And now he was gone, and I was sitting on my kitchen floor surrounded by cookie crumbs and the wreckage of mycomposure, finally admitting what I'd been too scared to say out loud.
I missed him. Desperately, completely, and it made my hands shake.
I missed him so much it felt like drowning.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled to Jake's contact, thumb hovering over the call button.
What could I say? That I was sitting on my kitchen floor having a breakdown over burned cookies? That I'd cracked during karaoke and couldn't stop thinking about his bright eyes and falling apart?
That I'd been stupid enough to fall for my wild roommate and too scared to tell him before he left?
I set the phone aside without calling.
The truth was too big for a midnight phone call.
Sitting in my ruined kitchen, surrounded by the evidence of my unraveling, I understood what Juno had been trying to tell me.
I wasn't building walls anymore. I was building a home.
And my home was empty without Jake Riley in it.
I knew what I had to do.
I just had to find the courage to do it.
Chapter nineteen
Jake
My assist probably slipped past most fans. I'd threaded the puck between two defenders to Kennedy, who buried it top shelf like it was nothing. Clean. Simple. The kind of play that didn't make highlight reels but won games in the margins—how Evan would execute if he'd been wearing an IceHogs jersey instead of watching from Thunder Bay.
"Riley!" Kennedy rattled the back of my helmet with his glove as we skated to the bench. "Fucking beautiful dish, man!"
In the locker room afterward, someone had taped a nameplate above my temporary stall:RILEY #47. Black letters on white tape, crooked as hell, but real. Permanent-looking, even though we all knew better.
"Mature play out there tonight." Coach Monroe stood in the doorway, arms crossed, and staring at me—fuck, was that approval? "Keep that up, and we'll talk."
We'll talk.In hockey-speak, that was practically a marriage proposal.
I pulled off my gloves, trying not to grin like an idiot. My phone buzzed against the bench, and I glanced down to see Evan's name on the screen.
Evan:Proud of you. Don't let it go to your head. (You're still bad at laundry)
He'd watched. In his perfectly organized apartment ten hours away, Evan Carter had found time to stream a random AHL game and send me a text that plastered a massive smile on my face.
I typed back quickly:
Jake:Laundry's overrated. A jersey's smell is better when it's earned.
Evan:That's disgusting. Also true.
I was still smiling when a reporter appeared.
She was young, probably fresh out of journalism school, with a digital recorder that looked older than she was. "Jake Riley? Lindsay Scoggins,Rockford Register Star. Got a minute?"
"Sure." I straightened up. Time to show the charm. I needed to deliver the carefully crafted soundbites that would—
"How'd it feel out there tonight? That assist was textbook."
