taught me that.

Center for the Winnipeg Wolves. Sharp jaw, sharp tongue, and the most reckless smile I'd ever seen, like he knew exactly how far he could push before something broke.

We played together for three seasons. Roomed together more often than not.

Shared meals, shared hotel rooms, shared excuses for why we needed to change seats so we'd sit next to each other on flights.

The world called it a bromance. Cute. Harmless. Two hockey bros who just happened to always be touching, leaning in close, looking a little too long when we thought no one was watching. The kind of friendship that made for good PR photos and better locker room jokes.

What they didn't know was that I loved him.

Loved him in that desperate, all-consuming way that made my chest ache when he'd fall asleep mid-conversation, his head tipped against my shoulder.

Loved him in the way that made me memorize how he took his coffee—black, one sugar—even though I've never cared enough to remember that detail about anyone else.

For a while, I think he loved me, too. In the quiet darkness of hotel rooms, in stolen moments between games and practices, in text messages deleted by morning.

. .but Lachlan was never going to come out.

Not with his name. Not with his family legacy hanging around his neck like an anchor.

His dad once told a reporter that ‘soft men didn't belong in contact sports’.

That was the kind of man he'd grown up under—the shadow that followed him everywhere, the voice I could see him fighting against when we were alone.

So, we kept it quiet. Our lives folded into the margins, hotel rooms, off-season getaways, texts no one would read.

Stolen moments in darkened corners of bars where our teammates wouldn't venture.

Subtle touches beneath restaurant tables.

His ankle pressed against mine during team meetings.

A language of secrecy we perfected until it felt like breathing.

I was younger then. Hopeful. Willing to wait for a future we never said out loud.

Twenty-seven, still believing that love was enough to overcome the weight of expectations pressing down on his shoulders.

Still naive enough to think that what we whispered to each other at 3 AM meant more than the legacy his father had mapped out for him since birth.

Until one day, after a game, he stood up in the locker room and told everyone he'd proposed to a woman.

That she'd said yes. His voice carried that particular lightness I'd only ever heard when we were alone.

The same tone he'd used when telling me about his favorite childhood memory, fishing with his grandfather.

I laughed. I thought he was joking. The sound scraped out of my throat, hollow and disconnected, bouncing off metal lockers while twenty pairs of eyes shifted between us. I kept waiting for the punchline while something cold and sharp slid between my ribs.

Then he posted the photo on Instagram. Her hand. His hand. Matching rings.

"She said yes."

Just like that, he erased me like what we had meant nothing.

He was a coward and I was made a fool. Three years of my life, distilled into strained smiles and congratulatory slaps on the back while I excused myself to vomit in the bathroom stall.

Three years of promises whispered against skin, evaporated like they'd never existed.

We never spoke again. He couldn't even look at me in the locker room days later.

The silence between us became its own entity, thick and suffocating.

I'd catch him turning away when I entered a room, his shoulders tight with guilt or shame or whatever the hell he felt about betraying everything we'd built together.

I couldn't keep playing on the same team as him.

I couldn't bear it. It was fucking up my game and I couldn't have that.

We were so good at hiding, no one suspected anything.

I wasn't going to let what he did to me ruin my stats.

I could control that at least. After days of deliberation, nights spent staring at the ceiling of my too-empty apartment, I called my agent.

Told him to get me the hell out. I didn't care where to.

Didn't care about the money. Just somewhere far enough that I wouldn't have to see Lachlan's face or his fucking engagement photos plastered across my social media.

Seattle was a lifeline. A city I could disappear into, where rain-soaked streets matched my mood.

A team with zero expectations and a desperate need for a goalie.

I came here hollowed out and furious, painting canvas after canvas in violent strokes that I never showed anyone.

Christian called it my ‘dark period’. I made more money that I didn't need and I swore I would never let myself feel like that again.

I pushed what happened with Lachlan down deep and the media brushed over what happened without any suspension of the truth.

So, I shut the door. On relationships. On connections.

On anyone who tried to get too close. I built walls out of steel and ice, perfected the art of polite distance, and focused on the one thing I could control: stopping that fucking puck.

I became Seattle's impenetrable fortress, known for my composure, for the cold precision with which I faced down ninety-mile-an-hour shots without flinching.

The media called it focus. My teammates called it discipline.

Only I knew it was fear calcified into something useful.

Until Derrick. Until now.

He shifts against me, murmurs something unintelligible in his sleep, and I freeze.

Every muscle in my body tenses, caught between the instinct to withdraw and the desperate desire to stay exactly where I am.

This simple weight of another person, of him against me feels dangerously close to something I'd sworn never to need again.

His head settles just under my chin and I can feel the warm puff of his breath against my collarbone.

His fingers twitch once, then curl again against my thigh like his body knows something he won't let himself say.

The gesture is unconscious, trusting in a way I haven't earned.

Five fingers splayed across the fabric of my sweatpants, claiming territory I'd declared off-limits to everyone else.

I shouldn't. Damn it, Sebastian. I shouldn't but I do.

I lower my head and press the softest kiss to his temple.

Just there. Just once. A confession without words, a moment of weakness I can deny when morning comes.

The salt-sweet scent of his skin fills my lungs, and something long dormant shifts beneath my ribs.

I want to paint this, not the scene, the feeling.

Dark blues giving way to the first tentative strokes of gold.

He sighs in his sleep but doesn't wake. The sound curls around me like smoke and I wonder when exactly I started dismantling my own defenses. I don't move.

"Je ne sais pas si je pourrai un jour arrêter de te toucher." I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop touching you, I whisper against his skin. God help me.

I remain locked in place as Derrick shifts against me, his breathing pattern changing.

It's time. I gently nudge his shoulder, immediately missing his warmth as he blinks awake, disoriented.

He sits up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand like a child.

Then he swipes at a small trail of drool at the corner of his mouth, looking momentarily embarrassed.

Then it happens, a smile. Not the polite, practiced one he's been giving me since the injury. Not the hollow one he flashes when talking to his agent. A real smile, bright enough to cast shadows. The kind of smile I'd forgotten existed, that reaches his eyes and transforms his entire face.

My chest tightens. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it until this moment.

"Sorry." He stretches, his back popping. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You needed it." I keep my voice casual, neutral, as if I haven't just spent the last hour memorizing the weight of him against me. "Your brain needs rest to heal. More than your body."

He nods, placing his hands on the couch to push himself up.

When he wobbles slightly, I'm there before I can think, my hand steadying his elbow, the other at his waist. He's solid beneath my palm, warm through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

For a heartbeat, we're too close. Close enough that I can see the flecks of amber in his brown eyes, the way his lashes curl at the ends.

I clear my throat, stepping back. "Let's get you some food. Then I'll help you get ready for bed."

He makes a clicking sound with his tongue. "I don't think I need you to shower me anymore, Bast, really."

The tension breaks. I arch an eyebrow, grateful for the familiar rhythm of our banter.

"I wasn't offering but if the Princesse needs my hands, then all you have to do is ask.

" The words slip out before I can stop them, too close to the truth, too heavy with suggestion.

"Are you asking, Princesse?" I press, even as I'm screaming at myself to shut up.

Derrick startles slightly, his eyes widening. "No," he says quickly. . .too quickly. "I'm okay enough to take care of myself." He straightens, squaring his shoulders like he's preparing for a face-off. "I have to start taking my rehabilitation into my own hands."

I swallow, recognizing the determination in his voice. This is the fire I've been waiting to see again.

"We're doing things differently going forward, remember?" he adds, holding my gaze.

"Yeah." I nod slowly. "We are."

Things will be different going forward. I'll make damn sure of it.

For as long as Derrick is here with me, he is mine.

He just doesn't know it yet. One touch was enough to confirm what I'd been fighting against. One brush of my lips against his skin wasn't nearly enough.

I need—fuck it—I want more. Right now, Derrick needs steady ground beneath his feet more than he needs my selfish desires complicating things.

So, I'll be that ground. For as long as it takes.

"Food first," I say, moving toward the kitchen. "Then you can prove how independent you are."

I catch the relief in his expression as he follows me, a careful distance between us. The kitchen feels safer somehow. The bright lights, practical tasks, the rhythm of chopping vegetables drowning out the sound of my heartbeat in my ears.

"Sit," I point to the stool at the island. "I'll make something quick and easy."

He hesitates, then sits, watching me move around the kitchen with curious eyes. "I haven't seen you cook before."

"There's a lot you haven't seen," I respond, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. The words hang in the air, loaded with more meaning than I intended.

For a moment, we're just looking at each other across the marble countertop, something unspoken stretching between us like a tightrope neither of us is brave enough to walk.

Then Derrick smiles again, smaller this time but just as genuine, and the kitchen suddenly feels like the warmest place I've been in years.