Chapter 73 CHAPTER 73

Chapter 73 CHAPTER 73
Julian’s POV 

The windshield wiper on the passenger side of the Cutlass didn’t clear the sleet; it just dragged a wide, greasy arc of gray river mud across the glass, leaving the oncoming headlights of the logging trucks looking like yellow oil smears through the mist.

Every time the front tires hit the washboard dirt of the county line road, the steering column gave a loose, metallic clink-thunk that sent a sharp, white needle of pain straight through the white zinc tape on my left side. I had my right arm pressed tight against my ribs, my fingers hooked into the damp wool of my travel jersey to keep the third rib from sliding out of its slot, my breath coming in short, flat hitches that tasted of old copper coins and the sour diesel reek of the car’s heater core.

Jax didn't look over at me. His big hands were locked at ten and two on the cracked plastic of the wheel, his split knuckles white where the skin had dried over the bone line, his dark eyes fixed entirely on the narrow lane of gray gravel showing through the sleet. He hadn't taken his track jacket off. The navy polyester was dark with the water from the gatehouse apron, and every time he shifted his weight to clear the clutch, the brass buckle of his harness let out a heavy, rhythmic clink-clack against the seat riser.

"We're twenty miles out, Jules," he growled. His voice was rough, a low, mechanical rasp that carried the grit of the equipment bay. "The news vans won't clear the bridge before the noon wire closes. The sheriff’s filing doesn't run past the county line."

The motel was called the River-Side Court.

It sat thirty yards back from the blacktop behind a rusted iron chain-link fence, its low, flat roof line looking like a gray timber box dropped into the marsh grass. The neon sign above the gravel turnout was half-broken, the letters M-O-T-E- flickering in a sharp, high-frequency pink glare that let out a dry buzz-hiss every time the wind caught the transformer box on the pole. The gravel underneath our tires let out a loud, chaotic crunch-shshsh as Jax cut the engine, the sudden quiet of the marsh settling over the hood like wet wool.

The room smelled of seventy years of damp linoleum, stale sulfur matches, and the cheap pine disinfectant they used to scrub the floorboards after the logging crews checked out.

The wallpaper was old, a faded, water-stained pattern of gray birch trees that was peeling away from the drywall corners in long, brittle curls that showed the dark mold beneath the seams. There was a single bed in the center of the floor, its iron frame painted a dull, scratched primer gray, the thin mattress sagging three inches in the middle until the wool blanket touched the springs below the frame. A single plastic chair with a cracked green vinyl seat sat by the window, the legs uneven against the warped pine of the floorboards.

I stood by the radiator casing, my boots leaving two separate, dark puddles of gray slush on the linoleum. My head was spinning, that slow, purplish-gray spiral that had started back at the center circle but I didn't let my knees buckle. I kept my chin lifted into that flat, stubborn line, my eyes tracking the flickering pink light as it filtered through the broken plastic slats of the blinds.

"The key’s brass, Jules," Jax said, his heavy boots making a sticky peel-peel sound on the floor wax as he dropped our canvas kit bags by the door. "The woman at the desk didn't ask for the ledger card. She didn't even look at the gold stitching on the jersey."

I didn't answer him. I couldn't.

I reached down with my right hand, my cold fingers catching the brass zipper of my travel bag, the metal letting out a short, dry scritch as I pulled the teeth back to find my trousers.

The pine edge of the bed was cold through the wool of my breezers.

I sat down slowly, one inch at a time, my right elbow braced against my knee to keep the left side of my chest from dropping into the gap. My fingers were stiff, numb from the two-hour drive without gloves, and when I reached into the pocket of my flannel shirt, the paper gave a sharp, clean crinkle that sounded massive in the dead quiet of the room.

I laid the bills out on the gray wool blanket.

There weren't many. Two ten-naira notes from the Nescafé promo I’d won back in July, three greasy five-dollar bills from the Cutlass’s glove box, and a handful of copper-clad coins that had been sitting in the bottom of my kit bag since the regional final in Ann Arbor. Altogether, it was twenty-four dollars and forty-two cents, the entire liquidation value of the Thorne name when the probate court wasn't holding the ledger sheet.

I looked at the paper.

The ink lines on the bills were worn, the edges soft and gray from sitting in the pockets of working men, looking completely different from the crisp, white vouchers Arthur had laid across the water riser three hours ago.

I looked up at Jax.

He was standing by the small sink in the corner, his back turned to me, his broad shoulders filling the narrow space between the mirror and the wall. He had his jacket unzipped now, his white undershirt gone gray from the coal dust of the rink road, the massive muscles of his back rising and falling with that slow, heavy regularity that had kept our line level for eleven winters. His hands were under the cold tap, the water letting out a sharp, wet hiss as he tried to wash the dried crust of Liam's blood off his split middle joint.

A cold, heavy iron pressure settled right into my throat, not the pain from the three floating ribs, but a deep, somatic sickness that felt like the diesel exhaust had coated the very lining of my stomach.

By tearing that blue-lined contract by throwing those shredded fragments into the slush at Arthur’s feet, I hadn't just cleared the lane for myself.

I had ruined him.

Jaxom wasn't an academy boy from Ann Arbor; he didn't have a family estate on the north side, and he didn't have a name that could clear an administrative favor with the regional board chair. He was twenty-three years old, his hands were scarred from the Flint plant machinery, and his only shot at escaping the gray mud of the county docks was that first-round registry spot Arthur had been holding in his black calfskin folder.

"Jax," I whispered.

The word didn't have any tone behind it, just that dry, radiator-valve whistling in my throat.

He turned around slowly, his large, wet palms wiping down the sides of his breezers, leaving two long, damp streaks against the navy wool. His dark eyes found mine through the yellow light of the single bulb, his jaw set into that rigid, permanent line from the equipment bay.

"What?" he growled.

"The... the Detroit wire is closed," I said, my finger touching the edge of the ten-dollar bill on the blanket. "The scouts... they won't log the clearance without the firm’s signature. I looked at the registry rules before we left the gatehouse, Jaxom. Without the sixty-thousand-dollar waiver, we aren't... we aren't on the ledger sheet for the pro draft."

I stopped, my throat working on a slow, agonizing swallow that tasted of copper. "I took your steel, Jax. I took your entry."

Jax didn't look at the money on the blanket. He didn't look at the peeling wallpaper or the cracked green vinyl of the chair by the window.

He walked over to the bed, his heavy leather soles making a slow, deliberate thud-thud on the warped pine floorboards until his knees brushed against the wet wool of my socks. He didn't stay standing. He stepped around the iron frame, his massive, two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame creating a wide, dark shadow that shut out the flickering pink neon light from the blinds completely.

He sat down right behind me.

The old springs under the mattress let out a long, loud creak-whine as his weight hit the structure, the frame sagging until my hip was pressed straight into his thigh. He didn't use the standard locker-room force; he slid his big arms around my waist from behind, careful, so careful, his large, rough palms avoiding the purple ridge of the bruise on my left side, his forearms flattening against the stiff cotton of the white zinc tape around my chest.

He pulled my back against his chest protector.

The canvas of his jacket was cold and damp, but his body underneath was burning hot, a thick, clean heat that felt like the bricks of the boiler house after the midnight shift, running straight through my flannel shirt until the shivering in my ribs began to slow down. He leaned his head forward, his scarred jaw settling into the hollow spot right beneath my right ear, his breath coming in short, heavy gasps that warmed the cold skin of my neck.

"Shut up about the ledger, Jules," he whispered.

His voice was so low it didn't even clear the low buzz-hiss of the neon sign outside, just a deep, mechanical rumble that vibrated through my collarbone and into my spine.

"I’ve spent twenty-three winters sleeping on worse beds than this," Jax growled, his big fingers closing over my right hand where it rested on the blanket, his split knuckles rough against my skin. "I’ve slept on the floor of the cut-off bay at the Flint plant with nothing but a canvas tarp to keep the slag off my shins. I’ve slept in the back of the Cutlass when the steering box froze in ninety-six."

He tightened his arms by half an inch, not enough to catch the floating ribs, but hard enough to lock my whole frame against his chest until the white glare in my head went completely gray and quiet.

"I’ve never had a name on the registry, Julian," he whispered into my hair, his voice dropping into that lower, darker register that didn't leave any play left behind it. "And I’ve never had a sixty-thousand-dollar contract held at the Merchant’s Trust. But I’ve never felt richer than I do right now, sitting in this ditch, holding the King of the Ice line before the gate opens."

I let my head drop back against his shoulder, my eyes closing as the warmth from his chest ran straight into my bones. The twenty-four dollars on the blanket didn't look like poverty anymore; it just looked like paper.

"Turn it off, Jaxom," I murmured.

He reached out with his right arm, his long reach clearing the edge of the mattress without shifting his weight, his fingers catching the small plastic switch on the wall riser. The bulb let out a short, metallic click and died, dropping the room instantly into a deep, heavy shadow that smelled of the marsh and the river fog.

The room wasn't dark.

The red neon glare from the M-O-T-E- sign outside came through the broken plastic slats of the blinds in long, thin bars of pink light, throwing a regular, geometric grid across the faded birch trees of the wallpaper and the gray wool of the blanket. Every three seconds, the transformer on the pole let out that sharp buzz-hiss, and the pink bars would flicker, shifting half an inch across my bare ankles before they settled back into the grain.

We lay down together on the narrow mattress.

Jax stayed on his right side, his arm tucked under my head to support my neck, his other hand resting flat over the white zinc tape on my chest to keep the ribs from moving when I breathed. The navy polyester of our jerseys was piled over our legs to keep the chill off our shins, the gold stitching looking dark as old oil in the pink light.

Outside, the road was completely quiet. The news vans were gone, the lawyers were sitting in their charcoal coats in the Grand Rapids wards, and the registry logs were locked up in a steel cabinet three floors above the drywall dust.

For eleven winters, we had been running the line inside the system. We had been checking the coverage, signing the entry forms, and waiting for the administrative clerks to clear the margin before we could take the sheet. We had been numbers on a local ledger sheet, chasing a silver shield that belonged to a man who didn't know the smell of the kerosene or the sound of the steel chewing the ice.

Now, the ledger was empty. The margin was zero.

"Tomorrow's the final game, Jax," I whispered into the dark space between our mouths, my chapped lips brushing his thumb.

"I know," he growled, his dark eyes wide and brilliant in the pink reflection of the neon, his hand pressing half an inch harder against my chest to hold the bone steady. "The State College defense won't have the lawyers to hold the crease tomorrow, Jules. It’s just thirty yards of gray ice and two hundred pounds of Saginaw beef between us and the box."

I smiled through the gray sweat that was still drying on my forehead, my hand catching his sleeve.

"We earn our own ice," I murmured.

The noon train had long since left the gatehouse, its iron whistle lost miles back in the Michigan mist, but as I closed my eyes against the flickering pink light of the blinds, the room went completely level. The cold air from the river was still seeping under the locked oak door, but the line was entirely ours. And tomorrow, the ice would finally be clear.

_____________________________________________

A/N:Let me know all your thoughts in the comments! Like, subscribe and add to your library so you never miss an update!

See you in the next one!