Asher’s POV
Murphy's Bar is loud and crowded, exactly what I needed. I'm surrounded by teammates, the drinks are flowing, and if I focus hard enough on the noise and the burn of whiskey, I can almost forget that Instagram post seared into my brain.
Almost.
Jackson made good on his promise—half the team showed up for free drinks, and the atmosphere is loose and celebratory. I play my part well. Laugh at jokes I don't hear, raise my glass when prompted, nod along to conversations I'm not actually following.
"So I told her, baby, hockey players don't do gentle," Marcus is saying, gesturing wildly with his beer. "If you wanted gentle, you should've dated a tennis player!"
Everyone erupts in laughter. I force out a chuckle and take another sip of whiskey, letting it burn down my throat. The performance of normalcy is exhausting, but it's better than being alone with my thoughts.
"Ash, you're quiet tonight," Tyler observes, leaning across the table. "Everything good?"
"Perfect. Just enjoying the company." I raise my glass toward him. "Thanks for coming out."
"Free drinks? I'd be an idiot not to."
More laughter. More noise to drown out the image of Blaze and Sophie surrounded by moving boxes, grinning like they've found their happily ever after.
I'm three drinks in when someone at the table glances at their phone and curses loudly.
"Holy shit. You guys seeing this?"
My stomach drops before I even know why. Phones emerge across the table like a plague, heads bending toward screens. Murmurs ripple through the group, growing louder with each passing second.
"No fucking way."
"Is this real?"
"Blaze Wilson? Seriously?"
"What are you talking about?" I ask, but I'm already pulling out my own phone, fingers clumsy from alcohol and dread.
The story is dominating every sports news feed:
OTTAWA CAPTAIN BLAZE WILSON ANNOUNCES POTENTIAL RETIREMENT: "I'M CONSIDERING ENDING MY HOCKEY CAREER AFTER THIS SEASON"
The words blur in front of me. I blink hard and read them again, but they don't change.
"This is insane," Marcus says, scrolling through his phone. "Guy's only twenty-seven. Prime of his career."
"Injury must be worse than they let on," Tyler speculates.
"Or maybe he just lost his edge after that whole scandal last year," someone else adds.
Blaze is considering quitting hockey. Leaving the sport entirely. Walking away from everything we both sacrificed so much for—the ice, the competition, the only arena where we're still allowed to collide even if we can't touch anywhere else.
"Says here he wants to focus on family," Jackson reads from his screen, voice carefully neutral. "Building a life outside hockey."
"Family?" Marcus snorts. "Dude's not even married yet."
"Give it time," Tyler says with a grin. "Did you see that Instagram post? He's definitely planning to put a ring on it."
The conversation continues to swirl around me, but I've stopped listening. My mind is spiraling, trapped in a loop I can't escape.
Blaze without hockey isn't Blaze. The sport is woven into everything he is—his identity, his passion, the fire that burns behind those brown eyes when he's chasing victory. I've watched him play since we were teenagers.
I know what hockey means to him the way I know my own heartbeat.
"Think Ottawa will trade him if he changes his mind?" someone asks.
"Why would they? He's their franchise player."
"Was their franchise player. If he's talking about retirement, maybe his head's not in the game anymore."
"Someone's gonna snap him up if Ottawa's stupid enough to let him go."
And now he's considering giving it up. For what? Sophie? A quiet domestic life with the woman his parents approve of? A complete erasure of everything he used to be?
The jealousy from earlier curdles into something darker. Grief, maybe. Or rage. I can't tell the difference anymore.
"Honestly, good for him," Tyler continues. "Get out while he still has his health. Find something that makes him happy."
"Hockey makes him happy," I say without thinking.
The table goes quiet. Everyone turns to look at me.
"I mean," I backtrack, forcing my voice to stay casual, "guy lives and breathes the sport. Always has. Seems weird that he'd just walk away from it."
"People change, Cap," Marcus says with a shrug. "Priorities shift. Maybe he found something better."
Something better. Like Sophie and her sweet smile and her complete devotion. Like building a life that doesn't revolve around violent collisions and locker room politics and the constant pressure to be perfect.
If Blaze quits, we'll have nothing left. No more rivalry. No more forced proximity during games and press conferences. No more excuses to exist in each other's orbits, even as enemies.
He'll disappear into his new life with Sophie, and I'll be left alone on the ice with nothing but memories and a sport that suddenly feels meaningless without my greatest competitor.
My hands are shaking. I shove them under the table where no one can see.
"Ash? You good?" Jackson's voice cuts through the noise, laced with what sounds like genuine concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I force my expression into something neutral. It takes more effort than it should.
"Yeah. Fine." I push back from the table abruptly, the legs of my chair scraping against the floor. "Actually—I just remembered I have an early meeting tomorrow. Trainer wants to review some footage. I should head out."
The excuse is flimsy and everyone knows it, but no one calls me on it. A few teammates nod, others barely glance up from their phones, still absorbed in the Blaze Wilson discourse.
"Early meeting on a Thursday?" Jackson asks, watching me with an expression I can't read.
"Hockey doesn't stop for hangovers." I'm already grabbing my jacket, already moving toward the exit. "Thanks for coming out, everyone. Drinks are covered."
"You sure you don't want to stay?" Jackson presses. "Night's still young."
"I'm sure."
I don't wait for responses. Don't look back. Don't acknowledge the concerned glances or the way Jackson's eyes follow me to the door.
The cold night air hits me like a slap when I push through the bar's front entrance. I walk blindly for half a block before stopping, bracing my hands against a brick wall, trying to remember how to breathe.
Blaze might quit hockey. Blaze is building a life with someone else. Blaze is moving on so completely, so thoroughly, that soon there will be nothing left connecting us at all.
Not even hatred. Not even rivalry. Just... nothing.
I stand alone on the empty sidewalk, chest heaving, and feel the last fragile thread between us beginning to snap.
The thread I didn't even realize I was still clinging to until it started to break.