The replay, p.11
The Replay, page 11
“Carter’s not a problem. The problem is people like you who can’t accept—”
“I accept reality,” my father interrupted. “The reality that this league isn’t ready for openly gay players. The reality that coming out will tank your endorsements, strain your relationships with teammates, and make you a target for every homophobe with a Twitter account. The reality that you’re putting Carter through hell because you’re too selfish to see the damage you’re causing.”
The words hit their mark. Carter had already suffered so much—the speculation, the trade demands, the years of being labeled difficult because of a photo that had leaked after I’d left him.
“I see you thinking about it,” my father said, leaning in. “Thinking about how much easier his life would be if you just walked away. If you protected him from this circus by ending it now, quietly, before the media makes it impossible for either of you to play hockey without answering questions about your sex life.”
“That’s not—”
“Here’s the new deal.” His voice went cold, clinical. “You end this relationship. Quietly. Tell Reeves it was a mistake, that you’re not ready, whatever excuse makes you feel better. You do the interview, establish yourself as straight or at least ambiguous, and we move past this. Or—”
“Or what?”
“Or I leak the real story. Every detail. The college photos—the uncropped ones that show both of you. Your little affair, the way you’ve been sneaking around like criminals. I’ll make sure Carter is painted as the predatory influence who corrupted my son, who used your history together to manipulate you into a relationship that’s destroying your career. I have connections, Miles. I can shape this narrative any way I choose.”
The threat was delivered with perfect calm, like he was discussing contract negotiations rather than threatening to destroy the person I loved.
“He’ll never play again,” my father continued. “No team will touch him once I’m done. He’ll be the cautionary tale—the player who seduced a teammate and cost both of them their careers. Is that what you want for him? Because that’s what staying together means.”
My world fractured into sharp, jagged pieces.
The ultimatum was a masterpiece of cruelty—protect Carter by leaving him, or destroy him by staying. Give up my own happiness to preserve his career, or fight for us and watch my father’s connections tear him apart.
“You’re bluffing,” I said, but my voice shook.
“Am I?” He showed me his phone. Screenshots of emails, messages to reporters, a comprehensive dossier of information about Carter and me. “I’ve already laid the groundwork. One phone call, and this goes public my way instead of yours. The only question is whether you love him enough to save him from what I’ll do.”
I stared at the phone, at the evidence of his preparation. He’d been planning this since the photo had leaked, maybe even before. Building leverage, creating options, ensuring he could control the situation no matter what I chose.
“This is your last chance,” my father said. “End it now, or I end Carter’s career. Choose.
I don’t remember leaving the arena.
One moment I was sitting in section 204, staring at my father’s threat-filled phone screen. The next, I was in my car, driving with no destination in mind, my phone buzzing incessantly with calls and texts I couldn’t bring myself to answer.
Carter’s name lit up the screen over and over. Shaw’s too. Even Leo tried calling.
I couldn’t talk to any of them. Couldn’t face Carter and tell him that my father was about to destroy everything we’d built. Couldn’t explain that staying together meant watching him suffer while leaving meant becoming exactly what I hated—the coward who ran when things got hard.
The same coward I’d been six years ago.
My phone rang again. Carter. I silenced it.
A text appeared: Where are you? Practice ended an hour ago. You just disappeared.
Then another: Miles, please. Talk to me.
And another: Whatever your father said, we can deal with it. Together. Remember?
Together. The word that had been our promise, our foundation, our plan for facing everything that came next.
I pulled into the parking lot of a coffee shop I didn’t recognize, parked in the far corner, and buried my face in my hands.
Six years ago, I’d run because I was afraid of losing my career, my father’s approval, everything I’d worked for. I’d told myself I was protecting us both, but really I’d just been protecting myself.
And Carter had paid the price. Years of speculation, damaged reputation, a career haunted by whispers and concerns about chemistry—all because I’d been too much of a coward to stand beside him.
Now my father was offering me the same choice, wrapped in different justification. Walk away to protect Carter from the damage I’ll cause by staying. Sacrifice our happiness for his career.
It was manipulation, pure and calculated. I knew that intellectually.
But the fear was real. My father’s connections were real. His ability to shape narratives and influence decisions was real.
And I couldn’t bear the thought of being the reason Carter’s career ended.
My phone buzzed again. Not Carter this time. An unknown number. I almost ignored it, but something made me open the message.
Just a photo. My car, taken from a distance, sitting in this parking lot.
Then the text that followed: Airport is 20 minutes north. Plenty of flights leaving tonight. Sometimes the brave thing is knowing when to leave.
My father. Watching me. Tracking me. Already knowing exactly what buttons to push.
I stared at that message for a long time.
Then I started the car and drove.
Thirteen
Chapter 13
POV: Carter Reeves
I took the worst penalty of my professional career in the second period.
Los Angeles’s agitator had been chirping at me all game—little comments about linemate chemistry, suggestive remarks about how close Miles and I seemed. I’d ignored it through the first period, playing my game, focusing on the systems.
But Miles wasn’t on the bench.
Coach had benched him after another brutal turnover, and I could see him at the end of the row, head down, looking like his world was ending.
So when the agitator slashed my ankle and added, “Guess your boyfriend’s having an off night,” I dropped my gloves and went after him.
The fight was short and vicious. I got in three good shots before the linesmen separated us. Five minutes for fighting, two for instigating, and a game misconduct for my trouble.
I skated to the tunnel while Los Angeles scored on the resulting power play.
In the penalty box hallway, I could hear the crowd roaring, could hear our guys trying to kill the penalty I’d gifted the opposition. My hands were still shaking from adrenaline and rage.
Coach didn’t even look at me when I passed him heading for the locker room early.
I showered alone, the water scalding, trying to wash away the knowledge that I’d let my team down. That I’d let Miles’s absence and my own spiraling thoughts turn me into exactly the kind of distraction everyone feared we’d be.
When the final buzzer sounded—a Los Angeles victory, 4-2—I was already dressed and heading for my truck.
My phone had been buzzing throughout the third period. Texts from Shaw, from Leo, from teammates asking where Miles was, if he was okay, what the hell was going on.
I’d ignored them all until the one that made my blood run cold.
Unknown number. Just a photo.
Miles’s SUV in the airport departures terminal parking lot, taken from a distance. The timestamp showed it was from two hours ago—right around when he’d disappeared from the facility.
No message. No explanation. Just that image and the devastating implication.
He’d left. Again.
My vision tunneled. The parking garage spun around me. I braced myself against my truck, forcing air into my lungs.
History was repeating itself. The same fear, the same choice, the same ending. Miles running because staying was too hard, because his father’s manipulation had worked, because I wasn’t worth fighting for.
But something felt wrong about that narrative.
Miles’s voice from this morning, holding my hand in Morrison’s office: I’m finally fixing the mistake I made six years ago.
His determination when we’d faced his father together. The way he’d looked at me last night, promising we’d do this as a team.
That wasn’t the Miles who would run without explanation. That wasn’t the man who’d spent weeks proving he’d changed.
I yanked out my phone and called Shaw.
“Carter, what the hell happened in—”
“I need you to run interference with Coach,” I interrupted. “Family emergency. I’ll explain later.”
“Carter—”
I hung up and started driving.
The airport was forty minutes from the arena in normal traffic. I made it in twenty-five, taking turns too fast, weaving through lanes, my entire focus narrowed to finding Miles before he got on a plane and disappeared from my life again.
I abandoned my truck in short-term parking and sprinted into the terminal.
SEA-TAC was massive—multiple concourses, dozens of gates, hundreds of flights departing every hour. I checked the departure boards, scanning for anything that made sense. Boston? That’s where his father lived. Chicago? New York? Somewhere far from Seattle and me and the mess we’d created?
I pulled up every airline’s passenger manifest I could access through my phone—not many, and none legally—but desperation made me creative. No Miles Hartford on any flight. Not under his name, anyway.
Maybe he’d used an alias. Maybe he was already through security, already boarding, already gone.
I stood in the middle of the terminal, travelers flowing around me like water around a stone, and felt the crushing despair trying to drag me under.
He’d left. History had repeated. I’d been stupid to believe anything had changed.
Then something Shaw had said weeks ago surfaced through the panic: You two share a brain when you’re on the ice.
We did. I knew Miles’s tells, his patterns, his instincts. I knew how he thought when he was overwhelmed and breaking apart.
And suddenly, I knew he wasn’t here.
Our spot.
In college, when the pressure of draft expectations or upcoming games or just life got too heavy, we’d drive to a tiny beach on Puget Sound. Nothing special—just a strip of rocky shoreline and driftwood logs, tucked away from main roads and tourist attractions.
We’d sit there for hours, sometimes talking, sometimes just existing in the same space until the world felt manageable again.
I’d forgotten about it until now. Forgotten we’d had safe places together, rituals that meant something beyond hockey and secrecy.
The drive took forty minutes from the airport. I made it in twenty-five, pushing my truck harder than was probably safe, my hands white-knuckle tight on the steering wheel.
Please be there. Please don’t have left. Please give me one more chance to fight for this.
The turnoff was barely marked—just a gravel path through trees that opened onto a small parking area. And there, in the single beam of the security light, was Miles’s SUV.
Empty, but present.
Relief hit me so hard I had to sit in my truck for a full minute, just breathing, just processing that he was here and not gone.
I grabbed my phone flashlight and headed down the path to the beach.
The Sound was dark and vast, waves lapping gently at the shore. The city lights of Seattle glowed across the water, close enough to see but far enough to feel separate. Driftwood logs littered the shoreline—bleached white by salt and sun, smooth from years of tidal abuse.
Miles sat on the largest log, his back to me, staring at the water like it held answers he desperately needed.
He looked shattered.
I approached slowly, my footsteps crunching on the rocky beach. He didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge my presence, but his shoulders tensed.
“How’d you find me?” His voice was hollow.
“I remembered.” I sat beside him on the log, close enough that our shoulders touched. “This was always where you went when things got too heavy.”
“I wasn’t running.” The words came out defensive, desperate. “I know what it looks like, but I wasn’t—”
“I know.”
That seemed to surprise him. He finally looked at me, his face pale in the moonlight, his eyes red-rimmed.
“He threatened to end your career,” Miles said. “My father. If I didn’t leave—if I didn’t end this—he said he’d leak everything. The photos, our relationship, all of it. But he’d make sure you were painted as the predator who corrupted me. He has connections, Carter. He can destroy you. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t be the reason you lost everything.”
The confession poured out of him in a rush, words tumbling over each other. I listened, my chest getting tighter with every detail of Grant Hartford’s ultimatum.
Protect Carter by leaving, or destroy him by staying.
A masterpiece of manipulation, designed to exploit the exact guilt and fear Miles carried from six years ago.
“So you came here,” I said quietly. “To figure out which choice would hurt me less.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Miles’s voice cracked. “If I stay, he’ll ruin you. If I leave, I’m doing exactly what I did before. I’m trapped, Carter. There’s no good option.”
“Yes, there is.”
“What?”
“You let him try.”
Miles stared at me like I’d suggested we sprout wings and fly. “What?”
I turned to face him fully, taking his hands in mine. They were freezing, shaking slightly. I rubbed warmth back into them while I found the words.
“Your father is a bully with connections. I get that. He can probably make the next few months hell for both of us. But Carter—he can’t end my career. Only I can do that. And I’m choosing not to let him.”
“You don’t understand what he’s capable of—”
“I understand perfectly.” My voice was steady, certain. “I understand he spent your entire life controlling you through fear. I understand he knows exactly how to exploit your guilt. I understand that six years ago, his threats worked because we were kids who didn’t know how to fight back.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re adults with our own careers, our own connections, our own agency. Now we have teammates who’ve shown support instead of hostility. Now we have a choice to make the narrative ourselves instead of letting him control it.”
