Chapter 70: The Health Decision

CASSIAN’S POV

I did not sleep because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Torin on the ice.

I didn’t see the version of him I liked best, the one who looked at me like he knew exactly how to make me forget the room around us. I saw the other version, the one on one knee after a hit, the one who had gone still for one awful second and made my whole body lock up in response.

By the time morning came, I had already lived through every bad version of the future.

I sat on the edge of Torin’s couch with my elbows on my knees and his blanket folded in my hands because I had picked it up at some point during the night and never put it back down. The apartment was quiet, he was still asleep in the bedroom, or pretending to be. I was not sure, I had checked the door twice already, not because I needed to wake him, but because I needed to know he was still there.

The previous night kept replaying in my head in pieces.

His hand at my waist.

His forehead against mine.

The way his voice had gone rough when he said he was trying to get us through the playoffs in one piece.

I had wanted to argue with him until I lost the ability to think straight. I had wanted to kiss him until neither of us cared about the fight anymore. Instead I had gone to the room with the argument still sitting hard in my chest and spent the entire night staring at the ceiling like it had answers.

It did not.

The thing that kept getting to me was not just the knee, it was what the knee meant; the playoffs, the career, the season, the future. A future without Torin on the ice, a future with him in pain, a future where he kept choosing the team over himself until there was nothing left to choose at all.

That part I could not live with.

So I did not sleep.

I got up just after sunrise, made coffee badly, took one sip, and stood at the kitchen counter staring at the steam like it might tell me how to be calm about this. It did not.

The bedroom door opened behind me a little after seven.

I turned before he spoke.

Torin stood there in gray sweatpants and a plain black T-shirt, hair still a little messy from sleep, one hand braced on the doorframe.

He looked tired.

He took one look at my face and stopped moving.

“You did not sleep,” he said.

I looked at him and felt the entire night hit me again. “Neither did you.”

That made his jaw tighten slightly, which was the closest thing to an admission I was going to get before coffee.

He came into the room slowly, careful at first, like we were still standing in the middle of an argument even though the whole apartment felt calmer now. I watched him cross to the kitchen, watched him stop by the counter, watched him look at the coffee like it had personally offended him.

“You made that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His mouth twitched. “Poorly.”

“It is coffee.”

“It is a threat.”

I let out a breath that almost counted as a laugh. “You are awake enough to be annoying.”

“I am awake enough to notice you are avoiding the conversation.”

There it was.

I leaned back against the counter and folded my arms. “I am not avoiding it.”

Torin looked at me with one brow slightly lifted. “You have been staring at the same spot on the floor for twenty minutes.”

“That does not mean I am avoiding it.”

“No?”

“No.”

He stepped closer, and the room shifted in that way it always did when he came near and made pretending harder. I had spent all night thinking about this exact distance, the one where his shoulder almost touched mine, the one where his voice got lower, the one where I could smell sleep and detergent and him.

He looked too good for somebody with a bad knee and a stubborn streak that could probably outlast a storm.

I pushed off the counter and came around to face him fully. “You do not get to do that thing where you act like I crossed some line by caring.”

Torin held my gaze.

I kept going because if I stopped now, I would lose the nerve. “I spent all night thinking about what you said.”

He did not interrupt.

I took a breath. “About sacrificing yourself.”

The silence between us stretched.

Torin’s eyes stayed on mine. “And?”

I looked at him for a beat too long.

“And I am not going to stop you,” I said.

His entire face changed.

Not because he relaxed, he had clearly expected a fight and found something else instead. Something worse, maybe, or better.

I saw the surprise in him before he hid it, then the suspicion, and then the careful stillness that always came when he was trying to decide whether he was allowed to trust something that felt too good.

I stepped in closer. “I am not going to stand here and try to make you choose my fear over your season.”

Torin’s throat moved once.

“But,” I said, and now my voice had gone rougher than I intended, “I am not letting you do this alone either.”

His eyes sharpened slightly.

I kept going because the choice was finally clear enough to say out loud. “If you are going to keep playing, I am with you every step. I am not going to tell you to sit out just to make myself feel better. I am not going to pretend I know what that would cost you.”

Torin was quiet.

I could feel how hard he was listening.

I looked straight at him and said the thing I had been sitting on since the trainer told me how bad the knee really was. “And when it is over, we are going to fix this.”

The room went still.

He did not move for a second. Then his eyes went bright, just slightly, and the sight of it made something in my chest go tight enough to hurt.

He looked away for half a second, then back. “You are serious.”

I gave him a flat look. “Do I look like I am joking?”

“No.” His voice had gone rough. “You do not.”

That made the silence between us heavier somehow. He had been bracing for me to ask him to choose, I had not, I had chosen something else.

I took one step closer.

Then another.

“Torin,” I said quietly, “I am not asking you to wreck yourself for this team, I am asking you to let me in before you do.”

His breath shifted.

“I was trying to protect you.”

I swallowed hard. “I know.”

He shook his head once. “I did not want you looking at me like I was already halfway gone.”

That hit so hard I had to look away for a second.

I crossed the last bit of space between us and set my hand at his waist.

He went still under the touch.

I felt the tension in him shift immediately.

“I am looking at you,” I said, “and you are still here.”

His gaze stayed on mine.

I felt the heat build between us, slow and immediate. It was always like that with him. One honest conversation, one bad night, one truth finally spoken cleanly, and the whole room changed. His hand came up to my arm, then to my shoulder, careful and warm.

His voice dropped. “That sounds suspiciously like you are trying to make me emotional before breakfast.”

I almost smiled. “You are already emotional.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

He let out a quiet breath through his nose, then leaned in until his forehead touched mine.

I kept my hand at his waist.

He said softly, “You really mean that.”

“I do.”

“Together?”

The question came out low, almost careful. Like he needed to hear it again to believe it.

I looked at him and felt every hard part of the night before, every image of him on the ice, every ugly thought about what pain could take from him, all of it settle into one clear answer.

“Yes,” I said.

I watched him breathe in once, slow and deliberate, like he was trying to anchor himself to the room.

Then he said, “Promise me something.”

I did not hesitate. “Anything.”

That made his mouth twitch, brief and tired and real. “Do not say that lightly.”

“I mean it.”

His hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck, and the touch made the rest of the room disappear for a second. “Promise me that if this gets worse, you will not try to carry it alone either.”

My throat tightened.

He was not only talking about his knee now. He was talking about everything.

I held his gaze and nodded once. “I promise.”

He looked at me a second longer, then leaned in and kissed my forehead.

I closed my eyes for half a second and let myself feel it.

Then I looked at him again, and the heat in the room had shifted into something softer, steadier. The kind of thing that did not burn out fast, the kind that lasted.

His hand stayed at my neck, mine stayed at his waist.

I said quietly, “When this season ends, we do this right.”

Torin’s eyes held mine.

I meant every word.

“We get you checked out,” I said. “We stop pretending pain is the same as strength. We make a plan. Rehab, treatment, whatever you need. If you have to miss time, then you miss time. If you need me there, I am there.”

He searched my face like he was looking for any sign I might be pulling back.

He did not find one.

His expression softened in a way that hit harder than anything else had. “You are really not going to let me get away with this.”

“No.”

That pulled the smallest real smile out of him.

We were not pretending anymore.

We were choosing.