Page 136 of The Grumpy Defenseman

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I held him through it because he let me.

That was the difference.

That he let himself be held.

Afterward, we lay tangled in the dark while the city made small sounds outside the window. His heartbeat slowed under my cheek. His hand rested on my hip, thumb moving once, then again, as if some part of him needed proof I was still there.

I was.

Evan

She fell asleep first.

I knew because her breathing changed. Deeper. Even. The rhythm of a body that had stopped preparing for impact.

Her hand rested flat over my chest. Even asleep, she held on.

I lay there in the dark and listened to the condo around us.

Same clock. Same city beyond the glass. Same practice alarm waiting for morning.

Nothing had moved.

Everything had changed.

My gear was still near the door. My skates were still drying on the mat. The photo of my father and me was still on the kitchen counter where it had been for years.

But the quiet did not feel like a place I had built to keep people out.

It felt occupied.

I did not know what happened next in any detailed way. Contracts. Travel. The public version of us. The team. Her work. My life. Her life. The places they would cross and the placesthey could not.

For once, not knowing did not feel like a threat.

It felt like an open sheet of ice before the first mark.

Unclaimed.

Possible.

I closed my eyes and let her breathing pull me under.

The ice could wait until morning.

Samantha

I woke before him.

Morning light came through the blinds in thin lines, catching the edge of the counter, the chrome of the coffee maker, and the quarter-zip still hanging over the chair.

Evan was asleep on his stomach, face turned toward the window, hair ruined by the pillow. His whole body looked loose in a way I had almost never seen while he was awake.

His right hand rested palm-up on the sheet.

The groove was there.

The permanent ridge in the heel of his palm where years of stick tape had made its mark.

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