Page 21 of The Fall

Ten

The hotel’s ballroom is empty except for me.

I’m alone with a breakfast spread that stretches across three tables: sausage links sizzling beside crisp bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs nestled between golden pancakes and Belgian waffles, pastries arranged in spirals.

Maple syrup catches light under the heat lamps, its sweet scent mingling with the salt tang of meat and the rich aroma of fresh coffee.

I load my plate with eggs, bacon, a blueberry muffin, and a buttery croissant. Pregame carb-loading. The team buffet feels too large without the guys filling it up. I’m early, but there was no point crawling back into my own bed after slipping out of Blair’s this morning.

Last night is popping inside of me, little fireworks of memories that shimmer and glow. The drag of Blair’s mouth on my collarbone is a ghost on my skin, his hands still there on my hips where he’d pulled me closer.

My fork clatters against the plate. Blair, his mouth trailing down my stomach, his tongue tracing patterns lower and lower ? —

I take a deep breath, trying to focus on breakfast instead of how Blair had looked up at me from between my thighs with a wicked grin.

I remember straddling his hips, watching his eyes darken as I took control.

Remember how he flipped us, and then the slide of skin against skin, and the way he took his time with me.

We had ground together for what felt like hours, kissing until we were breathless, and I clamped my thighs around his waist, our cocks hard, hot, and rutting together until every nerve ending was aching and alive.

When I came, his name was caught between my teeth, his gasp buried in my throat.

Afterward, we lay tangled, our legs knotted together. He traced lazy patterns on my chest. I couldn’t look away from him—the satisfied curve of his smile, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead.

“Stay,” he’d murmured, half-asleep already, and his arm settled, heavy, across my waist.

I did, for hours.

I bite into my croissant. Flaky, butter-rich layers dissolve on my tongue. Everything tastes better when you’re happy.

Light fractures through crystal chandeliers, casting prisms across starched tablecloths and glinting off silver utensils. The coffee machine hums softly while my fork scrapes against porcelain. Being first has its advantages.

My phone buzzes beside my water glass.

Blair’s name lights up the screen. He’s sent a picture of himself still in bed, hair tousled, eyes half-lidded with sleep. The sheet drapes low across his hips and his smile is lazy and warm. The message reads

Miss you already.

I miss him, too.

My thumb hovers over the screen. What should I send him back? A picture of my breakfast? A shot of me with chipmunk cheeks stuffed full of pancake?

Something else catches my eye: the last text from my dad.

Dad used to message me after every game—and sometimes during—firing off every thought about what I did, right or wrong.

He’d been a constant stream of commentary and unsolicited advice, and his postgame analysis broke down my every play, dissecting each missed shot into its component pieces. It drove me crazy.

Now? He’s only sent a few brief check-ins since I got this new phone a couple of months ago.

Did we fight? About… Blair? But wouldn’t he have said something if he thought Blair was bad for me? Dad has never missed an opportunity to voice his opinion.

Then why the radio silence?

Our last exchange was a few days ago. He’d texted after that hit I don’t remember taking.

Saw the hit. You okay?

I’d never replied, and a few hours later, I bolted awake in Blair’s bed, a year’s worth of memories gone dark.

Did I push him away? Did he give up on me? This quiet feels too much like we’d said goodbye.

The ballroom door swings open and Hayes shambles in, his hair sticking up in five directions. He squints against the bright windows and heads for the coffee station.

“Morning, Kicks,” he says around a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Morning.” The word comes out muffled by croissant. My thoughts remain stuck on all the texts from my dad that aren’t there.

Hayes drops into the chair beside mine and raids my plate. “Save some for the rest of us, yeah?” He snags a sausage link and crams it sideways into his mouth.

“Dude!”

He shrugs, smiles, and chews.

The door opens again. Dominik walks in, followed by Mikko and Simmer. They shuffle toward the buffet before heading to our table with overloaded plates. Reid arrives, then Hollow and Hawks. The chairs fill one by one.

Hayes finally gets up after stealing food from everyone’s plate. Hollow shouts for him to grab a bear claw to replace the one Hayes had swiped.

“So,” Hayes announces to the table when he returns. “What would you rather do: eat nothing but tacos for two weeks or only drink kale smoothies for two weeks?”

“Ugh.” Reid scrunches his face. “Tacos.”

“But—” Hayes tears off a chunk of muffin and talks through chewing it. “What if you were guaranteed at least a goal and an assist every game if you drank the kale smoothies?”

The guys look genuinely troubled, as if this hypothetical scenario requires serious philosophical consideration. Guaranteed points or freedom from kale?

“Where’s Calle?” Hayes turns to me and leans close.

“Still upstairs, I guess.”

“You guess.” His smirk is knowing. “Did you leave him with any energy for the game, or did you?—”

He cuts himself off with a yelp, twisting and squirming in his chair, spilling coffee as he reaches behind himself, trying to fish something out of his shirt. He pulls scrambled eggs from the small of his back, and the table erupts in laughter.

Axel holds out his fist for Blair to bump as Blair strolls casually away from Hayes and toward the buffet. “Nice, Cap,” Reid says.

When Blair returns, he sits across from me, and the room dissolves. The steadily rising volume of our teammates, fueled by caffeine and carbs, my father’s unexplained absence, Hayes’s theatrical indignation. All of it disappears beneath Blair’s smile.

Empty plates and half-finished mugs of coffee litter the table. The conversation has shifted from debating the best flavor of Velveeta to arguing whether the guys would rather fight one horse-sized duck or ten duck-sized horses.

“Okay, okay! I got one. What would you rather do?” Hayes breaks into the chatter like a cannonball in a kiddie pool. “Fight one grizzly-bear-sized hamster or fifty hamster-sized grizzly bears?”

They launch into a heated debate about reach advantages and bite force as a cold wave washes over me.

I know this moment—this exact moment—like I’ve lived it before: Hayes’s laughter bounces across the table, Blair smiles easily, Hollow gestures with his arms flung wide, Mikko shakes his head, Hawks rolls his eyes, Reid snorts into his coffee, Viktor pretends he’s forgotten English.

I know what comes next as surely as a center knows the right draw.

This is déjà vu. But how? How do I remember something that hasn’t happened yet?

Blair’s foot touches mine beneath the table.

Remember.

My breath catches. A cold fist closes around my heart.

“Kicks!” Hayes snaps in front of my face. I blink back to reality. “You with us, bud?”

“Yeah.” I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”

“Would you rather have fingers for toes or toes for fingers?”

The question is so absurd I laugh in his face. “What? That’s ridiculous.”

“Come on, you gotta choose,” Hollow chimes in.

“I guess... fingers for toes? At least I could still play hockey that way.”

This sets off another round of debate about the practicality of fitting finger-toes into skates and if the game would evolve into a kicking sport with skates the size of flippers.

“No way,” Hawks argues. “You need to curl, like this?—”

Blair shakes his head and we share a long-suffering smile.

Breakfast winds down, and the guys push back from the table. Dishes clatter as they stack them. Water glasses empty in long gulps. I remain, staring at my plate where my fork stands upright in a half-eaten pancake. I’m not sure how long it’s been there.

The déjà vu won’t leave me. I’m standing at the edge of a cliff with no bottom in sight.

Hayes grips my shoulder with both hands. “You good?”

I toss my napkin over my shoulder, aiming vaguely for his face. He bats it away, then ruffles my hair with his knuckles.

Blair waits by the door, bag slung over one shoulder. The bus idles outside the hotel, ready to take us to the arena.

I reach for my memories but come up empty. It can’t all be gone forever, can it? Where do memories go when they vanish?

Outside, the morning air carries the scent of diesel fumes, coffee, and old hockey gear. Sunlight turns everything glaringly bright.

What if I’m losing my mind? What if my days are numbered, and instead of the playoffs, I’m heading straight for a padded room with no shoelaces?

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. This is post-concussion transient amnesia. It’s scary, but it’s temporary. It’s fine. I’m fine.

I have to be fine.

I explode, a wound-tight spring finally released, and I win the face-off against a guy who’s bigger than me, shoving him back with my shoulder and sending the puck to Blair.

He’s on it, streaking down the right wing.

He passes back to me, and I don’t hesitate.

A quick wrister catches Boston’s goalie off-guard.

The puck sails past him and into the net.

We’re on fire tonight. We’re burning down Boston’s barn, and they’re pissed-off.

The game moves fast, breakaways, power plays, penalties called and uncalled. I feel Blair beside me at all times. When I skate into the corner to dig out a puck, he’s right where I need him to be when I shoot the pass out blindly.