Page 28

CHAPTER 27

I didn’t know how long Bell and I stood there, me folded into his arms as we held each other up. Every time my breath hitched, he held me tighter, his palm moving in slow circles over my back like he was trying to soothe away the tremors in my bones.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore,” I murmured, my words muffled against his neck as I tasted salt on my lips. “But I am. All the fucking time.”

“I know, baby. I know,” he whispered, lips brushing my temple, right over the scar he now knew the truth about.

I let the sound of his voice wash over me, the gentle rumble of it vibrate through his chest and into mine. I wanted to stay here, buried in his warmth, held together by his faith in me.

But that wasn’t how life worked.

Eventually, I moved away, needing space to pull a breath into my lungs.

Bell’s hands slipped from around me without resistance, but his eyes stayed glued to mine, filled with a tenderness that made me want to look away.

I grabbed my mug off the table and took a sip, even though the coffee was cold now, the bitter, acidic taste matching the churning in my stomach.

“You’re safe now. You know that, right?” he said, stepping back into my space and brushing his thumb across my cheek, the calloused pad rough against my skin.

I nodded, swallowing hard against the tightness in my throat.

But the truth was, I didn’t feel safe.

Not in the way he meant, at least. The phantom pain of old memories seemed to pulse beneath my skin, a sensation my body wouldn’t let go of.

Bell desperately wanted to believe that the world was better now. And maybe it was for someone like him, a man who could stare down his bullies with a smirk, his eyebrow raised in silent challenge.

But I wasn’t built like him.

I was built of secrets and lies and fists I never saw coming.

And shame.

So much fucking shame.

“You should talk to someone,” Bell said, gently, his voice cutting through the silence.

I froze, my chest tightening. An invisible weight pressed against my sternum, constricting my breath, squeezing my heart until each beat became painful. “I just did.”

“No. Someone professional. I’m not a therapist, E. And I think …” He paused for a beat, choosing his words carefully. “I think you’d really benefit from having someone to help you unpack all that shit you’ve been carrying around all these years.”

“No,” I said, the word coming out sharper than I meant for it to. I winced at the edge in my voice, at how it made Bell flinch almost imperceptibly. “No, I can’t. I don’t … telling you, that’s enough.”

Bell didn’t push, but I saw the slight flicker of disappointment in his eyes before he managed to mask it.

I turned away, my gaze catching on a slip of pale paper tucked beneath a coaster on the table—the claim ticket from the frame shop where I bought Bell’s Christmas gift. The man who owned the shop had called earlier to let me know it was ready to be picked up.

I thought I’d put it back in my wallet. If Bell saw it, my surprise would be ruined.

I set my mug back down and, as discreetly as possible, leaned over and palmed the ticket, the paper crinkling in my grip. I stood back up and slid it into my pocket.

When I looked up, Bell was watching me, his gaze narrowing as he tracked my movement. He didn’t call me out on it, but it was clear I hadn’t been as slick as I thought.

“I need to go out,” I said, my feet already moving toward the kitchen to grab my keys hanging on the hook by the garage door.

“E, wait,” Bell said, frustration creeping into his voice. “Don’t do this.”

I stopped walking, my back to him, my shoulders taut. I stared at my escape route, just steps away. “I’m not doing anything,” I told him. “I have some errands to run. I’ll be back in an hour. Two, tops.”

I heard a deep sigh leave his chest. “E. If you leave, just know I won’t be here when you get back.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. Slowly, I spun around to face him, the floor seeming to tilt beneath my feet. “What?”

Bell was standing in the middle of the dining room, bathed in the pale winter light streaming in through the French doors, his fingers linked behind his head, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. The movement lifted his shirt, revealing the bite marks I’d left on him last night.

Evidence of everything I wanted and feared in equal measure.

“I love you, Ethan,” he said, his voice breaking on my name. “But I can’t keep doing this. You promised you wouldn’t run again. Just … ” His hands fell to his sides, palms open in a gesture of surrender or supplication. “Stay. Talk to me. We can figure this out.”

I love you, Ethan.

Those four not-so-simple words hung in the air, impossible to unhear. Impossible for him to take back.

He loved me.

Bell loved me.

And he was saying it now , when I was halfway out the door, when I was failing him yet again.

The rush of emotion was overwhelming—joy tangled with terror, relief knotted with grief.

I’d longed to hear those words for so long, imagined them whispered against my skin in the dark, murmured sleepily in the morning light, laughed into the space between us after some private joke.

But not like this.

Not as a last-ditch effort to make me stay.

I loved him, too.

Of course I fucking loved him.

The feeling lived in my bones, had burrowed so deep inside of me I couldn’t remember what it was like to not love him.

But saying it back felt like giving up control. Those three words would surrender the last piece of myself I still commanded.

“Bell,” I said, emotion making my voice falter.

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat, trying desperately to find the right words … any words that could bridge the impossible distance between what I felt and what I could offer him.

Because right now, I couldn’t offer him hope.

Not when I couldn’t give him what he needed.

What kind of an asshole tells someone they love them, but still leaves? What kind of man says, “I love you, too, but not enough to overcome my fears,” or “I love you, too, but I need you to keep loving me in secret”?

Love had never protected me before.

Love hadn’t stopped those boys from beating the ever-loving shit out of me.

Love hadn’t stopped my father from telling me to lie.

Love hadn’t kept me safe.

But the look on Bell’s face as he waited for me to speak—part hope, part resignation—made something crack open inside me.

Because Bell’s love was different.

It wasn’t conditional, or at least it didn’t feel that way. He loved me even knowing how broken I was. Understanding that I might never be fixed.

He loved me unreservedly and without shame.

It was the bravest thing I’d ever seen.

My keys felt suddenly heavy in my hand.

Before I could register what I was doing, I set them down on the counter with a soft clink , the sound of surrender echoing in the space between us.

For a long moment, we just stared at each other.

His shoulders relaxed slightly, but his eyes remained guarded. Suspicion clouded his gaze, mingled with a fragile hesitation. He stood at the edge of belief, afraid to step forward, afraid to trust what he was seeing.

“You’re staying?” he asked, his voice rough, uncertain.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.

The magnitude of my choice felt overwhelming—both what I was giving up and what I was holding onto.

He exhaled, a shuddering breath that seemed to carry the weight of the past hour. Of the past three months. He didn’t move toward me, though. He stood his ground, and it hit me—he was waiting for me to go to him.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, the words feeling inadequate as I took that first step forward … and then another.

“Do what?”

“Be loved.” I looked down at my hands, flexing them open and closed. “Be open. Live my truth. Our truth.”

“No one’s asking you to put a billboard up in Times Square, E.” The corner of his mouth lifted in subtle amusement, his words a call back to the billboard he’d be on if the REND campaign was successful. “But there’s this thing called middle ground,” he continued, packing that wry smile away. “Between hiding completely and telling the whole world.”

“But you said?—”

“I said I want you to acknowledge me and what we are to each other,” he interjected. “That doesn’t mean we need to make some big announcement. This isn’t one of my romance novels. I don’t need a grand gesture. I just don’t want to be your dirty secret anymore.”

The words stung, but I couldn’t deny the truth of them. I’d treated him like something shameful, something to be hidden away.

“And the Lacey thing,” he continued, his voice tightening. “That’s a hard no for me. I can’t sit back and watch you parade around with someone else while I’m supposed to pretend like it doesn’t kill me.”

I dragged a hand through my hair and blew out a breath. Even as my agent had suggested I reach out to Lacey, I’d known it was a bad idea. But I’d been spiraling, desperate for something—anything—I could control.

“I just thought it would buy us time.”

Bell gave a dry, almost bitter laugh. “Time for what, E? How do you see this all playing out?”

The question hit harder than it should have, but we both knew I didn’t have a good answer.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice faltering under the weight of everything I couldn’t give him. “I don’t know how to get from where I am now to where you need me to be.”

Bell’s expression softened, and he shifted his weight, the dining table creaking under him. For several long seconds, his fingers tapped out a rhythm against the polished wood.

“I just want to be sure here,” he said, his voice softer but no less firm. “Where is it you think I need you to be, Ethan?”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry as gravel. “Out. Proud. Like you. My shit figured out.”

The hard lines around his mouth eased. “That’s not what I’m asking for, Ethan. I don’t need you to march with me in a Pride parade or even pose naked with me for a magazine, though we would have looked so fucking good in that spread, out on the ice with nothing but our sticks to cover us.” He shook his head, a rueful grin playing at the corners of his mouth as he lamented the loss of his opportunity to appear in the World of Sports special issue.

I loved this man, but he was right—I was never going to be comfortable with taking my clothes off for the camera. Even if we hadn’t been together—even if we were only teammates who just happened to have once-in-a-generation chemistry on the ice—there was no way I would have the guts to strip down to my birthday suit for a photoshoot. It just wasn’t how I was wired.

“Seems cold,” I said, a hint of playfulness breaking through my voice for the first time all morning. The familiar rhythm of our banter felt like finding solid ground in the middle of a storm.

“Smartass.” He shot me a smirk in return, a dimple appearing in his left cheek, the one that always made my heart skip.

“Seriously, though, E.” His expression sobered, though his eyes remained warm. “I don’t need you to have all the answers right now. I just need you to stop running away from the questions.”

This was the man I loved, telling me what he needed to feel comfortable in our relationship. To feel safe and wanted. To feel validated.

And he was right. Running was exactly what I’d been doing—both figuratively and literally, the moment things got uncomfortable. Taking what, at the time, had felt like the easy way out.

Always choosing fear over everything else.

Over him.

All this time, I’d been so focused on what I might lose by coming out that I hadn’t ever let myself consider what I was already losing by staying hidden.

Marjorie’s words echoed back to me. Someday, Bell is going to ask you for something you can’t give him while you’re hiding. And when that happens, you’ll have to decide what matters more: your fear or his happiness.

Right now, nothing—absolutely nothing—mattered more to me than making this man happy.

“I love you.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, surprising even me. My heart hammered so hard I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, my toes, my throat.

I hadn’t meant to say it—not now, not like this—but once they were out, I felt lighter somehow, like I’d been carrying their weight for too long.

Bell froze, his eyes widening, lips parting slightly. Whatever he’d expected me to say, it wasn’t that.

That made two of us.

“You don’t have to?—"

“I do ,” I interrupted, my voice rough with urgency as I closed the distance between us, crossing the few feet that separated the kitchen from the dining area.

I stopped in front of Bell—close enough to feel the heat rolling off his body, close enough to catch the sharp hitch of his breath—and reached for his hands, twining our fingers together.

“I need to say it. Because it’s true.” My voice grew steadier with every word, the tremor fading. “And because I need you to know, this isn’t about not loving you enough. It’s about … not knowing how to love you right.”

The air between us hummed with electricity, with possibility. “You do, E.”

“How?” The question felt enormous, impossible.

“One step at a time.” He squeezed my hand. “You start by not creating some elaborate cover story to sell your supposed straightness. Maybe we try just existing together without announcing anything, but maybe you don’t deny it, either.”

He wasn't asking me to announce to the world that I was gay. He wasn’t asking me to make any announcement at all.

All I had to do was not deny him.

It was a frightening concept, but it seemed like the least he deserved.

I nodded, swallowing past the tightness in my throat. “Yeah, okay.”

“And maybe we can find you someone to talk to. A therapist who specializes in trauma. Someone who can help you work through what happened.” His thumb traced slow, gentle circles on the back of my hand.

The suggestion still made my lungs feel tight, but I forced myself to consider it.

For Bell.

For us.

For the broken fourteen-year-old I never allowed to heal.

“I'll think about it,” I said, not quite a yes, but not the outright rejection from earlier.

Bell nodded, accepting the compromise. “I’m not asking for perfect, E. I’m just asking for progress.”

Progress. Not perfection.

The idea settled into my bones. “I can do that,” I said, and for the first time since realizing I had feelings for this man, I actually believed it might be possible.

The words felt solid, real—a promise I might actually be able to keep.

I studied his face, the hint of relief in his expression, the quiet certainty in his eyes despite everything I’d put him through. “When did you become the mature one in this relationship?” I asked, genuine wonder in my voice.

His expression softened into a gentle, knowing smile. “Somewhere between you trying to run away and me threatening to leave if you did.”

“Most twenty-three-year-olds don’t handle emotional crises this well,” I said, unable to hide my respect.

“How many times have I told you—age ain’t nothing but a number?” He shrugged, but there was a hint of pride in his eyes at my acknowledgment. “And let’s be real, E. I’ve had a lot of time—and yes, therapy—to work through my shit. I’ll never be perfect either, but I’ve got my head on straight. There’s brains behind all this beauty, too.”

I knew he was trying to play off his own trauma so as not to lessen my own, but what he’d faced was just as terrible. I didn’t hold the monopoly on fucked up childhoods, and this wasn’t a contest to see who’d had it worse.

I squeezed his hand, marveling over how giving he was.

The tension that had been building between us all morning had dissolved, leaving behind a fragile peace. For a moment, we just existed together in the quiet aftermath, neither of us needing to fill the silence.

His shoulders relaxed as he leaned slightly against me, the simple contact grounding us both. The weight of everything we’d said to one another—and everything we hadn’t—still hung in the air, but it felt lighter somehow. Manageable.

I glanced at my keys on the counter, then back at Bell. “I actually do have an errand to run.”

His expression faltered, wariness creeping back in. “Ethan,” he breathed out.

“If I told you it’s to pick up your Christmas gift, am I free to go?”

Bell blinked, his mouth opening slightly. “My … you got me a gift?”

“Yeah, the one you almost saw the claim ticket for when I not-so-smoothly palmed it off the coffee table.”

A flush crept up his neck, heat spreading across his cheeks. “You really got me something?” The wonder in his voice made my chest ache. For all his emotional maturity, in that moment, he looked every bit his twenty-three years—young and surprised and a little uncertain.

I squeezed his hand, letting my thumb trace over his knuckles. “I might be emotionally constipated, and I don’t have the first clue how to be in a relationship, but even I know you’re supposed to get your boyfriend something nice for Christmas.”

He laughed, the sound full of so much fucking joy that it nearly made me start crying again, and then he kissed me, his big hands coming up to cradle my cheeks. “Now that I know I’m allowed to get you something, you are in so much trouble.”

I pulled back slightly, confusion furrowing my brow. “What do you mean, now that you know? Why wouldn’t you be allowed to get me a gift?”

Bell’s smile dimmed a fraction, his eyes dropping to where his thumb traced a path over my cheekbone, before he dragged his hands away and slid them into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Umm, cuz you said you didn’t want anything.” It was posed as more of a question than a statement.

“What?” I searched my memory for when that might have happened, coming up blank at first, then?—

“Oh.”

A few weeks back, we’d been sitting on the sofa watching footage for an upcoming game against Winnipeg, and he’d casually asked what I wanted for Christmas. I’d barely looked up from my iPad when I said, “To beat fucking Toronto.”

“Yeah. Oh,” Bell said, mimicking my tone. “And when I tried again, saying, ‘No, like stuff. Gifts ,’ you just shrugged and said, ‘I dunno. I don’t really need anything.’”

It wasn’t like I’d meant to shut him down. I just hadn’t been thinking. Or rather, I had been thinking. About hockey. Our jobs.

“I didn’t realize …”

“It’s fine.” He waved me off, but the slight tightness around his eyes told me it wasn’t fine. The realization that I’d hurt him—even unintentionally—made my stomach sour with guilt. “I just figured you weren’t into the whole gift exchange thing. Like maybe we weren’t serious enough for that yet.”

“For what it’s worth, I’ve been that serious about you since that night in D.C.” I caught his hand again and brought it to my lips. “I would have bought you anything you asked for.”

Something shifted in his expression, the hurt giving way to something warmer. More playful. Sexier. His eyes darkened as they swept over me from head to toe.

“I don’t want stuff,” he drawled, surprising me by sinking slowly to his knees, a wince of discomfort showing on his beautiful face as he moved.

Memories of the way he’d let me—the way he’d encouraged me—to use him last night sent molten heat rushing through my veins as his fingers hooked into the waistband of my pants, blue eyes looking up at me through golden lashes.

“Just you, E.”

And it hit me suddenly, the thing about Bell I admired so much but hadn’t been able to name.

He was someone who could take the wreckage of a man’s soul and find the beauty in it. Could help that man see the beauty, too.

Someone who forcefully craved physical connection, but never let it make him small.

He was brave enough to own his desires, and he knew when to wield them with power or with grace.

He could offer himself to me with one hand and seize me with the other.

Bell had that rare and powerful combination of vulnerability and strength. What made him remarkable was how he could simultaneously be submissive while maintaining complete agency and power in our relationship. His gift was his emotional intelligence, his comfort with vulnerability, and his ability to see and accept me fully.

He knew exactly what he was doing going down on his knees in front of me, and Jesus Christ, it was the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen.

I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding. My fingers twitched like they wanted to reach for him, but I didn’t.

“You sure?” I asked hoarsely.

The glint in his eye felt like a tether snapping taut between us.

“You took what you needed from me last night,” he said, his voice a sexy rasp. “Let me take what I need now.”

And fuck, how could I ever deny this man anything?

I sank into his touch, the overwhelming, undeniable truth of his love for me.

And for once, I let myself be wanted. Let myself believe I deserved it.