Page 53 of Shattered On Ice

“Rook, I’m sorry. I messed up. I get it now,” I say quietly, my voice cracking under the shame, but he’s not listening.

He’s turned on Knight, his face transforming from wounded to furious.

“You swore, Knight,” he says, rage vibrating under every word as his voice spikes. “After tearing apart my team and my friendship in high school, you looked me in the eyes and said you wouldn't touch one of my teammates again.” The dam holding his anger cracks. “Why’d it have to be my best friend?”

I can't let Rook put this on Knight. I step between the brothers, desperate to take the hit. “I pursued him. It was all me. Knight tried to stop it, and when you fucking forced him to be my therapist, he ended everything physical with me. He chose to treat me as a patient and save my career, only to lose what we had.”

Rook looks at me, eyes devoid of the golden retriever warmth I’ve come to rely on. “How could you have done this to our friendship? You kept it secret because you knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway.”

Knight steps forward. His hand wraps firmly around my bicep, pulling me gently out of the way as he faces his brother. The brief warmth of his palm sears through my shirt. It's the touch I’ve been begging for, but he's using it to put me behind him.

“Rook, this isn't the time.” His voice is eerily calm, the immovable wall of Dr. Stephens. “Westin’s in a fragile psychological state tied to spending ten years in the closet. You’re compromising his progress by pushing this right now.”

Rook scoffs, the sound harsh and ugly as he looks between us. He throws his hands in the air. “Get the fuck out of my house. I can't look at you right now. I don't even know you, Westy.”

His words are a punch to the gut. Get out of my house. Half an hour ago, I drove here desperate to get my home back. Now, my best friend is evicting me, and the man I love is stepping aside as the door hits me on the way out.

I nod once, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough for the metallic, copper tang of blood to fill my mouth. Fighting the violent burn of tears in my throat, I turn on my heel.

“Westin,” Knight calls after me.

But it isn't Knight’s voice. It’s the therapist, checking the mental health of the patient who’s crashing out.

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, my voice an emotionless pit that hides my true despair.

I don't look back. I walk down the hall, reach for the door handle, and pull the heavy door shut behind me. The solid click of the lock engaging seals me out in the cold. My hands may be perfectly steady, but my life is in shattered pieces.

I don't remember the drive. I don't remember navigating the maze of Atlanta traffic out of the city. I just drove until my tires crunched to a halt on the long gravel driveway of Tucker’s Combat Companions training facility. The engine is the loudest sound in the still country air. My forehead rests against the steering wheel, my hands gripping the leather so hard it creaks, and my knuckles ache. I don't have a home. I lost my best friend. I have nowhere else to go.

A tap on my window has me flinching upright.

Monty is leaning on the door of my SUV, wearing a flannel shirt that looks like it belongs to Tucker, jeans, and work boots. He’s relaxed and looks entirely at home out here in the quiet country. As I lower the window and he gets a clear look at my haggard face, the easy smile vanishes, replaced by the captain's serious expression.

“Westy,” Monty says, his voice dropping into the low tone that commands the locker room. “Get out of the car and come with me.”

I do as he orders, my leaden body aching. He doesn't ask questions or take me inside the house where his boyfriend and son are probably eating dinner. Instead, he silently leads me past the training buildings and through a break in the trees, following a path that winds through the woods and opens at a quiet pond. The water is a glassy reflection of the bleeding crimson and sickly yellow streaks of the setting sun, fading to the ash gray of twilight.

Monty points to the two wooden Adirondack chairs on the small dock at the water’s edge. I collapse into one, my limbs so heavy I don't think I can make it another step, and I bury my face in my hands. I thought I’d exhausted my body’s supply of tears on the highway, but I manage to produce more as a ragged, humiliating sob tears its way out of my chest.

Monty sits quietly next to me, not patting me on the back or offering any worthless platitudes. He simply sits beside me through the hardest moment of my life, offering his solid, unyielding presence. He gives me all the time to fall apart in the safety of this private pond where no one can witness my humiliation.

When my ragged breathing eases, leaving me wrung out and aching, I lift my head and stare unseeing at the water.

“I’m gay,” I whisper, voice reverberating against the evening sounds of the country. It’s the first time in my life I’ve said the words out loud voluntarily, without them being ripped from my soul because I was cornered, caught, or threatened.

Monty doesn't react. Not a gasp or a flinch, or any kind of exclamation to mark what he heard as strange. “Thank you for trusting me with your truth. I know how hard it can be to carry something that heavy around in this league.”

I know he’s not bullshitting me. Monty came out not too long ago, navigating the terrifying waters of being a queer captain in the NHL. He’s the only safe harbor I can turn to now, and the sheer relief of having someone understand shatters what’s left of my defenses.

I tell him everything.

I purge ten years of poison and shame into the country air. I drag out the ghost of my first love, Jean Luc. I lay bare the blood on the locker room floor and the hospital stay with a wired-shut jaw. I admit that Benoit threatened to destroy anyone I touched. I explain the real reason for the yips, my paralyzing terror on the ice, and how Rook forced me into therapy with his twin brother.

And then I tell him about Knight. The secret nights full of yearning and timed encounters. The desperate love that couldn't be hidden behind rules or willful concealment of our relationship. The excruciating, suffocating boundary of the therapy office and devastating collision in the hallway that left my friendship with Rook in tatters.

When I’ve talked myself into exhausted silence, the sun has completely dipped below the treeline, leaving us cocooned in the hazy blue twilight.

Monty lets the silence stretch, rubbing his jaw. When he speaks, it’s not with pity. It’s with the earned authority of a man who lost his wife to childbirth, raised a son for five years on his own, and fought through grief for his happily-ever-after with Tucker.