Page 124 of Rookie Rules

"I believe you."

A photographer asked Rowan and Graham to stand with the Morrow Ridge executive beside the ceremonial puck. Rowan almost refused. Claire was already moving them into position, efficient and unaware.

Graham took the outside mark. He left a full person's width between them.

Five years earlier, he would have closed that distance the moment a camera lowered. A hand at Rowan's back in an elevator. A shoulder against his while they waited for coffee. Small claims made only after doors shut.

The flash went off.

"One more with Bennett," the photographer said. "The new face of the team."

Luca came over from the sponsor station. He took the open place beside Rowan because that was where the team always put them. Rowan felt the heat of his shoulder through both jackets but did not move closer.

"Perfect," the photographer said.

The resulting image would show four professionals supporting a rink. It would not show Graham choosing distance, Luca noticing it, or Rowan holding himself so still that his hip began to throb.

After the executive was drawn away, Graham nodded toward a quieter stretch beside the unfinished skate-rental counter.

"Two minutes," he said. "Then I will leave you alone."

Rowan followed because refusing would make the encounter larger.

Graham rested his fingertips on the counter. "I'm not here to reopen anything."

"Then don't."

"That is not what this is. I wanted you to know I am well. I also need to say something once, while chance has made it possible."

Rowan waited.

"We were never public," Graham said. "That wasn't why I left."

"I know."

"Do you?"

The question was not cruel. Graham had never needed cruelty to be exact.

Their last winter returned in pieces. Graham asking whether a drawer could become permanent. Rowan buying a second toothbrush and believing the purchase counted as an answer. Graham inviting him to a family birthday three weeks in advance. Rowan keeping the date free until a sponsor dinner appeared, then calling the conflict unavoidable.

The final argument had happened at Graham's kitchen table. No raised voices. Graham had placed Rowan's spare key between them and said he was tired of being treated as an appointment that could be moved without consequence.

Rowan had answered that the season was difficult.

Graham had said every season would be difficult because Rowan needed it that way.

"I wasn't asking you to announce me," Graham said now. "I was asking you to let my life affect yours. Even alone, I had to pretend wanting a future was an administrative error."

Rowan's hip pulsed beneath the stillness he forced into his posture.

"This is not the place."

"It never was. That was part of the problem."

A burst of cheering came from the shooting station. Luca had missed the target deliberately and one of the children was explaining his mistake with great authority.

Graham followed the sound but did not turn to watch.