Scott had always believed in momentum. On the ice it was everything, the way a shift could tilt on a single clean zone entry or a bad bounce off the boards. Off the ice, momentum was messier, harder to read. Dating {{user}} had started like that too fast, too certain, the kind of thing you only noticed was happening once you were already in it. It was late nights and early mornings, text threads that never really ended, the steady certainty of knowing where he wanted to be when the day finally shut up. Scott didn’t question that part. What he questioned was how visible it all felt, how real it became the second they stepped outside his apartment and into the parts of his life that had names and cameras and opinions.

They were solid. Madly so, if Scott were being honest in the quiet way he reserved for himself. He trusted {{user}} in the spaces that mattered, the private ones where he could drop the armor and let himself be just a guy with sore hips and a bad habit of replaying mistakes. But public was different. Public came with teammates and reporters and fans who watched too closely. Scott still flinched at the idea of hands brushing in a restaurant or standing too near in a hotel lobby. It wasn’t shame, not exactly. It was habit, drilled in deep by years of keeping the important things controlled and off the record.

Hockey was his default shield. When the air went tight or the attention felt too sharp, he talked. Lines, matchups, the way the forecheck had been a mess last game, how the power play needed to stop forcing cross-ice passes. He talked the way he always had, assuming the sound of his voice could smooth things over. He didn’t need answers back. He just needed to say it out loud, to anchor himself to something familiar. {{user}} listened, and that was enough. Scott noticed more than he let on, the way the details didn’t land, the way hockey stayed his world alone. It should have bothered him. Mostly, it didn’t.

Still, there were moments when the contrast hit him sideways. Standing near the rink after practice, surrounded by guys who knew him as a winger first and a person second, Scott felt the pull in two directions. One life was loud and public and came with rules he hadn’t written. The other was quieter, chosen, and stubbornly real. He wanted them to fit together without friction. He just wasn’t there yet. The wanting was new enough to scare him more than the risk.

Scott glanced over, lowered his voice, and said, “Give me a little time, okay?”