Asher’s POV
The coffee shop is small and quiet, tucked away on a side street where no one from the team would think to look. Neutral ground. That's what I told myself when I suggested it.
I arrive twenty minutes early because I'm a masochist apparently. Claim a booth in the back corner where I can see the door, wrap my hands around a cup of coffee I have no intention of drinking. My leg bounces under the table. Every time the door opens, my heart lurches into my throat.
Four days. It's been four days since the shower, since I sat on my bathroom floor and admitted the truth to myself. Three days of avoiding practice, avoiding my phone, avoiding everything except the war raging inside my own head.
And now I'm here. About to face him.
The door swings open, and my chest tightens.
Blaze walks in looking unfairly good in a simple hoodie and jeans, hair still damp and curling slightly at the ends. The sight hits me like a physical blow—memories flooding back, his hands on my skin, his voice in my ear, the way I fell apart under his touch like I'd been waiting my whole life for it.
Our eyes meet across the café. For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then he crosses the room, slides into the booth across from me, close enough that I can smell his cologne. Clean and warm and so familiar it makes my stomach flip.
"Thanks for coming, Ashy."
The nickname still does something to my chest every time he uses it. He started calling me that again the moment he came back into my life—a remnant from childhood, from the days when we'd spend hours on frozen ponds and he couldn't pronounce "Asher" properly. The lisp is long gone, but the name stuck.
Back then it was innocent. Now it feels like a claim.
"Don't call me that," I mutter, but there's no heat behind it.
His lips twitch. "You said it was about the game."
"It is." He leans back, studying me with those brown eyes that see too much. "Championship is in three weeks. Coach is on everyone's ass about unity and focus. We need to figure out how to work together without..." He pauses, searching for the right word. "Without whatever's been happening between us getting in the way."
I nod, grateful for the practical focus. This I can handle. Hockey, strategy, teamwork—these are things that make sense. Things I know how to navigate.
"Agreed. The team needs us functional."
Blaze hesitates. His fingers tap against the table, a nervous habit I remember from childhood. "The deal I offered you before—the captaincy. That still stands, Ash. If you want it, I'll step back. Talk to Wellington myself."
I stare at him.
After everything—the shower, the four days of silence, the mess I've made of whatever this is between us—he's still willing to give up the thing I resented him for since day one. Just to make this work.
"Why?" The word comes out rough. "After how I've treated you, after I ghosted you for four days... why would you still offer that?"
"Because I meant what I said." His eyes hold mine, steady and sincere. No games, no teasing, just raw honesty. "I didn't come here for a title. The captaincy was never the point."
Something cracks in my chest. I look down at my untouched coffee, throat tight with emotions I don't know how to name.
"Keep it," I say finally. "The captaincy. You earned it, and the team respects you."
"Ash—"
"No, let me finish." I force myself to meet his gaze. "I was angry about it because it was easier than admitting what was really bothering me. But that was never actually about you stealing something from me." I swallow hard. "It was about me being terrified of why I cared so much that you came back."
The words hang in the air between us. Blaze's expression shifts—surprise, then understanding, then something softer that makes my chest ache.
"So we're good?" he asks quietly. "We can be professional?"
"Yeah." I manage a nod. "We can be professional."
Silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we're not saying. Blaze fidgets with a napkin, tearing small pieces off the corner. I watch his hands—those same hands that pinned my wrists against shower tiles, that wrapped around me and made me forget my own name—and have to look away before my body betrays me again.
"Ash." His voice drops lower, more intimate. The coffee shop noise fades to nothing. "I'm not going to push you. Whatever you're going through, whatever you're figuring out... I'll wait. But I need you to know that what happened in your apartment wasn't nothing to me. It wasn't a mistake."
My throat tightens. I want to deflect, to throw up walls, to retreat behind the armor I've worn my entire life. But something stops me. Maybe it's the way he's looking at me—patient, open, without judgment. Maybe it's the exhaustion of fighting myself for so long.
Or maybe it's the fact that for the first time in my life, someone is offering to wait for me. Not pushing. Not demanding. Just... waiting.
"I've been figuring things out," I admit quietly. The words feel dangerous, like stepping onto thin ice. "About myself. About what I want." I swallow hard. "I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But I'm not running anymore. I'm trying."
Blaze's smile is small but genuine. It transforms his whole face, softens the sharp edges, makes him look like the boy I remember from childhood. The one who taught me that hockey could be joy instead of just competition.
"That's enough," he says. "That's all I need to know."
We talk logistics after that—practice schedules, plays we need to sync on, how to present a united front to the team. It's easier, talking about hockey. Familiar. Safe. We sketch formations on napkins, argue about defensive strategies, fall into a rhythm that feels almost normal.
Almost.
Because beneath every word, I feel the current running between us. The awareness. Every time our fingers brush reaching for the same napkin, every time our eyes meet a beat too long. The unfinished business sitting in the booth with us.
An hour passes. Then two.
"We should go," Blaze says finally. "Practice tomorrow. You need rest."
I nod, suddenly reluctant to leave. Out there, everything is complicated. In here, it was almost simple.
We walk out into the crisp afternoon air together. The sun is starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Beautiful, in a way I rarely let myself notice.
Blaze bumps his shoulder against mine. Gentle. Familiar. "See you at practice tomorrow, Ashy?"
"Call me that again and I'll check you into the boards so hard your grandchildren will feel it."
He laughs—bright and warm and so genuine it makes my chest hurt. "There he is. Missed that fire."
The callback hits me somewhere deep. He said the same thing during our first practice, when I slammed my shoulder into him and skated away. Back then it felt like a taunt. Now it feels like something else entirely.
"Tomorrow," I say. "I'll be there."
"Good." He holds my gaze for a moment longer than necessary. "I'm glad you came today, Ash. I know it wasn't easy."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't have words for the tangle of emotions in my chest—gratitude and fear and something warmer underneath that I'm not ready to examine.
So I just nod. Turn toward my car. Start walking.
"Hey, Ash?"
I stop. Look back.
Blaze is still standing there, hands in his pockets, that soft smile on his face. "Whatever you're figuring out... you don't have to do it alone. Okay?"
My throat closes up. I nod again, not trusting my voice, and keep walking.
The drive home passes in a blur. But for the first time in weeks, I don't feel like I'm drowning.
Nothing is resolved. Nothing is defined. But maybe I can do this. Maybe we both can.
Together.