Asher’s POV
The apartment feels too big at 2 AM.
Too quiet. Too empty. Every shadow stretches longer than it should. Every creak of the building settling sounds like footsteps that never arrive.
I can't sleep. Haven't been able to for hours.
My mind won't stop bouncing between disasters. Jackson's mouth on me. The hollow feeling afterward that no amount of showering could wash away.
Ryan's patient eyes watching me retreat behind walls he doesn't deserve to face. The guilt of using him while giving nothing real in return.
Those ridiculous model photos, making headlines everywhere.
Standard celebrity procedure. When you're a captain in the NHL, you become public property. Endorsement deals. Charity galas. Magazine covers.
This one was for some luxury watch brand. The model was part of the campaign. We smiled, posed, pretended to laugh at jokes neither of us made.
The tabloids did the rest. Invented a romance from staged photographs. Built a love story from marketing materials.
I let them. Easier than correcting the narrative. Easier than answering questions about why I'm never seen with anyone real.
I throw off the covers and pace. Kitchen. Living room. Back to the bedroom. Repeat.
The city glitters beyond my windows. Millions of people, living their lives. Sleeping peacefully. Not haunted by ghosts they created with their own cowardice.
I find myself standing in front of my closet without remembering walking there.
The back corner. A drawer I haven't opened in months, maybe longer. I told myself I'd throw everything away. Burn it. Donate it. Something final and cleansing.
I never did.
My hand reaches for the drawer handle as it trembles slightly. I finally managed to pull.
Blaze's old hoodie sits on top. Gray cotton worn soft from years of washing. I lift it to my face before I can stop myself.
Faint. Almost gone. But still there—his scent clinging to the fabric like a ghost refusing to leave. Like he's haunting me through laundry.
Beneath the hoodie, photos.
Us on the cottage dock, sunset bleeding orange and pink behind us. Blaze mid-laugh, head thrown back, eyes crinkled with joy I put there. Joy I destroyed.
Another photo of him cooking breakfast, spatula raised like a weapon, pretending to threaten me for stealing bacon off his plate.
A stupid keychain buried at the bottom. Gas station souvenir from our first summer drive to the cottage. Two matching keychains shaped like pine trees. Tacky tourist garbage.
"We have to get these," Blaze had insisted, holding them up with that ridiculous grin.
"They're hideous."
"They're perfect. So cheesy it's perfect." He pressed one into my palm. "Now we match. Official cottage owners."
I'd rolled my eyes but kept mine on my keys for three years. He probably still has his somewhere. Or maybe he threw it away when he left.
The memories crash over me like waves I can't outswim.
Winter, two years ago
The cottage looked different, covered in snow. Softer. Quieter. Like the whole world had wrapped itself in cotton just for us.
We'd driven up for a long weekend. Escape from the season's demands. Forty-eight hours where we could exist without hiding from everyone who wanted pieces of us.
"Let's explore," Blaze says that first morning, bouncing on his heels. The gray hoodie peeks out from under his jacket. Gray cotton against tan skin.
We walked through the woods behind the property. Frost crunching underfoot with each step. Our breath makes clouds in the cold air. His gloved hand found mine like it belonged there.
We stumbled upon a lake we'd never noticed before. Small. Hidden. Perfectly still beneath a sheet of ice that sparkled in the winter sun like scattered diamonds.
"Holy shit." Blaze's eyes went wide with childlike wonder. "It's like a secret. Our secret."
We'd brought our skates–just in case. Old habit from childhood—never go anywhere in winter without blades ready.
"Race you," Blaze grinned, already lacing up with practiced speed.
The ice is rougher than any rink. Bumpy and unpredictable, nothing like the smooth surfaces we've trained on our whole lives.
It isn't graceful. God, it isn't graceful at all.
We fall constantly. Tangled limbs and bruised knees and elbows cracking against frozen water. Howling laughter echoing across the empty landscape.
No one around for miles. No cameras. No teammates. No pretending.
Just us. Falling and laughing and being terrible at something we've spent our lives perfecting. I win the race across the lake by half a second.
"You cheated," Blaze insists, breathless. "Pushed off early."
"Sounds like something a loser would say."
He tackles me into a snowbank. We wrestle like kids. Snow is flying everywhere. His weight pins me down leaving both of us gasping from cold and exertion.
Blaze stares at me for a second, his gaze wanders over my face, lingering on my lips. I stare back.
Then he kisses me. His lips are freezing, chapped from the wind. Tasting like the hot chocolate we had for breakfast.
I pull him closer anyway. Kiss him back until we're both breathless for different reasons.
We skate until our legs ache. Until the sun starts setting and the temperature drops dangerous.
"I could stay here forever," he murmurs, pulling me into a clumsy spin. "Just us."
I smile—wide, real. I've never felt so free in my entire life.
I want to freeze this moment forever. Trap it in amber and live inside it where nothing can touch us.
But moments don't freeze. They melt. They slip through your fingers no matter how tightly you hold on.
Present
I’m standing alone in my closet at 2 AM, holding a hoodie that barely smells like Blaze anymore. Mourning a life you chose to lose.
I pull the hoodie over my head.
Hate myself for it immediately. For the weakness. For the need that never dies no matter how I try to starve it.
The fabric swallows me. Too big—Blaze was always broader through the shoulders. It hangs off my frame like borrowed skin, almost like wearing a ghost.
I climb into bed and curl around a pillow like it's a body that isn't there. Press my face into cotton that should smell like him but mostly just smells like detergent now.
The darkness feels heavier with memories weighing it down. Every happy moment now is a reminder of what I destroyed with my fear.
I could have had him. Could have kept him. All I had to do was be brave enough to stop hiding from the world.
But I wasn't. And now I'm alone in a bed that's too big, wearing his hoodie like armor that protects nothing.
Sleep starts to pull at the edges of my consciousness. Finally, a few hours of peace.
Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I should ignore it. Probably just a notification. Some app, wanting attention at an ungodly hour. Nothing important.
But something makes me reach for it. Some instinct I can't name. Some premonition of disaster.
Unknown number. Boston area code. I open the message.
"Saw you at Velvet last month. Your secret's safe... for now."
My blood turns to ice. The room tilts and my head spins. I read the words again. And again. And again.
Someone knows. Someone saw me at the gay club. And they're letting me know they're watching. Waiting.
The phone slips from my numb fingers. Lands somewhere in the sheets.
I stare at the ceiling, heart hammering, unable to breathe. The walls of my carefully constructed closet just developed a crack.
And I have no idea how to fix it.