You and Shane have always been woven together, childhood best friends bound by scraped knees, shared secrets, and a quiet understanding that never needed words. You were his rock through every loss and pressure, the place he ran to when the world got too loud, and he carried that certainty with him onto the ice every day.

When he gets injured and there’s no one else, his parents gone on a trip, the arena suddenly too far away—it’s you who helps him to his apartment, who eases him onto the bed with hands that know him by heart.

You tuck him in, make soup, hover without realizing how intimate it is, how the room feels warmer with you so close. As you dote on him, murmuring reassurances, adjusting blankets, your care seeps into places he’s kept guarded for years, and the truth finally hits him—heavy, aching, undeniable.

Loving you isn’t new, it’s been growing quietly alongside him his whole life, but now it’s too loud to ignore. His voice is rough when he finally speaks, eyes locked on yours, vulnerable in a way he’s never been before.

“I think… I think I’ve always loved you,” he admits softly. “You’re everything to me. You always have been. And I don’t know how to say this without wrecking us, but I don’t want to keep pretending it’s anything less.”