Chapter 87: The Morning After The Cup

CASSIAN’S POV

The first thing I felt was an arm locked around my waist and a body pressed so close I could not tell where mine ended and Torin’s began.

The second thing I felt was my phone buzzing off the nightstand like the world had lost its mind.

The third was Torin’s hand sliding sleepily over my ribs as he muttered, still half asleep, “Do not answer that.”

I turned my head in the dim hotel light and found him with his face buried in the pillow, hair a mess, mouth relaxed in that rare way it only ever got when he was asleep or pretending not to be awake yet. We were tangled together under the sheets in a way that made the morning feel less like a morning and more like we had just survived something huge and then forgotten to get untangled from each other.

The phone buzzed again.

Then again.

Then his did too.

I let out a tired breath and looked at the glowing screen on my side of the bed. There were so many messages that the preview bar was useless. Danton, Raffi, the team group chat, unsaved numbers, media requests, headlines, photos, congratulations and even hate mail.

The cup had not even been off the ice twelve hours and already the world had decided it was entitled to us.

Torin lifted his head a little, squinting at the light. “How bad?”

“Very.”

He made a low sound in his throat and stretched one arm across my stomach again like he was trying to keep me from reaching for the phone. “Define bad.”

I picked it up anyway and immediately regretted it.

The notifications kept stacking.

I locked the screen and dropped the phone back on the nightstand.

Torin had pushed himself up onto one elbow now, studying my face.

“Too much?” he asked.

I laughed once, tired and hollow. “That is one way to put it.”

He nodded towards the phones. “Mine is worse.”

I believed him.

He reached across me, picked his phone up, checked it for two seconds, and set it back down with the expression of a man who had just confirmed that the internet had indeed survived the championship and was now being irritating about it. “Media requests.”

“Obviously.”

“Two hundred and six unread messages.”

I stared at him. “You counted?”

“I opened the app.”

“Same difference.”

He let his head fall back against the pillow and closed his eyes for a second. “There are congratulations.”

“That is good.”

“There are also twenty-seven messages from people I do not know telling me their cousin has a podcast.”

I laughed for real this time, briefly. “That seems normal.”

“It is not.”

The bed shifted as he rolled closer again, this time on his side, one arm propped under his head. The sheet had slipped low on his chest and the morning light from the window caught the line of his shoulder.

He looked at me for a second, then reached out and pushed my hair back off my forehead.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“No,” I said. Then, because he deserved the truth, I added, “But I will be.”

His hand stayed in my hair for a beat longer. “Good.”

The phones kept buzzing.

I could hear the vibration under the mattress when his went off again. He groaned and reached for it without looking, then handed it to me when he saw the screen.

“Danton,” he said.

I took it and answered immediately. “Coach?”

Danton’s voice came through sounding tired, pleased, and already too awake for this hour. “You two alive?”

Torin snorted from beside me and flopped back onto the pillow.

“Yes,” I said. “Barely.”

“That is the preferred state after a championship win, get used to it.” Then he paused. “I am sending both of you the media schedule. Keep your phones on, ignore the stupid questions, answer the ones that matter.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. “That sounds like a warning.”

“It is.”

He hung up before I could answer.

I set the phone aside and turned fully towards him. He was still close enough that I could feel the warmth of him through the sheet.

My phone buzzed again.

So did his.

We ignored both.

Then mine buzzed with a different tone. My mother.

I froze.

Torin noticed instantly. “What?”

I looked at the screen again and felt something in my chest shift. “My mom.”

His face changed immediately. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

I answered the call and put it on speaker because I did not trust my hands.

“Mom?”

The second she spoke, I knew she had been crying.

“Cassian,” she said, and her voice broke right there in the middle of my name.

I sat up so fast the sheet slid down my waist.

Torin did too, all humor gone now, eyes fixed on me with immediate focus.

“Mom,” I said again, quieter this time. “What is wrong?”

She laughed and cried at the same time, which somehow made my chest tighten more. “Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong at all, I am just so proud of you.”

I stared at the wall across from the bed because looking at Torin while my mother cried was already too much.

“I watched,” she said, voice wavering. “I watched the game. I watched the last goal, I watched all of it.”

My throat went tight.

“You were incredible,” she said.

Torin’s hand found mine under the sheet.

My mother kept talking through tears I could hear even in the words. “I knew you could do it, I kept telling everyone who would listen that my son was going to do something special, and then you did. You really did.”

I stared down at our hands.

Torin was looking at me now, expression unreadable in the best way.

“I do not know what to say,” I admitted.

That made my mother laugh again. “You do not need to say anything, I just wanted to hear your voice before the world got too loud.”

I swallowed.

She went on, softer now. “I am so proud of you, Cassian. And I know this year was not just about hockey.”

My eyes lifted to Torin’s.

He had gone still.

My mother’s voice cracked again. “I know who was there for you, I know what you found this year, I’m glad you found the captain.”

That did it.

The room went very quiet.

Torin’s hand tightened in mine.

I had to look away for a second because my throat had closed too fast. My mother did not need to know she had just cut straight through me.

“I love you,” she said softly.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I love you too.”

She made a little sound that was either a sob or a laugh. “I will stop now before I cry harder and make you cry.”

Too late.

I felt everything I had been holding back since the final horn start to crack open.

My mother kept talking, gentler now. “Call me later when the world is a little less loud. I will let you go, I just needed to hear your voice.”

“Okay,” I managed.

“Say hello to the Captain for me.”

I looked at him.

He was already watching me like he knew what I was about to say before I said it.

I covered the phone for a second and whispered, “My mom says hello.”

He smiled softly.

My mother said one more teary, happy goodbye and hung up.

The room fell silent in the kind of way that leaves too much room for whatever comes next.

I stared at the phone in my hand.

Then at Torin.

Then I laughed once, but it came out broken.

That was the end of it.

The whole thing; the championship, the season, the years of trying to be somebody who held it together with too much pressure and too little time. The second my mother cried into the phone, I felt the rest of it catch up to me all at once.

I looked down because I could not keep my face steady.

Torin moved first.

He crossed the small space between us and pulled me into him before I could do anything else. His arms wrapped around me and he held me tightly enough that the breath I had been losing finally came apart in a shaky exhale.

I broke.

My shoulders shook once and then again, and I hated that I could not stop it. I hated that the tears came too fast, I hated that I had made it through the biggest game of my life and could not get through a mother’s happy tears without falling apart.

Torin did not let go.

He just held me.

“It is okay,” he said quietly.

I shook my head against him because it was not just okay and we both knew it.

He kissed the top of my head once, then again, slower. “Cassian.”

I could not answer.

He tightened his hold on me. “You do not have to hold any of it by yourself now.”

I let out a rough breath and pressed my face into his shoulder because I did not know what else to do with all the feeling in my chest.

Torin’s fingers moved through my hair, and the gesture made the room feel smaller and safer at the same time.

The phones kept buzzing on the nightstand.

Neither of us touched them.

He held me there while I cried, and he did not say anything stupid or rushed or eager to fix it. He just stayed, that was what undid me most.

Not the title.

Not the messages.

Not the media waiting to tear into our faces before noon.

Just Torin holding me in the aftermath and letting me fall apart without ever making me feel like I was too much to carry.

I breathed in against his shoulder and felt his hand settle at the back of my head, steady and warm.