apology to readers.

Hello guys! Author here! I'm so sorry about the last chapter. I would love to launch into an explanation of why that happened but the words count for "authors notes" is very limited. (But it's a honest mistake.)

It won't happen again and to show I'm really sorry.

I'm making the next chapter free and adding it to this note.

so here.

Championship Season.

Dorian's P.O.V

DORIAN

Three weeks later

I shoved the door open with my shoulder, the tiny bell jingling in that annoying, rusty way it always did. The strip mall lights outside cast long shadows across the linoleum floor. Everything smelled like synthetic pine and warm plastic—exactly like a place that sold discount dish soap and almost expired soda should.

At the front desk, Susie didn’t even look up. Her eyes were glued to the little TV mounted up in the corner like a shrine. Snorting at the reindeer jacket she had on--please it looked absolutely ridiculous --I blinked, pausing halfway into the store. That was me on the screen, lifting the championship cup. My mouth was wide in a roar, jersey soaked in sweat and beer as the team piled around me like wolves.

A banner flashed below the screen and it read; "Bridgewater University stuns the nation with Frozen Four and Championship title as Dorian Hayes leads his team to glory after their captain and center quitted just a few days to the Nationals.

That caption was surprisingly very accurate.

“Seriously?” I muttered, cocking an eyebrow at her.

Susie finally glanced at me, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms. “You’re late.”

“Coach told me to wait behind,” I said, dumping my bag on the floor behind the counter and stretching my sore shoulder. It popped with a familiar crunch.

She tilted her head at me, her expression shifting slightly as pity edged into the corners of her mouth. “Another AHL scout?”

I deadpanned, holding the expression in place just long enough to make her even more disappointed. Then my lips curled into a slow grin.

“Actually, no,” I said. “It was an NHL scout actually..”

Her mouth dropped open and she blinked. "Shut up."

"I'm serious. He's from the Minnesota Wild."

“No,” she whispered, like she was afraid if she said it louder, it might vanish.

“Yup,” I popped the p. “I’m not shitting you.”

A really loud squeal escaped her and before I could dodge, zhe leapt over the desk like a lunatic and flung herself at me, arms tight around my neck, nearly knocking me back into the shitty display of knockoff gum.

“Dorian! Holy shit! You—you—are going to the NHL?” Her voice cracked with disbelief. “I’m so freaking proud of you, you asshole!”

I grinned against her shoulder, a lump forming in my throat as I realized Susie was the first person I'd told.

“Calm down,” I finally muttered, pulling away. “It’s not official yet. I still have a year of uni left, and they’ve got roster concerns, some stuff to sort out first. But on the bright side, they wanna see how I'll hold up at the summer training camp next year with some of the All-stars. I'll be training with the likes of Ryan Hartman, Jonas Brodin, even Kaprizov.”

Her jaw dropped again and it was so comical that I burst out laughing. “Are you freaking—Dorian!”

“I know, I know,” I said, laughing as I ran a hand through my hair. “Just don’t jinx it, okay?”

“Jinx it? Nah fuck that. We are celebrating this shit right now.”

"Uh, but I gotta work..." I said as I made a move toward the back, but she was already flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED and marching toward the back like a woman possessed.

“Susie—”

She was shutting off the store’s sad excuse of a surveillance camera. “In case Mr. Harris decides to play Big Brother. Like he doesn’t already know we drink beer behind the detergent aisle.”

Two minutes later, we were sitting on the cold linoleum with our backs against the candy rack, clinking warm bottles of beer together while the game played in the background. My game.

I watched myself on the screen and for a moment, I wasn't really sure it was me playing on the team for the Frozen Four after Noah quit and walked out, leaving me to hold the weight of the entire goddamn team at his departure.

I remembered everything. We made it past the first semi-finals by a thread. And when the final game against Boston College kicked off, I didn't sleep for two nights practicing my ass off because everything was riding on me.

The Boston tigers were so seasoned I thought perhaps we needed a hockey lesson from them, but the absence of Noah seemed to inject the team with a virus and screeched with the need to win by every fucking means.

I scored the first goal. Then I assisted the second, taking a hot so hard I thought my ribs were done for but after I sucked in breaths, I realize I was good to go and I waved a thumb up at Coach to tell him.

The second and third period even more heated. We lost two goals to the Boston tigers, trying us 3-3.

When the puck shot out to me with twelve seconds left on the clock, I faked left, confusing their center who was coming right for me and once I distracted him enough, I dragged right and flipped that bastard puck right over the goalie's shoulder.

Game!

My knees gave out as the horn blared.

The roar of the crowd nearly broke the arena open.

Susie's gasp yanked me from my path down memory lane and I glanced back at the screen to see that I'd just won that last goal and I threw down my stick, letting my team mates pile on top of me as they yelled in celebration. Susie turned to me, breathless then. “Dorian… that move. That was insane. You were like—like some kind of god.”

I smirked and tipped the bottle back, taking a long swig. “Not a god. Just pissed off and tired.”

She snorted. “Well, it worked.”

The screen faded to the team lifting the cup again. This time, I was smiling, but even I could tell—something... Rather someone was missing in that picture. I remembered the hollow feeling in my chest that quickly spread into an ache. All because Noah wasn't there.

He was the reason I started playing like a man possessed in that last period. He was the reason I wanted that trophy in the first place. I've never needed a golden object to understand my own worth and how skilled I was at hockey. But all the time I'd spent with Noah, I knew he wanted it so bad and I wanted to win it for him. For us.

Maybe some part of me thought it would fix everything. That even if he didn't come to watch me play, he'd see me on TV, lifting that cup and blowing a kiss at one of the cameras that came close to me. And he'd understand and then he'd text me and everything will be fine once again.

Reading the look on my face, Susie turned the TV off. Static buzzed for a second and then there was nothing but silence as we both drank our cold beers.

“You gonna tell her?” she asked quietly, breaking the silence.

I knew who she meant.

My mom. Recently, I opened up to Susie about a couple of thing when I was hurting and just missing Noah so much.

As the question rattled around in my head, I was trying to assess if it pissed me off but surprisingly, her concern wasn't a total turn off.

Sighting, I leaned my head back against the rack of sour gummies, tilting my face up. The ceiling was cracked in the corner, same as it’d always been.

“No.” I finally responded.

She didn't say anything in response to that and went silent for another few seconds. But her voice was gentler when she spoke again.

“You know you don’t have to pretend with me… It’s okay if it still hurts. The Noah thing.”

I froze, beer bottle halfway to my lips. The mere mention of his name sent a pang through my chest.

Then I drained the rest in one long, angry gulp.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said finally.

She raised an eyebrow. "Have you tried reaching out to him?"

I scoffed running a hand through my hair. “It’s been three weeks, Susie. The seniors have moved on, finals are over, holiday break started. I tried.”

Susie didn’t interrupt.

I set the bottle down with a quiet clink. “I tried so much it had to be disgusting at the point. I've texted him on every social media he was on. I've called him multiple times but he never responded. One would that was enough to deter me right? But no. I went to the frat house but his room there had been cleaned out. Some of the guys said he moved out, and all I could think was, he didn’t even leave a damn word for me.”

My chest tightening, I stared at the floor noticing the scuff marks and cheap tile.

“Still I didn't give up. I went to his apartment too and it was locked up tight. Like he’d never lived there at all. If he wanted to cut me out, he did a damn good job.”

After I stopped talking, Susie looked at me, concern etched on her face. “You’re such a dumbass.”

I blinked at her. “Uh... thanks?”

“You looked everywhere but the most obvious place.”

“What—his ass?”

“Noah’s family house, Dorian.”

My mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again. “No way. That man disowned him.”

Susie gave me a flat look. “He’s still a rich kid. You think those people actually throw their blood out on the curb? Nah. They just move them to the east wing and pretend they don’t exist. You know the way there's right?.”

"Yeah, but." I swallowed hard as my heart began pounding in excitement. “I’m not just gonna show up like—like some desperate ex.”

Susie snorted.“But you are a desperate ex.”

I glared.

She stood up, brushing off her jeans. “You want closure? Or are you gonna keep pretending it doesn’t matter while secretly watching his old I*******m stories?”

“I don’t—”

“You do. Now shut up and take my car.”

I stared at her, shocked to my marrow. Susie was the only woman I've met who treated her car like her first born kid. Now she was holding out fucking keys to me, jingling them like a threat.

“Just be careful with her,” she said. “Janie is sensitive.”

Yeah she named her car Janie. I took the keys slowly. They were cold in my hand.

She smiled like she knew exactly what the hell she’d just started.

And maybe she did.

Because as I stood in that shitty convenience store, heart pounding and ears ringing, I realized—

I wasn’t over him.

Not even close.