My Hockey Heartthrob: A Promise in Overtime

Chapter Forty-Nine

The turning point with Richard comes unexpectedly, in early December, at a moment none of them could have planned for.

Adrian's club season has settled into its usual grinding rhythm, the Blackhawks fighting for playoff positioning through a difficult December schedule, and Mara has taken to attending home games regularly now, a season ticket in the family section that still feels, some nights, like a small miracle she hasn't fully gotten used to.

Richard is there too, more often than not — a habit Mara's noticed developing gradually over the past several weeks, though neither she nor Adrian has commented on it directly, both of them wary of disrupting something that seems, cautiously, to be moving in the right direction on its own.

It's during a particularly rough game, the Blackhawks down two goals in the third period, that Mara finds herself seated, by accident of scheduling, directly beside Richard for the first time since her return to Ashford — Eleanor called away by a last-minute charity obligation, leaving an awkward gap in the usual seating arrangement that neither of them anticipated.

They sit in stiff, careful silence for the first period intermission, both of them watching the ice rather than each other, until Richard, unprompted, breaks the quiet.

"He's playing angry tonight," he observes, nodding toward the ice, where Adrian's just taken a hard, borderline-clean hit without retaliating, jaw visibly tight even from the family section's distance. "He does that sometimes. Channels frustration into something more controlled than most people manage. I've never quite understood how he learned to do that so young."

"Practice, probably," Mara says, careful, unsure where the conversation is heading. "He's had a lot of frustration to learn to control, over the years."

Richard is quiet for a long moment, something working behind his composed exterior. "I know I'm part of the reason for that," he says, finally, his voice carrying none of its usual careful reserve. "I've known it for months now, if I'm honest. I just haven't known how to actually say it out loud, to you specifically. Eleanor's better at that kind of thing than I am. Emotional conversations were never really my strength."

"You don't have to say anything to me, if it's hard."

"I think I do, actually." He turns to look at her directly for the first time all evening, something raw and uncertain in his expression that Mara's never seen from him before. "I've spent five years telling myself the decision I pushed Adrian toward was defensible. Reasonable, even, given the actual threats we were dealing with. I've held onto that story because the alternative — actually sitting with what it cost you, what it cost both of you — felt like more than I knew how to carry."

Mara doesn't say anything, giving him space to continue, sensing that whatever's happening right now needs room to unfold on its own terms.

"I watched you tonight, actually, before I sat down," Richard continues. "Cheering for him. Genuinely, completely present for every shift, the way someone cheers for someone they love rather than someone performing an obligation. And I thought about the fact that you almost weren't here at all. That the decision I pushed for came within a hair's breadth of costing my son the actual love of his life, permanently, and I don't think I've ever let myself sit with how close that actually was."

"It was close," Mara says, quiet, honest. "Closer than I think even Adrian fully knows, some of it."

"I know." Richard's voice breaks slightly, an emotion Mara's never witnessed from him before cracking through his careful composure. "I know some of it, from what Adrian's told me, and I suspect there's more I don't know, and don't necessarily need to know. But I know enough to understand that I nearly cost my son everything that actually matters, chasing a version of protection that turned out to be its own kind of harm."

Mara sits with this for a long moment, watching a man she's spent months carefully, cautiously keeping at arm's length finally, genuinely reckoning with the weight of his own decisions. "Thank you for saying that," she says, finally. "I know it's not easy."

"It's not," Richard admits. "I don't think apologies come easily to me, generally. I've spent most of my life believing that competence and provision were the same thing as love, that if I kept my family safe and secure, the rest would take care of itself. I'm starting to understand that's not entirely true. Some things require more than competence. They require actually showing up, honestly, even when it's uncomfortable."

"That's a hard thing to learn."

"It is. I'm not sure I'm particularly good at it yet. But I'm trying, for what that's worth. Genuinely trying, not just performing an effort for Eleanor's sake or Adrian's sake." He looks back toward the ice, where Adrian's just set up a scoring chance with a beautifully patient pass. "I'd like to try harder, if you're willing to let me. I know I don't deserve immediate trust. I just want the chance to earn it, slowly, the way Adrian's apparently learned to do with you."

"I'd like that," Mara says, and finds, examining her own feelings honestly, that she means it. "I'm not looking for instant forgiveness, Richard. I don't think that would be honest, for either of us. But I'm willing to keep showing up, the way you're offering to. That feels like the right way to actually build something real."

They watch the rest of the game together in a quieter, more companionable silence than they've managed all season, Richard even allowing himself a genuine cheer when Adrian ties the game late in the third period, and by the time the Blackhawks pull out a hard-fought overtime win, something has shifted between them — not fully resolved, not a complete reconciliation, but a real, honest beginning where before there had only been careful, distant civility.

Mara tells Adrian about the conversation that night, watching his face move through surprise, then real emotion, as she recounts it.

"He said all that?" he asks, quiet, disbelieving. "My father? Actually said it, out loud, unprompted?"

"He did. It seemed to cost him something, saying it. But he said it."

Adrian is quiet for a long moment, processing. "I don't think I've ever heard him talk like that. Not to me, not to my mother, not to anyone, as far as I know. He's always been — competent. Controlled. Emotion was never really his register."

"Maybe it's becoming his register now," Mara offers, gentle. "Slowly. Late, but genuinely."

"I hope so." Adrian pulls her close, something hopeful and grateful in his expression. "I've spent so long not expecting anything real from him, emotionally. I don't quite know what to do with the possibility that he might actually be capable of it."

"You don't have to know what to do with it yet," Mara says. "You just have to keep showing up honestly, the same way we've both learned to do with each other. See what actually grows out of it."

"That sounds familiar," Adrian says, smiling, recognizing his own words echoed back to him.

"It's good advice. I got it from someone wise, once, in an airport bar." Mara smiles, thinking of Selene, of the whole complicated, hard-won family they've all built together out of the wreckage of a year none of them expected to survive, let alone thrive on the other side of.

Whatever comes next — Richard's slow reconciliation, Eleanor's continued effort, the wedding they're still, unhurriedly, planning toward — Mara feels, settling into the quiet warmth of Adrian's arms, genuinely, completely certain that they're building it on solid ground this time. Honest ground. Ground that's actually going to hold.