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Chapter twenty-one

Micah

T he bleachers were raw aluminum—cold enough to remind me I had skin. I sat near the top, arms folded, boots planted wide, trying not to lean forward like I always did at tense games.

This wasn't a game. Only drills. Lines and cones. Edges carving through yesterday's skate marks.

Noah moved like he'd rebuilt himself one tendon at a time. No swagger. No showboating. He skated with deliberate strides and crisp pivots. He wasn't pushing the edge of his limits, but he occasionally brushed against them. Checking the perimeter. It was like he was relearning his body language after forgetting it mid-sentence.

His skates hissed as they bit into the ice. He engaged in a quick give-and-go with number 23—some over-muscled kid with a soft shot and decent hands. Noah stayed low through the turn, his weight on the inside edge. He didn't flinch when the puck came flying back. He turned it into a smooth transfer, a clean snap that kissed the boards behind the net.

The coach barked something unintelligible over the whine of the Zamboni warming up in the back tunnel. The next rush started—three on two. Noah kept pace, peeled wide, and called for the puck with one sharp tap. He got it and followed with a fake wrist shot and drop pass. Then, he circled behind the play like he'd done it a thousand times in his sleep.

It wasn't flashy. He demonstrated carefully executed craft that didn't care if anyone applauded.

A smile pushed at the corners of my mouth, small and tight.

Noah took a check in the corner—nothing brutal, just enough to knock him off rhythm. I tensed, boots pushing into the floor.

He sprawled on the ice, half-twisting, but rolled through it and came up on one knee. His stick clattered, and he grabbed it before laughing and slapping his glove against the other guy's shinpad. He chirped something I couldn't hear.

While he practiced with his team, Noah didn't glance up once. Never searched the bleachers. Never looked for me.

He didn't need to.

He knew I was there.

And for once, that was enough trust that I let the smile stay.

They shifted to power play drills, running lines with staggered timing. Noah slotted in as right wing on the second unit. His skates cut narrow circles while the first group finished up.

His stick rested horizontally across his thighs, tapping a slow rhythm against his pants. His helmet sat crooked on his head like it always did—too loose and too casual for me, but I knew he liked it that way. He said it helped him breathe.

When the whistle blew, he sprang into the drill like he'd been shot forward on cables. He was not the fastest on the ice, not anymore, but he was smart. He knew how to fill space without forcing it, and he knew how to read the goalie's weight shift before the shot.

First rep, he cycled behind the net and back to the dot before drawing the defender out wide. A pass zipped back from the blue line. Noah didn't stop it. He one-timed it low, stick flexing, puck flattening like a stone on water. It smacked the goalie's pad and rebounded off the boards.

Next drill, he crept closer—ghosted off the defender's shoulder like smoke. He didn't crowd the crease and didn't chirp. Just stayed present. Waiting. When the puck came, he redirected it mid-stride, body torqued slightly backward, blade tilted just so. It clanged off the post.

The coach muttered something to his assistant and scribbled a note. Noah didn't see it. He just skated back into the line like none of it mattered.

They broke into a short scrimmage to close out practice. Half-ice. Full contact. The puck drop was sloppy, and it was chaos from the jump. Jerseys blurred. Boards thundered. Sticks clashed like knives in a drawer.

Noah's line was out during the second shift. He got crushed early on—sandwiched between a defenseman and a plexiglass wall. He managed to stay on his feet, rode the hit, spun out, and reclaimed the puck. He cut across the blue line, deked past a defenseman, and flipped a soft, mean little saucer pass to the kid in the slot.

Goal. Horn from the bench. Half-hearted cheer from the goalie's side.

Noah's grin was quick. Crooked. Gone just as fast.

Then he caught someone's stick in the shin. It was a dirty hook. Nothing vicious, but enough to twist his balance. He staggered, face twisted, eyes wide for half a breath—then he righted himself and snapped his stick down on the ice with a crack that echoed like a gunshot.

He didn't chirp. Didn't retaliate. He skated off with jaw set and nostrils flaring.

I felt something tighten in my gut—fierce, familiar, half-rage and half-awe. That look in his eye? That was a man who remembered who the fuck he was.

They ended practice with stick taps and a clatter of blades heading toward the tunnel.

I sat in the rafters long after the last door slammed shut.

***

Game night didn't smell like victory. It smelled like dust baked under cheap lights and nacho cheese from a pump. I stood in the back of the arena, shoulder against the concrete wall. Didn't sit. Couldn't.

The stands weren't full—this wasn't the NHL. It was a minor league barn with too many empty seats and too many dreams hanging from the rafters.

The fans who did show up made themselves loud. Local college kids with flasks tucked into their coat sleeves and parents with noise-makers. A guy two rows down was already yelling at the ref before the puck had even dropped.

Noah skated through warmups with his helmet low, chin tucked. No flash. No salute to the glass. Just loops and stops and flicked shots from weird angles.

He had a ritual—I didn't know all of it—but I recognized its shape: his skating rhythm and then muttering to himself before the faceoff.

He didn't rush out with the first line when the game started. He waited. Second rotation. He stepped onto the ice without ceremony, like he hadn't been out of the game long enough for his body to forget how it felt to fly.

Once the puck hit his stick, everything snapped into place. It was like he'd been cryogenically frozen, and this undersold rink in Marquette was where someone finally remembered to thaw him.

He hustled back on a two-on-one and dropped to his knees to break up a pass. He got up fast. On the next shift, he picked off a breakout and fed it to the high slot. There was no goal, but the crowd gasped in awe.

They saw it, too—that flicker of something more than competent.

Third period, tied 2–2. Four minutes on the clock. Noah's line rolled out. The fans leaned forward.

The play developed from deep—Marquette fighting off a line change, one winger dragging the puck through traffic. Noah trailed the play, held back, almost casual. Then the turnover came—a lazy pass to center ice.

Noah scooped it like it was meant for him. Two strides, and he was gone.

He didn't wind up. Just let it rip from the top of the circle—low glove side. The puck hit the net. The red light lit up behind the goalie. Half the bench stood. The crowd roared like they were starving for something, and someone had just thrown them raw meat.

Noah didn't raise his arms. He skated toward the bench, jaw locked, fist thumping twice against his chest.

I hadn't realized I was smiling until my jaw hurt from holding it for so long.

The night air outside the rink was full of exhaust and frozen sidewalk grit. Noah shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking without looking to see if I followed. I did.

We lived close enough to the arena, on the edge of town, to walk.

The streetlights buzzed above us, yellow and half-hearted, casting our shadows long and broken across patches of black ice. The sidewalks hadn't been salted yet.

Noah's breath fogged out in bursts. I watched how his shoulders rolled under his coat—tight from the effort and the hit he took in the second period that hadn't drawn a whistle. He hadn't said a word about it.

We passed a bar with flat screens glowing through the windows. A replay looped—his goal, the crowd's blurry arms lifting, and a slow zoom on Noah's face. He didn't look at it.

"You could smile about it," he said.

I didn't answer right away. The snow crunched under our boots, loud in the quiet between buildings.

"I am smiling. On the inside. Don't get greedy."

He laughed softly. "You're a menace."

"You're just now noticing?"

His elbow bumped mine. He didn't say anything else.

We walked past shuttered storefronts and turned left at the liquor store, then up a hill slick with half-melted snow.

At the top, Noah slowed down. Two blocks later, we were home.

The door clicked shut behind us, and the night outside dissolved all at once—crowd noise, cold air, rink stink, all wiped clean by four walls and quiet.

Noah didn't speak. He stood just inside the threshold, steam rising faintly from his neck, breath coming slower now but still not settled. His gear bag slumped at his feet. He'd slung his skates over one shoulder, blades still wet enough to drip.

I watched him peel off each layer like it was a second skin—jacket first, then the hoodie beneath, his shoulder rolling awkwardly as he winced. It was probably from the hit in the corner. He was probably acting like it didn't still sting. He didn't ask for help. He never would.

I moved to the kitchen. The faucet groaned when I twisted it on, clunky from mineral build-up, and filled two cloudy glasses with water. Nothing in the apartment was fancy. Nothing matched. The table was secondhand. The chairs wobbled, and the radiator in the corner hissed like it was mad to be alive.

I held out one of the glasses without looking at him.

"Thanks."

He drank half in one go. When he lowered the glass, he didn't move away.

He just stood there, close enough that I could smell the sweat dried into his shirt and the hint of liniment still clinging to his skin. "I felt you watching tonight."

I didn't answer. I didn't need to.

"You do that thing," he continued. "It's where you don't cheer, don't move. Just... bore holes in me with your eyes like you're willing the puck to behave."

I stared into my glass. The water trembled slightly in my hand. I didn't know if it was me or the radiator.

Noah stepped closer.

"I hated it at first at practice," he said. "The way you watch. I thought it meant you were waiting for me to fuck up."

"And now?"

"Now I know better."

He set his glass down on the counter with a gentle clink and stood before me, hands still at his sides.

"I need to hear it. You know what I mean. Not because I don't believe it, but because I do."

I didn't answer right away. My mouth was dry.

"Say it." His voice was softer this time.

My throat worked around the shape of the word. "Mine." The word sounded almost like a confession. "You're mine."

Noah bit his lip.

"Say it again."

I reached up and curled one hand behind his neck, thumb grazing the edge of his jaw where stubble still clung to sweat. My hand trembled.

"You're mine." It was a firm statement. "And I don't care who hears it. I don't care if it scares me. I don't care if it scares you. You're mine."

He leaned into me like he'd been given permission to collapse, not from exhaustion but from carrying the weight of wondering.

"Good, because I'm fucking tired of running."

We stood like that for a while. Nothing moved except his hands, slowly curling into the back of my shirt like he needed to feel the fabric bunch under his fingers to believe I was real.

I didn't let go.

And I didn't say anything else.

I'd already said the one thing that mattered.