Chapter 150 The Fourteenth

Chapter 150 The Fourteenth
The news broke everywhere within hours, Carter's retirement announcement running across every sports channel Sofia had never bothered to follow before Tyler came into her life, and by the time he got home that evening her phone had already filled with messages from other hockey wives and girlfriends she'd slowly come to know over two seasons, all of them saying some version of the same thing: we knew this day would come, we're not ready, he's the best there's ever been.

She'd watched the press conference clip twice before Tyler got home, first alone in the kitchen and then again with Emma curled against her side, both of them quiet through Carter's short, careful speech. When the camera caught Tyler standing beside him, steady, saying his piece without a single wasted word, something swelled in Sofia's chest that caught her off guard- pride so sharp it nearly hurt, watching the man she'd married say something true in front of the entire country because someone he loved needed to hear it out loud.

Tyler found her at the kitchen table, phone finally set face down, and sat across from her, close enough that his knee pressed against hers under the table.

"How's Carter?" she asked.

"Lighter. He said that exact word. Lighter and scared, both at once." Tyler reached for her hand across the table, an old habit now, worn smooth with repetition. "I told the room what he meant to me. Didn't plan to say it in front of cameras, but it came out anyway."

"I watched it twice. I might watch it again tonight." She laced her fingers through his, thumb tracing the calluses along his palm, the small physical vocabulary that had become as familiar to her as her own hands. "You looked like a completely different man than the one I met in that hallway three years ago. I don't mean that as an insult to who you were then. I mean I got to watch someone become fully himself, and it happened close enough that I got to see nearly all of it."

"Had a good teacher." He turned his hand over so their palms met fully, and pulled it slowly up to press a kiss against her knuckles, unhurried, deliberate, the kind of small gesture that still made her breath catch even after two years of having it.

Emma came thundering in from her room a moment later, notebook already open. "Is Uncle Carter okay? The television said retiring like it was sad, but Avery told me once that endings can be the best part."

"He's okay," Tyler said, not letting go of Sofia's hand. "He's ready. Those aren't the same as sad, even though they can feel similar sometimes."

Emma considered this with the particular seriousness she reserved for questions that mattered, then wrote something careful in the notebook and closed it decisively. "I will send him a formal notice of appreciation. Ambassador Pearl will second it."

"He'd like that."

Once Emma had finally been persuaded to go to bed, Sofia poured two glasses of wine and found Tyler on the balcony instead of in the spare room this time. He was leaning against the railing, his tie already loosened, watching the last of the daylight cast an orange glow over the rooftops across the street.
She paused in the doorway a moment before joining him to look, the way she still sometimes let herself do when he didn't know she was watching. Two years married and she still felt a small private thrill at the ordinary sight of him waiting for her, tie undone, sleeves pushed up, exactly the kind of unremarkable evening she used to believe was reserved for other people's lives.

"Conference final starts in four days," he said, taking the glass she offered. "If we go the distance, the anniversary trip lands right against the schedule. Might be tight."

“I know. I’ve been watching the calendar too.” She stepped into the space beside him, close enough to feel the warmth of him through his shirt. “Do you remember what you wore the night we danced at the reception? Not the suit. The tie. You kept loosening it exactly like that all night, until Danny finally told you to take it off.”

"You remember my tie."

"I remember everything about that night. I could probably draw you a diagram of where every candle was placed if Harriet asked me to." She turned to face him fully, setting her glass down on the railing. "I keep thinking about that dance. How you counted under your breath for the first thirty seconds because you were terrified of stepping on my dress, and then you just stopped counting, and we were moving, and I remember thinking, right there, that I wanted a hundred more nights exactly like that one."

"You never told me you noticed the counting."

"You weren't as subtle as you thought." She smiled against his shoulder as he pulled her in, one hand settling warm at the small of her back. "I want to dance with you again in Cape Town. Somewhere on the sand, no music, just us being ridiculous at midnight the way we were that first time. I don't care if the flight lands us there with two days to spare or twelve hours, I want that dance again."

"Then we'll have it. Sand, no music, whatever hour we land." He tipped her chin up with two fingers, unhurried, and kissed her slowly, the balcony air cool around them and the city settling into its evening noise below, neither of them in any rush to let the moment end.

When they finally broke apart, Sofia rested her forehead against his, eyes still closed, feeling his breath mix with hers in the narrow space between them.

"Four days," she murmured. "Then however many more it takes. Then the beach."

"Then the beach," he agreed, and pulled her back in. For some time neither of them said anything else at all, the wine going warm and forgotten on the railing, the whole evening narrowing down to nothing but the two of them and the particular, unhurried luxury of having absolutely nowhere else they needed to be.

Somewhere below them, the street continued its ordinary rhythm, cars passing, laughter carrying upward, the distant sound of someone’s music drifting from an open window. Sofia let it all recede into the background, unimportant for the moment, as Tyler’s hand found the curve of her waist again and the kiss lingered, slow and certain. For a while, there was only the two of them on the balcony, four days and one championship away from a beach on the other side of the world.