All Chapters of Frozen Submission (M*M)Romance: Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

217 Chapters

old injury returns

**Chapter 204: Old Injury Returns**BrooksThe ambulance lights painted our quiet Portland street in flashing red and blue. I stood on the front porch in sweatpants and a hoodie, heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, while the paramedics loaded Callan into the back of the rig. He was conscious but pale, his face tight with pain every time he tried to breathe too deeply.“I’m riding with him,” I told the lead paramedic, my voice surprisingly steady. Years of crisis—flatlines, seizures, panic attacks—had taught me how to function even when terror threatened to swallow me whole.Callan reached for my hand as I climbed in beside him. His grip was weaker than I liked, but he was still squeezing back. “Sorry… for scaring you,” he rasped.“Don’t you dare apologize.” I brushed damp hair off his forehead. “Just breathe. Slow and easy. I’ve got you.”The ride to the hospital blurred into a haze of monitors beeping, IV lines, and the paramedics asking questions about his medical

surgery risk

**Chapter 205: Surgery Risks**BrooksThe waiting room smelled like burnt coffee and antiseptic despair. I had been sitting in the same vinyl chair for six hours and seventeen minutes, my body stiff, my mind a hurricane of memories and prayers. Our three children surrounded me like a shield—Ellie on my left, Liam on my right, and Sophie curled in my lap despite being eight and increasingly convinced she was too old for such things. None of us had moved much. The surgery had been scheduled for eight hours. We were now approaching hour seven.Callan was under the knife.The man who had once screamed my name while I flatlined was now fighting his own battle on an operating table, his body finally demanding payment for fifteen years of carrying us both through hell.I closed my eyes and let the memories wash over me.Fifteen years.From that first terrifying night in the hotel room where everything was taken by force, to the quiet wedding with only our closest friends, to the NICU nights

memory Gap

**Chapter 206: Memory Gap**BrooksThe first week after Callan’s surgery was the hardest thing I’d ever done.Harder than flatlining. Harder than standing up to my father in court. Harder than writing *Full Circle* and baring our souls to the world.Because this time, I wasn’t the one who had lost pieces of myself. Callan had. And watching the man I loved struggle to remember our life together felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed.He was moved out of the ICU after forty-eight hours, but the memory gap remained—a clean five-year slice missing from his mind. He remembered the syndicate, the link, the court cases, the book, even our decision to move to Portland. But everything after that—our marriage details, Sophie’s adoption, Liam’s growth into a serious goalie, Ellie’s teenage years, much of our day-to-day love—was fragmented or gone.The doctors called it retrograde amnesia, likely triggered by anesthesia, surgical trauma, and the long-term effects of the old

Still choose you

**Chapter 207: Still Choose You**BrooksThe hospital released Callan after seventeen days. He came home to a house that had been transformed by love and nervous energy. The kids had made banners. Ellie baked (mostly) edible cookies. Liam cleared the backyard rink of early snow so it would be ready when his papa could skate again. Sophie drew dozens of “Welcome Home Papa” pictures that we taped everywhere.I stood on the front porch watching Callan carefully navigate the walkway with his cane. His left shoulder was still heavily braced, but he moved with determination. The man who had once dominated NHL ice now walked like every step required calculation. My chest ached with a mixture of pride and protective fury at the world for doing this to him.“Easy,” I said, slipping an arm around his waist. “We’ve got time.”Callan leaned into me slightly—something he rarely did. “I hate this.”“I know. But you’re home. That’s what matters.”The first week home was tender and strange. Callan’s

legacy

**Chapter 208: Legacy**BrooksThe Chicago Thunder arena smelled exactly the same.Ice. Sweat. Popcorn. History.Fifteen years after everything had nearly destroyed us here, I stood behind the bench in a coach’s suit, watching my son warm up in net for his first NHL game. Liam Callahan. Number 33. Goalie. Six-foot-three of talent, heart, and the kind of quiet determination that reminded me of Callan on his best days.I was officially his goalie coach.The Thunder had made the offer impossible to refuse: a package deal. Liam on the ice. Me behind the bench. Callan as special assistant coach focusing on team culture and leadership. We’d sold the Portland house. Moved back to the city where our story began. Full circle in the most terrifying and beautiful way possible.“You good?” Callan asked quietly, stepping up beside me. His left shoulder still ached in the cold, but months of dedicated rehab had given him back most of his mobility. He looked sharp in his suit, silver threading throu

Breaking the circle

**Chapter 209: Breaking the Cycle**BrooksThe panic attack in the arena hallway left me hollowed out.Callan got me home that night while the kids stayed with friends. Liam had wanted to come with us, but Callan gently told him to celebrate with the team. “Your dads are proud of you. Go be twenty-two for a night. We’ll talk tomorrow.”Our new Chicago apartment felt both foreign and painfully familiar. The same city. Different life. I sat on the edge of our bed in the dark, still in my coach’s suit, hands trembling in my lap. Callan knelt in front of me—careful of his healing shoulder—and took both my hands in his.“Look at me, baby.”I did. His eyes were steady, that quiet dominant calm I had relied on for fifteen years wrapping around my fracturing mind.“You had a panic attack,” he said simply. “It makes sense. This building. Liam on the ice. The ghosts are loud here. But you got through the game. You coached. You showed up for our son.”“I almost fell apart on the bench,” I whispe

full circle

**Chapter 210: Full Circle**BrooksI accepted the position the following Monday.Head Goaltending Coach for the Chicago Thunder.The press conference was surreal. Cameras flashed as I stood at the podium in the same arena where I had once nearly broken. Callan stood off to the side, proud and steady, his hand occasionally brushing mine when no one was looking. Liam sat in the front row in his practice jersey, grinning like he’d won the lottery.“This city holds a lot of history for my family,” I told the gathered reporters. “Some of it painful. Most of it beautiful now. I’m not here to run from the past. I’m here to build something better—for the players, for the next generation, and for my own kids.”The questions came fast and sharp. Many about our scandal. About the book. About what it meant for a father to coach his son. I answered honestly but firmly. No more hiding. No more shame.That night, Callan and I stood alone in the empty arena after everyone had gone home. The ice glow

The New Rookie

**Chapter 211: The New Rookie**BrooksMarcus Reeves became my shadow.The twenty-three-year-old rookie goalie followed me around the practice facility like a nervous puppy with too much talent and not enough armor. He showed up early for every optional skate. Stayed late after every practice. Asked questions with the kind of desperate hunger I recognized all too well from my own early days.“Coach, what do you do when your brain gets too loud before a game?” he asked one morning while we worked on edge control drills.I stopped him mid-skate and leaned on my stick. “You name it. You say, ‘This is anxiety. It’s loud, but it’s not truth.’ Then you do the breathing I showed you. Four seconds in. Hold four. Six seconds out. You don’t fight the feeling. You let it pass through.”He nodded vigorously, helmet tucked under his arm. His eyes were the same wide, scared eyes I used to see in the mirror fifteen years ago.I saw so much of myself in Marcus. The anxiety. The fear of not being enou

Honest mentor

**Chapter 212: Honest Mentor**BrooksMarcus found me in my office two days after his first start.He closed the door behind him and stood there, shifting his weight like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The young goalie who had once reminded me so much of my younger self now looked like he hadn’t slept in days.“Coach… can we talk? For real this time?”I gestured to the chair across from my desk. “Always. Sit down.”He sat, but he couldn’t stay still. His hands twisted in his lap. “I read more. The full book. The interviews. The court documents that got leaked. All of it. The drugs. The link. The way they forced you and Coach Callan together. Your dad…” He swallowed hard. “Was it really that bad?”I leaned back in my chair and looked at him honestly.“Yes. It was worse than the book even made it sound. They pumped me full of experimental drugs that created a chemical link between my mind and Callan’s. I could feel what he felt. He could feel what I felt. They

Aging together

**Chapter 213: Aging Together**BrooksThe arthritis diagnosis hit Callan harder than he wanted to admit.At first, he tried to power through it the way he always had—early morning PT sessions, careful stretching, pushing through the stiffness like it was just another opponent to beat. But his body was keeping score now. The years of NHL punishment, the experimental drugs from the syndicate, and simple time had finally caught up.I watched him one morning in our kitchen, wincing as he reached for a mug on the top shelf. His left shoulder—the one that had been surgically repaired—moved with visible effort. The knuckles on both hands were slightly swollen.“Let me get that,” I said softly, stepping behind him and grabbing the mug.He didn’t argue. That alone told me how much pain he was in.We adjusted.Mornings became slower. Callan started taking anti-inflammatory medication and working with a specialist on joint preservation. I took over more of the household tasks without making it

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