Page 245 of The Fall

Everyone turns to look at me.

“He scores with eleven seconds left!” Hayes slaps the table. “And then—” Hayes pauses for maximum drama. “In overtime, after all that heroics, all that blood and beauty… Who gets the game-winner?”

I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

“FuckingDivot!”

Chaos erupts. Divot takes a mock bow while Novak wrestles him into a headlock. Divot has a heart of gold, but he’s the definition of a plug. He’s got feet for hands and skates like a fridge, but he can hit like a train and pick, pick, pick at the other team. He’s known for his bulk, not his season point total.

Three stitches on my cheek. I touch my face.

I’dwanted, so much, before New Year’s.

“You okay?” Blair asks.

“Yeah. Just remembering.”

Hayes leans back into his seat, extremely satisfied with his performance. “Point is, Boston brings out the best in us, especially you, Calle.”

My laughter joins in with the rest of the guys as Blair shakes his head.

Then his hand settles on my lower back, and the heat from his palm maps a new territory along my skin. All the surrounding noise of the team collapses into a distant hum, and the dim bar lights play across his face as he gazes at me. Each sweep of his thumb rewrites what I know about wanting.

“When you laugh like that...” His words hang there, and the air thickens, pulling all my focus into the charged space between us. “I think it’s my favorite sound in the world.”

His eyes lock on mine, that drowning blue that pulled me under months ago and has never let me surface. My heart hammers as his gaze drops to my mouth, then back up. The space between us crackles.

His fingers slide away, but the heat of his touch remains branded on my skin.

“Let’s get refills,” Blair says, rising, his voice rough.

I follow him through the crowd, weaving between tables and groups deep in their own celebrations. The bar is packed, bodies pressed together, voices competing with music I hadn’t noticed before.

A space at the bar opens, a pocket of quiet meant for us. Blair leans his hip against the worn wood, but his body stays turned toward mine. When the bartender approaches, he says, “Two more virgin piña coladas.”

The bartender’s eyebrows climb. Blair stares him down.

“You know,” he starts. “I was thinking about my brother earlier.”

Déjà vu hits like vertigo, like missing a step in the dark. My throat closes; I know these words.

The change in Blair is a subtle drop in barometric pressure, a shift so small the rest of the world misses it. His focus has collapsed inward. I know exactly why he’s thinking about Cody tonight. Because we won. Because he’s happy. Because guilt comes for him whenever joy gets too close.

“We were playing juniors, his rookie season,” Blair continues, his eyes fixed on some point beyond the wall of liquor bottles. His gaze is distant, unseeing. “He was always running his mouth, but this one game, he was on another level. Just relentless.”

A small smile touches his lips. It’s a memory worn thin from handling. “He decided to make this one guy on the other team, a defenseman built like a brick shithouse, his personal project for the night.”

The muscle in Blair’s jaw jumps, a tiny, repetitive clench.

“Before face-off, he skates right up to him. Says, ‘Hey, big guy. Your girl called. Said she left your balls on the nightstand.’”

His laugh is a shard of sound that doesn’t fit the shape of his mouth. I lean closer and let my thumb move in a slow, steady arc against his hipbone.

“I spent the next two periods tangled up with him, trying to keep him from turning my little brother into a smear on the ice.”

His story hangs there, a small, bright, painful thing, but he’s not talking about a hockey game. He’s talking about everythingthat came after, about the silence in his life where his brother’s voice used to be. The space Cody left behind is a vacuum Blair is still trying to fill, a wound that doesn’t know how to scar over. Cody isn’t here, he won’t ever be here, and Blair would take a thousand more hits if it meant having his brother back.

No, this is about the silence that rushed in to take his brother’s place, a permanent quiet where all that life used to be. It’s about being a big brother, and discovering his big-brother protection had limits Blair never wanted to face.