Page 39 of Powder
“Love is love, Tian.”
I groaned. “Love doesn’t fix everything, though, Mom. If I keep going, that means years of distance. What if he gives up on me and wants me to quit? And if I walked away…”
Her eyes softened, that quiet strength in them that had steadied me a hundred times before. “Has Jack asked you to stop snowboarding?”
“No.” I was horrified. “He wouldn’t.”
“Is he the kind of man who would ever want you to give up on your dreams?”
“Of course not,” I said. The truth of it landed heavy in my chest.
“Then why are you even asking the question?” she asked in her gentle, patient way. “You can love him and still have your career. He’ll understand that because therightperson always does.”
“Ready?” Dad asked from the door, tray laden with popcorn and drinks.
Mom caught my gaze. “Love isn’t always easy, and long-distance might suck, but it will all work out in the end.”
“She’s right,” Dad added, and made his way to his chair, the same old La-Z-Boy he’d owned forever. Mom always moaned about it sitting there in her otherwise pristine front room, but she never once made him move it. It was like their marriage—full of give and take, of accepting each other, and loving what the other wanted. Watching them, I realized I wanted that kind of love for myself.
I would work for it.
The coverage of the game against Philly started, and I stared at Jack the entire time during warmups. Watching him stretch, bend, fuck, he was pretty—his sandy-ginger hair all tousled, his smile wide and unguarded. When they rolled the Olympic highlights across the Jumbotron, I got so emotional I had to wipe away tears. That wasmyman.
And then they handed him the microphone.
Jack cleared his throat, shifting his weight from one skate to the other, but his voice carried steady across the arena. “Hockey has been my life since I was a kid skating on frozen ponds in Pennsylvania. This medal… it isn’t just mine. It belongs to my teammates, to the coaches who believed in me, to the fans who filled every rink with noise and heart, to my family who sacrificed so much. I’m just a piece of something bigger, and I’m humbled to stand here with it.”
He paused, scanning the crowd, and I swore for a second his gaze found mine even through the camera. His voice softened. “And there’s someone out there who knows exactly how much this means to me. Tian-Lei, you’ve given me something I didn’t even know I needed, and I carried you with me every second on the ice in Italy. This”—he tapped the medal draped around his neck—“is as much yours as it is mine.”
The arena roared, but my world narrowed down to him, his words. My chest ached with pride and love so fierce it stole my breath. That was Jack, my Jack, baring his soul to the world and somehow making it feel like it was just the two of us.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom said and tugged me close. “It will all work out.”
As we watched the game, I ran a hundred scenarios through my head in every break and timeout. Philly and the Railers were evenly matched, every shift a grind, and Jack didn’t log as much ice time as usual—probably aching and exhausted from Italy—but even from the bench he never stopped being captain, never stopped barking encouragement and steadying his team. He was beautiful, and he was mine, and I had to figure out a way to make this work.
Could I move closer to him for a year? Harrisburg wasn’t the backend of the world. I could rent a place near the rink, train out of a local facility, maybe split my mountain time between Colorado and Vermont. Abel could travel in, or we could do virtual check-ins for conditioning. I could chase the circuit from the East Coast, flying out for comps, still rack up points while being near Jack. The fear came when I thought about what happened after—after his contract ended. Where would we be then? But every time the Railers cleared the puck or Jack leaned into a hit, I told myself I’d deal with later… later. Right now, it was about closing the miles between us.
In the second break, with the Railers and Philly tied at one goal each, I slipped upstairs to my old room. Mom and Dad had kept it pretty much the same—posters still on the wall, the old quilt on the bed—but there was a desk in the corner now where Mom did her crafting, tidy stacks of fabric and half-finished cards spread out. I sat on the edge of the bed and called Abel.
“How would it work if I wanted to move away from Colorado?” I asked.
“What?”
“How would?—”
“I heard you,” Abel said. “Hang on, I’ll take this into the other room.” I heard movement, the swish of air, and then a door shutting. “If you’re talking Europe, Stubai has one of the biggest training centers?—”
“No,” I cut him off, heart pounding. “Pennsylvania.”
“The what now?”
“Harrisburg to be exact.”
There was silence on the other end. “You had all those sponsor meetings, T, shit… Is this you retiring?”
“No. Fuck… no. I don’t think so.” I rubbed at my face. “Tell me how I can make this work.”
“Harrisburg,” he pondered. “Home to the Railers and Jack O’Leary?”
