CHAPTER THREE

Theodore

"Mom, I can hear you smiling through the phone."

"I'm not smiling."

"You're absolutely smiling."

She laughed and the sound of it loosened something in my chest that had been tight since the game and the locker room when a certain person's mouth had been within three inches of mine but I was not thinking about that.

"I'm just happy you're coming," she said. "It's been too long, Theo."

"I know. I'm sorry." And I meant it. Between the season and training and the general chaos of existing, I hadn't been home in ten months. Ten months while my mother had apparently been building an entire life with a man I'd never met. "Tell me about him again."

"I've told you about him."

"Tell me again. I'm driving."

She made a little sound in hesitation as she decided whether to indulge me. "His name is Douglas. He's kind. He makes me laugh." A pause. "He makes me feel safe, Theo."

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

Safe. She said it so simply, like it was a small thing. Like it hadn't taken her fifteen years after my father to be able to say that word about a man without flinching.

"Then I already like him," I said.

"Don't embarrass me."

"When have I ever embarrassed you?"

"Theodore James Callahan."

"That's not an answer, that's a threat."

She laughed again and we talked for another ten minutes about nothing important — her garden, the neighbors, whether I was eating properly, the standard maternal questions— and I drove through the afternoon with the window cracked and genuinely felt, for the first time in days, like a person who had his life in order.

Then my mind went quiet for two seconds and Elijah Voss walked right into the silence like he owned it.

I muttered something under my breath that my mother thankfully didn't catch.

One stupid peck and somehow he was living in the back of my head like he paid rent there. I had barely slept since that day because his words haunted me and I half expected him to randomly pop up. I'd spent three days waiting for a text, a call, some follow-up move, and nothing had come. I didn't know if that was better or worse.

My phone buzzed on the dash with a call and it was someone from my team. I picked it up.

"Ramos."

"Cap." Danny Ramos, my assistant captain. Dependable and nosy in equal measure. "You make it to your mom's yet?"

"Almost. What's up?"

"I heard something through the pipeline. Apparently Voss took off somewhere. Trip of some kind, nobody knows where."

I thought about that. "Who told you?"

"Briggs knows someone on their equipment staff." He paused. "You think he's scouting? League meetings?"

"I think it doesn't matter." Though I was already running through possibilities without meaning to. I can't have him ahead of me with the scouts. I'd have to form a plan once I get back to the city. "Stay out of his business and stay in the gym, Ramos. I want everyone to be sharp when I'm back."

"Yes sir." He said it in the tone that meant he was grinning. "Give your mom my love."

"Goodbye, Danny."

I hung up and exhaled and made myself focus on the road.

Voss went on a trip. Fine. Excellent. I hoped he stayed there.

****

My mother met me at the door before I'd even turned the engine off, which told me everything about how nervous she was. She looked good — really good. There was something more relaxed in her face than I remembered, like a tension she'd been carrying for so long it had become invisible had finally been set down somewhere.

I loved that for her. My deadbeat dad was finally losing his last shackles on her.

I hugged her properly and she held on for a second longer than usual before letting go.

"You need a haircut," she said into my shoulder.

"Hello to you too."

She pulled back and looked at me with that usual maternal scan that checked for signs of insufficient sleep, poor nutrition, and general life mismanagement, apparently found nothing worth addressing immediately, and nodded once.

"He's inside," she said. "Be good."

"I'm always good."

"Theo." She warned.

"I'll be good."

Douglas Voss was standing in the kitchen when we walked in and my first thought, genuinely, was just ‘okay’. He had a pretty decent look and aura. He put his hand out and looked me in the eye when he shook mine and I decided in the first fifteen seconds that whatever this was, it was real and he was a good person.

"Theodore," he said. "I've heard a great deal about you."

"Hopefully the good version."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Mostly."

My mother made a sound from behind me that I chose not to think much of.

Dinner was slightly awkward the way all first meetings were — the careful conversation, the getting-a-feel-for-each-other energy, everyone on their best behavior. But Douglas was easy to talk to in a way I hadn't quite expected. He asked about hockey with actual knowledge, not the performative interest of someone trying to impress me. He looked at my mother the way someone looks at something they're still grateful for.

Like she was the world to him.

My heart clenched. I loved that for him.

I relaxed somewhere around the second course.

There was something familiar about him that I couldn't place. Not his face exactly — something in the way he held himself maybe, the way he spoke. I turned it over a couple of times and got nowhere so I let it go.

Maybe I had seen him at seen randomly since his son plays hockey.

"My son should have been here by now," Douglas said, glancing at his phone with a slight frown. "His flight was delayed. He sends his apologies."

"It's fine," my mother said warmly. "He'll make it when he makes it."

"He will." Douglas smiled and the fondness in it was plain. "He always does."

"What does he do?" I asked, because it seemed like the right question.

"Hockey." Douglas glanced at me with a slight lift of his brow. "He is captain of his team, actually." Douglas smiled. "But I'll let him introduce himself. I've learned not to speak for him."

Captain. Hm. I wondered what team he was on.

My mother laughed at that and Douglas said something else and the conversation moved on from there. They were being lovey dovey, so I toned out but nodded once in a while.

Dessert came and went. Douglas's phone buzzed and he glanced at it with a small smile. "He's landed."

"Finally," my mother said warmly. "I'll put the extra plate out."

We moved to the living room. I sat. Douglas checked his phone once more and set it face down. “I have a feeling you two might know each other. I just hope you can be friends for the sake of your mother and di.” He said with a slight laugh.

I frowned. “What do you mean—”

Then the front door opened.

"Dad, I'm sorry — the connection in Atlanta was a nightmare, they had us sitting on the runway for forty minutes and my phone was at six percent—"

I stopped breathing.

That voice…

It was the exact one that had been haunting me for the past couple of days.

"In here, sweetheart," my mother called.

"Mrs. Callahan, something smells incredible, please tell me you saved me a—"

He walked through the doorway still pulling his jacket off one arm, mid-sentence, eyes down, and my mother said "of course we did" and moved toward him then he looked up.

His jacket stopped moving.

I stood up.

The chair scraped loud against the floor, making my mother turn at the sound while Douglas looked between us. The whole room fell silent.

Elijah Voss stood in my mother's living room doorway with his jacket hanging off one elbow and his face filled with shock as he stared at me.

That’s why Douglas had seemed so familiar, because he liked and talked like Elijah. Elijah's eyes went from me, to my mom, to his dad and finally back to me.

I opened my mouth.

He opened his.

"No fucking way.”