Next, I surprised myself with my own confession.
"I had a foster brother once, Andy. He was maybe thirteen when I got placed there—older than me, bigger. He had this habit of breaking things deliberately. Not out of anger. He did it to get attention."
Jake's fingers stopped drumming. He leaned forward and listened.
"Plates, mostly. He'd wash dishes and then drop them, insisting it was an accident. It wasn't. He'd time it perfectly when the house got too quiet, and the foster parents focused on something else. The crash brought everyone running."
"Did it work?"
"For about ten minutes. Next would be a lecture and maybe the loss of some privilege. Still, every adult in the house paidattention to him for those ten minutes. They asked if he was hurt, cleaned up his mess, and checked that he was okay."
"Wow."
I continued my story. "I hated him for it. I hated the noise, how he turned every quiet moment into a crisis. I thought he was selfish. Destructive."
"But now?"
"Now I wonder if I got it wrong. Maybe he didn't want to break things. Maybe he only wanted to be seen."
Jake's voice was barely louder than a whisper when he spoke. "Sometimes being seen and being heard are close to the same thing."
"Even when they see you for the wrong reasons?"
"Better than not being seen at all."
Outside, the freight train called again, its horn echoing off the lake and the downtown buildings before fading into the Thunder Bay night.
We were both quiet again. Jake shifted closer on the couch, not dramatically but incrementally. Gradual. Inevitable. His knee brushed against mine through the fabric of my sweatpants.
Moving away might have been a good idea. I could have maintained the careful distance that kept us functional as roommates and teammates. Instead, I listened to Jake's shallow breathing and watched his eyes gaze at my mouth before looking back up.
His voice was low. "So, is this the part where we pretend we're still only teammates?"
He was perceptive again, and I didn't dare answer the question truthfully. I considered saying something rational about boundaries and complications, but Jake moved too fast.
His hand cupped the side of my face, thumb brushing against the faded line where the puck had caught me. The touch was gentle, giving me a last opportunity to pull away.
I didn't want to. I wanted to lean into the warmth of his palm and stop thinking about consequences for once in my carefully managed life.
When his lips touched mine, it was tentative at first. Soft. I inhaled sharply through my nose, giving into Jake's gravitational pull.
The kiss deepened, and his right hand gripped the fabric of my hoodie, pulling me closer. I kissed him back, hungrier than I expected, using all the bottled up energy from pretending I wasn't affected by his laugh, his humming in the shower, or his shirtless mornings.
I gripped his shoulders, kneading the lean muscle beneath his t-shirt. He made a slight sound against my mouth—not quite a moan but close enough to send electricity shooting up my spine.
Time froze while our tongues danced together. Jake raked his fingers into my hair.
All of my measured control fell away. His teeth caught my bottom lip.
RING.
The sound cut through the moment. Sharp. Jarring. Destroying the spell we'd woven around ourselves.
"Fuck," Jake cursed against my mouth, the word vibrating between us. His lips were slightly swollen and eyes dark with an expression I'd never seen before. Wrecked in the best possible way.
RING.
"Fucking hell." He fumbled for his phone, which had fallen between the couch cushions. Reality started creeping back in around the edges of our cocoon.
