Chapter 67: The Second Round

The second round started with pain I could not hide.

Game one had barely ended before the series turned brutal. Bigger hits, longer shifts and harder battles in the corners. Every puck felt heavier, every mistake felt more expensive, and every time I pushed off my left leg I felt the same sharp warning under my knee that I had spent three games pretending not to hear.

It started as a tug.

Then a throb.

Then a constant ache that made me clench my jaw through every shift and refuse to say anything about it.

We were in the middle of a road trip, sleeping badly, eating worse, and playing like every game had teeth. That part I could handle, I had handled worse. What I could not afford was letting anyone see the way my knee felt after long shifts.

So I did what I always did.

I kept skating.

Cassian noticed before anyone else did.

He always did.

The first time he looked at me funny was after a brutal third period shift when I came off the ice a little slower than I should have.

He was already waiting by the bench when I got there.

“You good?” he asked.

“Fine.”

His eyes narrowed immediately. “That sounded fake.”

“I am tired.”

“You are always tired.”

I shot him a look and grabbed my water bottle from the ledge. “Thank you for the concern.”

He did not smile, instead, he leaned one elbow on the dasher and watched me for half a second too long.

“You are limping.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I said I am fine.”

Cassian’s mouth tightened, but the game was still moving too fast for him to push harder there. He had to go back out, I had to go back out. So we did. The shift changed, the puck dropped, and I buried the discomfort under speed and habit and the stubborn refusal to give anyone a reason to take me out.

By the time we got back to the hotel after the game, the ache had settled into something worse.

Cassian caught me in the hallway outside my room before I could get the door fully shut.

“Torin.”

I turned. “What?”

He was still in team sweats, hair damp from the shower, expression already set in that way that meant he had decided not to let me dodge him this time.

“You are hurt.”

“I am fine.”

“You are lying.”

I stared at him. “You do not know that.”

“I know you.”

“That does not make you right.”

is turn into exactly what I knew it would become.

Cassian stepped closer. “How bad?”

“Not bad.”

“Torin.”

I looked at the hallway carpet for one second, then back at him. “It is nothing.”

His face changed immediately.

That was the wrong answer.

His jaw tightened. “You are avoiding the question.”

“I am answering it.”

“You are not.”

A couple of players passed behind him with laughter and takeout bags. Cassian did not move out of their way. He stayed right where he was, in front of me, while the hallway noise kept sliding past.

When they were gone, he said, lower now, “Talk to me.”

I let out a slow breath. “Not here.”

His eyes flashed. “Then inside.”

I stepped aside and let him in.

The second the door closed behind us, the room got too quiet. Two beds. A desk. Open duffel bags. My jacket over the chair. His stick leaning by the wall from the gear drop-off. The ordinary, ugly hotel room we had already spent too much time in on this road trip.

Cassian stopped in the middle of it and turned to face me.

I was still standing by the door.

He looked at me once, then pointed toward the bed with the bottle of water he had brought in. “Sit.”

I gave him a flat look. “No.”

“Sit.”

“I am not six.”

“Then stop acting like you are not hurt.”

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck and did not answer.

Cassian watched me carefully. When I still did not move, he set the bottle down on the desk with more force than necessary and came back towards me. The room felt smaller with every step he took. He was not angry enough to shout.

He stopped in front of me. “How long?”

I looked at him.

He did not let me off the hook. “Torin.”

“Before Coach assigned me to mentor you,” I said at last.

That got a reaction out of him.

His whole face changed in a single beat. “You have been skating on it that long?”

“It did not seem serious.”

“It did to me.”

He stared at me like he wanted to argue and kiss me at the same time, which was usually a bad sign for my self-control and a worse sign for my knee.

Cassian took a step closer. “You are not helping yourself.”

I laughed once, short and humorless. “I am in the second round of the playoffs. Helping myself is not really the assignment.”

“Do not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like this is nothing.”

I looked away for half a second. Not because he was wrong. Because he was too right.

His voice dropped. “You are scared I will pull you.”

I looked back at him immediately. “No.”

“You are.”

“I am not scared of you pulling me.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

That question sat in the room too long.

I could have lied. I did not.

“I am afraid that if I stop long enough to deal with it, it becomes real.”

Cassian’s jaw tightened. “It is real already.”

I said nothing.

“If you destroy yourself,” he said, “I will not forgive you for it.”

I stared at him. “I am not going to destroy myself.”

“You do not know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How?”

I lowered my voice. “Because I am still here.”

His eyes searched mine.

I kept going, quieter now. “Because I know what I can push through and what I cannot. Because this is pain, not collapse.”

Cassian did not look convinced.

I reached for his wrist and pulled him one step closer.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

I caught it.

His eyes came back up. “You are distracting me on purpose.”

I let my mouth tilt. “You came into my room to interrogate me.”

“I came in here because you are being difficult.”

“You like me difficult.”

Cassian made a sound under his breath that was halfway between a laugh and a warning.

He came closer first this time, and I let him. His hand landed on my waist, then slid up to the front of my shirt, fingers curling in the fabric.

Cassian looked at me for a long second. “You should have told me sooner.”

I swallowed. “I know.”

“Why did you not?”

“Because you would have looked at me like this.”

His thumb moved once at my waist. “Like what?”

“Like I was doing something wrong.”

His expression changed immediately. “I do not think you are doing something wrong.”

I held his gaze.

He sighed once, quiet and rough. “I think you are stubborn. I think you are trying to carry too much. And I think if I let you keep pretending you are fine, you are going to make this worse.”

I did not answer.

He was right again.

“Sit down,” he said again, but this time his voice was lower.

I looked at him.

He did not look away.

I let out a slow breath and said, “If I sit down, are you going to keep glaring at me?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is the point?”

He almost smiled. “The point is that I need to look at your knee.”

I rolled my eyes, but that was the first time in the last ten minutes that the tension actually loosened.

Cassian saw it and stepped even closer, voice softer now. “Tell me the truth.”

I looked at him.

He waited.

“My knee has been bothering me,” I said. “A lot.”

His jaw clenched.

I held his gaze. “But I can play through it.”

He gave me the same look he had in the hallway, only worse now because there was no crowd to hide behind. Just Cassian, furious in the quiet way he got when he was trying very hard not to show how much something scared him.

“If I have to pull you off the ice because you kept this from me,” he said, “I swear I will not let you hear the end of it.”

I reached out, caught the back of his neck, and pulled him close enough that his forehead brushed mine.

His breath changed immediately.

“You are not pulling me off the ice,” I said quietly.

He closed his eyes for half a second, then opened them again.

I kept my hand there and said the part I had been saving because it was the truth and because I knew it would make him stop arguing long enough to hear me.

“I know I have you.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

“And that,” I said, “is enough.”