Page 15 of For Pucking Ever

Tor: FYI: Devan. I am not telling Alexis that. Bast, just think about it, yeah? Doesn't have to be more than it is. You've opened yourself up to him by letting him in your home. Communicate. Whether he returns to Toronto or not. There's something there.

I toss my phone onto the table with more force than necessary. It skids across the scarred wood, sending a tube of paint rolling onto the floor. A streak of cerulean, the exact color of the ocean on a clear day.

"Fuck," I mutter.

The word echoes in the empty studio, bouncing off exposed brick walls and glass. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until colors burst behind my lids. They're all conspiring against me, trying to make this into something it isn't. It can't be.

Just because they've all found their fucking soulmates doesn't mean everyone gets that story. Some of us are meant to be alone. Some of us function better that way.

I push up from the stool, muscles stiff from sitting too long, and grab a palette. My lower back protests and I am suddenly rethinking my chair of choice. The brushes, the paints, all muscle memory now. I've been creating for as long as I've been playing hockey. Since I was seven, hiding in my mother's craft room with watercolors while my father shouted downstairs about ‘wasting time’. It was the one place I was free to be messy, imperfect, real. No expectations. No one watching. No consequences for failure. My studio gives me the same freedom.

My style is abstract realism. Layer after layer, color colliding with shape until something familiar emerges from the chaos. It's the opposite of hockey's rigid precision. Here, I'm allowed to break the rules. Allowed to bleed outside the lines, to transform ugliness into something worth looking at.

Normally the work pours out of me. Today, it's a slow, reluctant bleed. Like trying to squeeze the last drops from something already drained dry.

I swipe cobalt across the canvas, then black, letting the colors clash, smear, drip. The blue streaks across the white like a bruise forming. I don't think, I don't plan. I just move. Let my arm work independently of my brain, the way I've trained it to for years. I try to lose myself the way I always do—the way I have since I was a teenager, locking myself away from my father's disappointment. But then I hear it.

A muffled thump from upstairs.

The shuffle of slow and cautious footsteps. Derrick’s trying to make his way to the bathroom, probably. Still unsteady after four days of rest. Still vulnerable.

The sound slices through me sharper than any shot on goal. Worse, it yanks me straight out of the canvas and back into my complicated reality.

I press harder against the canvas. Paint, Sebastian.

The colors turn darker, harsher. Lines slash across the blank space. I dig the brush in until the bristles splay, threatening to snap.

Anger, frustration, fear, it's all there, leaking out through the bristles. The feelings I've refused to name since I witnessed his seemingly lifeless fall to the ice, since I held his limp hand in mine, since I brought him to stay at my home.

Somewhere along the way, my movements change. My hands move slower. Each stroke careful, curving instead of the sharp edges. Soft sweeps where there should be violence.

The anger bleeds into something else, something I haven't allowed myself to feel in years. Not since Winnipeg. I’ve seen what happens when you let yourself believe you deserve someone. I’ve seen how fast they can be ripped away. Or, more so, they rip out your heart without a parting glance.

When I finally step back, breathless, the figure staring back at me from the canvas isn't a stranger.

Not even close. It’s almost laughable, of course. Tangled curls, rendered in loose strokes of midnight and copper. Sharp cheekbones that somehow still look soft, touchable. Full lips, parted slightly like he's about to laugh or cry. Like he's about to say something that might completely unravel me.

Derrick.

Raw. Exposed. Beautiful in a way that hits me square in the chest.

I drop the brush. It clatters against the hardwood, forgotten.

For a long moment, I just stand there, staring at what I've done. I should destroy it. Paint over it. Burn the whole goddamn canvas.

Instead, I sink onto the stool, burying my face in my hands.

"Je suis tellement foutu." I am so fucking screwed.

And the worst part? Some twisted, broken part of me doesn't even want to be saved.

I've spent the last couple of years perfecting the art of keeping people at arm's length. Calculated distance. Safe and controlled. Even my teammates, the closest thing I have to family, don't get all of me. They never have. They know the goalie, the veteran, the silent observer. Not the artist. Not the man who can't sleep most nights because his mind won't quiet down.

But Derrick, fuck, he's already seen more than most. And he's barely been here a week.

I look back at the canvas, at his face rendered in blues and blacks and angry strokes of red. The painting isn't just good. It's honest. That's the problem.

My phone buzzes again. I ignore it.