Page 75 of The Fall

Thirty-Seven

We sweep the ice, outskate the clock, and shut down the other team with a deflected wrister that skips harmlessly into the netting.

Our crowd goes wild as the final buzzer sounds. I have a goal and an assist. My thighs burn from the final shift where we held off Colorado’s desperate push to equalize, but I skate another victory lap.

Hayes cannons into me. “Fucking beauty, Kicks!” he yells. “That’s how you end it before a break!”

Blair collides with me in a full-body check. We spin toward the boards, knocking into Hollow, and the rest of the team piles in, a mess of limbs and sticks. When we break apart, Blair’s smile almost knocks me down.

The reporters want a piece of him, and Blair gives his usual postgame quotes, but his eyes seek me out over the clutter of cameras and mics. My post-game interview is a blur. Words tumble out of me about team effort, grinding through adversity, and building momentum into the break.

His knuckles tap mine, quick and quiet, before the locker room chaos floods us. Hollow and Hawks high-five us as they pass on their way to the showers. I push through the clamor to my stall and watch Blair make his circuit around the room, congratulating the guys.

“Pack your shit, gentlemen,” Coach shouts when he walks through the doors. “And get the hell out of here. Enjoy your break, you’ve fucking earned it!”

Cheers rise. Coach always knows what to say at the right moment.

The room is buzzing. The Scandinavian contingent is flying to Stockholm together. Reid is taking his family to Hawaii, and Hawks is off to Toronto. Everyone’s got somewhere to escape to, someone to escape with, and the guys are rushing, desperate to get out and start their vacations.

Blair and I have an early flight, and our bags are packed and waiting in his truck. After this, we go home—to his home—for the night, and then tomorrow morning, we’re off.

My legs burn from the back-to-back penalty kills in the third, and the usual post-game aches are trying to settle in above my eyebrow, but all of that is overshadowed by the bright, buoyant euphoria of winning. We’ve got four wins in a row going into the break.

Not too shabby for a team everyone dismissed as middlers back in October.

Hayes plops down beside me as I’m toweling off after my shower. He speaks softly, his voice too low for anyone else to hear. “You heading straight to Blair’s?”

I nod. “Yeah, figured it makes sense since we’re catching an early flight.”

“Smart.” Hayes nudges my shoulder. “Gonna be a hell of a trip, bud. You ready?”

My face must give me away. Hayes chuckles.

“That’s what I thought.” He stands and face-washes me, but his eyes are gentle. “Take care of him, eh? And yourself. Just…” He flips his keys around his finger. “I hope you guys have a great time.”

I hold out my fist. He bumps it, slowly, and I shoot him a smile.

Blair and I are among the last to leave. He appears at my stall, bag slung over his shoulder, hair still damp from the shower. “Ready?”

“Just about.” I zip my bag and stand, wincing.

His brow furrows. “You okay?”

“All good. Nothing serious.” No headache can stop me tonight.

His fingers brush mine as he takes my gear bag. “You did amazing tonight,” he says. “That backhand pass to Hollow was ridiculous.”

“Only doing my job.”

His eyebrow arches. My heart stumbles. “Take the compliment. You were the best player on the ice tonight.”

“Only because of my linemates.”

He smiles. “Flatterer. Come on. Let’s go home.”

Home. Such a simple word, so casually delivered.

Tonight will be the first time I’ve stayed at his house overnight.

The drive is quiet. Our conversation is low-grade nonsense—Hayes’s latest hype-up strategy in the room, Viktor’s new car that already smells like feet.

I watch the lights of downtown Tampa slide past my window, the lit-up Sunshine Skyway Bridge stretching out over dark waters toward St. Pete Beach.

The city has that weird hush of eve-before-holiday, as if the whole town knows we get two weeks of freedom.

Blair drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the console between us, palm up.

I slip my hand into his, our fingers intertwining.

Blair’s blinker ticks as he guides his truck off the highway. “You hungry?”

My stomach rumbles on cue. “Starving.”

He grins. “Let’s fix that. Mexican?”

“Perfect.”

We find a drive-through, order enough for four people, and balance the bags on my lap. We hit every green light between the rink and his house, and I call that a sign.

Twenty minutes later, we’re walking through his front door. The house is tinted blue by the moonlight pouring through the sliders. Blair unpacks plastic containers and foil-wrapped burritos while I hunt for plates and napkins.

“Vitaminwater or Gatorade?”

“Vitaminwater. The yellow one, if you have it.”

He tosses me the bottle. “We should eat outside. It’s perfect out.”

I follow him onto the lanai, and we settle into the couch in front of the pool. The water glows turquoise, throwing rippling shadows across the patio. Beyond, the canal is a ribbon of black water.

We settle onto the sectional, plates balanced on our knees, shoulders touching. Blair turns on the massive outdoor TV and flips to the post-game coverage. Our faces flash across the screen: Blair scoring, me blocking a shot, Hawks celebrating his goal.

“Look at you,” Blair says as a clip plays showing me strip the puck at the blue line.

“Lucky play.”

“Bullshit. That was all skill.”

The analysts are praising our team’s discipline, our speed, our penalty kill unit. They even mention me by name—positively—and I still can’t get used to that, to being seen as an asset rather than a liability.

I lean into his shoulder when I’ve demolished my burrito; he kicks off his slides and rests his foot against mine.

Blair finds a Western Conference game, and we spend the final period shit-talking the referees. Blair’s arm stretches along the back of the couch. Our voices drop lower as the night deepens. There’s no rush to leave this space.

When the game gives way to analysis neither of us cares about, Blair stands and stretches, and I try not to stare at the strip of skin that shows when his shirt rides up.

“We should get some sleep,” he says. “You take my room tonight.”

His bedroom. Our bedroom in my other life. “Where are you sleeping?”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“What? No, I can take the couch.”

Blair shakes his head, jaw set in that way that means the conversation is over. “Take the bed. I want you comfortable here. We have an early start.”

I collect my bag and trail after him. Our bedroom is on the right—no, not ours, his —but tonight it’s mine by default.

The bed is enormous, an ocean of crisp white sheets and plush pillows. A faint citrus-and-coconut breath lingers. I fight back the ache; I remember this scent against my skin.

“Bathroom’s through there,” Blair says, pointing to a door. “Extra towels in the cabinet. Help yourself to whatever.”

“Thanks.” A pause opens up between us. “Blair, I?—”

“Get some rest.” He hesitates for a second, then steps forward and kisses me on the cheek.

Then he’s gone. The door clicks shut behind him.

I go through the motions of getting ready for bed. My face in his bathroom mirror looks strange. Tired, uncertain, caught between memory and this moment. Being here feels like breathing in ghosts.

But this is not stolen time; this is not an imagined future.

This is the first time I have stood in this spot in this world.

Still, it feels like this room belonged to both of us once and now all I can think about is what’s missing: Blair’s leg over mine beneath tangled sheets, his aftershave sharp on my pillowcase, our hands entwined against his chest as sunrays inch across the duvet at dawn.

I hear Blair move through his house. Water runs. Cabinets open and close. Footsteps sound on tile, then silence.

I strip down to boxers and slide beneath his sheets. My body knows stories this bed doesn’t remember. If I stretch, I could probably find the spot where, in some broken strand of my mind, we woke sharing the same pillow.

Nothing here belongs to me yet except hope.

I flip onto my side, punch the pillow into shape, and try to convince my body to turn off. His pillow smells like his shampoo, coconut and something warmer, spicier. I bury my face in it, breathing him in.

Nothing fits tonight. Shadows make shifting lines across the wall where a breeze moves the drapes. I stare at the walls, the ceiling, count the rotations of the fan.

It’s all wrong without him. The room is too quiet. The sheets are too cool. I’m too aware of the empty space beside me where he should be.

Sleep is miles away.

I can’t stay here. I can’t lie here alone while he’s on the couch.

I slip out of bed and pad down the hall, expecting to find him sprawled on the sectional, but the living room is empty except for lines of moonlight slanting through the sliders. His hoodie lies thrown across one arm of the couch; an empty glass is abandoned on the coffee table.

No Blair.

Where would he go?

I check the kitchen, the lanai, passing through hush after hush, but there’s no sign of him.

The hallway beyond the kitchen is dark and unfamiliar. Across from Blair’s home gym is a door we never talk about, one always kept shut. Tonight, a sliver of light leaks from beneath it.

I hesitate, then slip inside.

The bedroom is small and simple: a twin bed with a navy and gray plaid comforter, hockey posters and jerseys on the walls, a desk in the corner with a laptop gathering dust. The jerseys all say CALLAHAN, but the colors are wrong, logos from European leagues and minor league teams. Photos hang between the jerseys: two dark-haired boys on a frozen pond, teenagers in matching team gear, young men with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

There he is; Blair is hunched in a chair by the window, his elbows braced on his knees and his gaze fixed on the bed as if he’s watching someone sleep.