Page 413 of Power Play

We stayed there long enough for my breathing to turn into something uglier and for every person in the room to hear the sound I’d kept inside to make sure Charm never did.

When Briggs finally released me, I crawled toward the island because standing was impossible. An unopened bottle of mezcal had survived beneath the overhang. I grabbed it, twisted off the cap, and collapsed with my back against the cabinets. The cuts beneath my shirt stung where they met the wood, and blood dripped from my knuckles onto Milwaukee’s contract folder lying a few feet away.

My eyes found the door, and I saw Charm running through it again. Bare feet struck the snow beneath her. My jersey covered her body while everything she couldn’t say goodbye to remained clutched in her hands.

I looked at my boys before returning my attention to the door.

“You interrupted goodbye.”

No one answered.

I lifted the bottle of mezcal to my mouth and drank.

Epilogue

Ryan

Six weeks later

The scar across my right hand was still pink.

It cut over my knuckles in a thin, crooked line, ending near the places where the surgeon inserted two pins to repair the bones I shattered against the lodge wall. The pins were gone now. My cast came off nine days ago, and the brace beneath my jacket was supposed to remain there unless I was showering or working through the exercises my physical therapist gave me.

Milwaukee knew everything.

They knew I broke my hand less than an hour after signing their contract. They knew the surgery ended my Frost season months before anyone expected it to. Flint could’ve kept me under contract through the season while I completed rehabilitation from the sidelines, but Gloria, Coach Waters, Chris, and the organization agreed that trapping me between two teams benefited no one.

Flint granted me an early medical release. Milwaukee honored every term of the contract I signed and moved my reporting date forward so I could complete rehabilitation with the Inferno’s medical and development staff.

They had every contractual reason to reconsider taking me.

They didn’t.

Tyler, Milwaukee’s player-development coordinator, called three days after surgery and told me the Inferno still wanted me. Their management spoke with Chris, Gloria, and the coaching staff in Flint. By the time I returned from East Harlem, everyone had agreed I could complete the first stage of rehabilitation here before reporting early to Milwaukee.

Now the waiting was over.

My flight left in three hours.

The Sin Bin was closed for the night, but every light remained on. Cade flipped the lock after the last customer left, Aura killed the music, and Bliss cleared every empty glass from our table even though neither of them was working. We came here to drink, celebrate, and pretend tonight was anything except what it was.

A farewell waited beneath every conversation.

My bags were already in Cade’s truck. The apartment in Milwaukee was furnished, and Tyler stocked the refrigerator the day before. He sent me fourteen pictures as proof because he didn’t trust me to feed myself. I had a training schedule, a new physical therapist, a list of mandatory appointments, and a professional hockey organization prepared to build a future around the hand I broke trying to survive the night my other future ended.

Beneath my black shirt, the newest ink on my body had finally stopped burning.

The tattoo stretched across my left ribs in simple black script, close enough to my heart that every breath moved through it.

Encanto.

Charm.

The artist asked whether the word represented a place, a memory, or a person. I told him to mind his fucking business and finish the tattoo.

Nobody knew it existed.

I’d spent six weeks erasing every visible trace of Charm from my life. Her belongings were gone from my apartment. I unblocked her, then deleted her number because some pathetic part of me still wanted to know if she called. I packed away the books I bought for her and gave them to Briggs because I couldn’t look at them without imagining her hands opening every cover.