Page 19 of The Fall

Nine

“Damn, who are you right now?” Hayes’s arm wraps around my neck, and his voice booms in my ear. “I still cannot believe how lit up you were, Kicks! You were on fire!”

The whole team is buzzing, high off our win in Philadelphia. We’re all crammed into an elevator, and it’s a tight fit. I’m pressed against the wall with Hayes and Jared on either side of me. The guys are shouting and laughing, recounting highlights from the game. I can’t stop grinning.

My legs burn from the game, that good ache that means I left everything on the ice. We demolished Philly, absolutely demolished them. And I was part of it, not watching from the bench or trying to keep up. I drove plays, created chances, and buried my shot when it mattered.

Ding .

We spill out onto the rooftop deck of a Boston bar, a pack of hungry hockey players fresh off a win.

It’s a sleek oasis—low-slung couches and high-tops inside a glass-walled rooftop overlooking the city. Potted palms sway. Globe lights refract off the glass walls and the buildings around us, and they twinkle in place of the drowned-out starry sky.

We hit our hotel after our short flight from Philly, ditched our suits, and came straight here.

The sun is setting over the skyline, casting everything in gold and rose.

The air is late-spring heady, thick with salt and brine from the harbor.

A fire pit pops nearby, and I can hear the rustle of the city below, traffic moving and horns honking, a far-off siren rising and falling.

I hang back while the guys claim tables, their backslaps and raucous voices rising across the rooftop.

The view, the laughter and the clink of glasses, the smell of grilled seafood—it’s overwhelming, but that’s par for the course today.

Blair appears beside me, leaning back against the railing with his arms crossed.

“Hey,” he says. The sun is setting behind him, casting his face in gold. He’s glowing, the light catching the edges of his jaw and the curve of his lips.

“Hey.” I shove my hands into my pockets and slide closer to him.

He tilts his head toward me. “You played amazing today.”

“I was trying to keep up with you.”

He snorts. “You’ve got that the wrong way around.”

I can’t look away.

“Let’s do this, boys!” Hawks’s voice booms across the bar. “Philly take-down deserves a proper celebration.”

I follow Blair across the rooftop to where the team has set up camp at a cluster of high-tops. Hayes raises a glass as we pull out two chairs. “To Torey! For being a fucking rock star today!”

Everyone lifts their glasses toward me.

“Seriously,” Hollow says, “you were incredible out there.”

More toasts follow: to the win, to Simmer’s insane save in the third, to Reid’s face-off skills.

They holler and cheer as Blair and I take our seats. Blair slides his thigh against mine beneath the table and leaves it there, a long line of warmth.

When the waiter arrives, the guys bombard him with their orders. They’re talking all over each other, ordering obscene amounts of food, and the poor guy scrambles to keep up with a hockey team’s appetite and all their picky substitutions.

When it’s our turn, Blair orders for both of us. “Two virgin pina coladas, please.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, surprised, but Blair gives me that half-smile that sends my world into a tailspin. He presses his knee more firmly against mine under the table. He leans back in his chair, shaking his head at the ongoing antics around us.

I can’t stop staring at him. The way he moves through life is magnetic. Everything he does draws me in deeper. He’s so confident and sure of himself?—

A hard kick from Hayes lands against my shin. I jerk, bite out a curse?—

Hayes’s eyes drill into me over the longneck of his beer. Very purposefully, he slides his gaze to Blair and then back to me.

Message received: I need to find some chill or this secret of ours is going to be all over this bar.

We still haven’t talked about what Blair meant when he said he didn’t care if anyone sees. Was that the heat—or chill—of the moment? Did he really mean it? He’d come out for me? Is that what we want?

I try to look casual as the talk of tomorrow’s game against Boston builds. Blair is deep in conversation with Axel. I catch fragments—“their blue line collapse” and “weak on the right side”—but I’m more focused on the movement of Blair’s lips.

The food arrives sizzling hot: grilled shrimp skewers with garlic butter, fried calamari piled high with lemon wedges, stuffed lobster rolls, platters of sliders and baskets of fries.

The guys dig in like they haven’t eaten in days.

Hollow steals half a lobster roll off Hawks’s plate while Mikko shoves fries into Divot’s mouth.

Blair and my drinks arrive, tall and frozen and topped with tiny umbrellas. Blair winks at me as he takes a sip.

“What the hell are those?” Hawks’s laugh is a bark of sound.

“Beach vacation in a glass,” Blair replies, completely unfazed. He takes a long sip through his straw, his eyes never leaving mine.

Sweet coconut and pineapple flood my mouth. It tastes like summer sunshine and lazy afternoons spent lounging by water. I don’t even care that it’s nonalcoholic; I’m drunk on Blair alone.

“Dude, quit hogging the fries, pass them?—”

“That saucer pass in the third?—”

The noise is deafening. They’re going back and forth, jabs about sick shots and sweet passes scored during the game today or last week or last month.

They’re all so comfortable with each other, and it’s easy to see how we’ve been able to play so well together this season.

Their camaraderie wraps around me, hot and tight.

Well, our camaraderie. I’m part of this now, and it feels incredible.

“Hey, Kicks,” Hayes says around a mouthful of calamari. “What do you want to do after all this?”

I shrug. “I’ve never thought that far ahead.”

“You’re not one of those guys who’s got a plan for life after the game?”

“Not really.” I take a sip of my drink, my gaze on Blair. He’s talking with Axel again. “Life is pretty awesome right now.”

Other than Blair, no one understands more about me than Hayes. Hell, right now, he understands more about me than I do. I trusted him before and I still trust him now. He feels like my closest friend. I had to have someone, right?

“Yeah?” Hayes’s chewing slows.

“Yeah, I want everything I’ve got. Forever.” A flush burns my cheeks. I understand what I’m saying.

Hayes lifts his beer and holds it out for a toast. I raise my virgin pina colada, and we toast above a demolished platter of sliders.

“I’m happy for you,” Hayes says. He glances one more time to Blair, but this time, his look is tender, full of something warm and deep.

Brotherhood, if I had to put a name to it.

Blair leans into me as he reaches for a handful of fries. Our shoulders brush together, and that spark flares again, raw lightning that runs through my body whenever he touches me.

The conversation flows. The guys are loud, their voices overlapping as the talk shifts to our game against Boston.

Everyone has an opinion, and they’re all sharing it at once.

Who’s going to score first (Hawks bets on himself), who will get sent to the box first (everyone bets on Blair).

Ideas ping-pong around the table. Power plays.

Penalty kills. Penalty minutes. Blair pulls salt shakers and knives into formation, diagramming plays.

He’s so passionate about this game and this team. He loves hockey like I love him.

Hayes points his bottle at Blair. “Calle, you’ve got to keep your head screwed on when you’re out there tomorrow. You can’t let them get in your head.”

Blair raises his hands. “I know, I know.”

“Yeah? You sure?” Hayes pushes. “Because I saw you getting worked up out there in Philly.”

“They’re trying to get under my skin?—”

“And they know how to do it.” Hayes cuts his eyes to me for a fraction of a second.

“You’re a fucking rock star, Calle,” Hollow interrupts. He’s chewing on a fistful of fries, but, clearly, he’s experienced at talking around food. “You don’t need to worry about any of those scrubs.”

Hayes leans back in his chair. “You do remember what happened the last time we played Boston? When was that, right before New Year’s?”

Blair heaves a heavy sigh and slumps in his chair, his glare fixed on Hayes. “Here we go.”

Hayes has drawn the attention of the rest of the table, and he knows it. “Picture this: Five minutes left, we’re down by two. Boston’s crowd is howling for blood. We’ve got nothing left in the tank.” He gives a full Cheshire grin. “Until some brilliant Boston plug decides to piss off Calle.”

Blair rolls his eyes. A flush rises in his cheeks, that perfect shade of maroon I’ve kissed a hundred times.

“So Boston decides the smartest play they can do is to take out our man here.” Hayes points at me with his fork. “Wheton comes in high, catches Kicks right across the cheek.”

I don’t remember any of this.

The words blur, something about me getting hit, but the story feels distant, like it happened to someone else, or hasn’t happened yet, or both.

“Kicks goes down, hard,” Hayes continues. “And that’s when our fearless captain here loses his goddamn mind.”

“I wasn’t?—”

“On the contrary, Captain, you were.” Hayes smiles, tips his beer toward Blair. “You dropped the gloves before Wheton even knew what hit him. Absolutely demolished the guy, old-school, feed him all-day-long hockey justice.”

Blair leans his knee against mine, a steady pressure that says I’d do it again .

“So Kicks goes to the tunnel to get sewn up,” Hayes barrels on, “and we go on the power play. And when our boy comes back for the next face-off, three fresh stitches decorating that pretty face, what does he do?”

Everyone turns to look at me.

I dig through my memory for this game and come up with only static.