Page 87 of Captain's Claim

My eyes narrow as realization hits. "Eli."

She nods, grinning wide now. "Eli."

My eyes keep darting between the cake, the whiskey, the decorations. The fucking balloons. Why are there so many damn balloons?

No one's ever done this for me before.

The pieces click into place - her suspicious behavior, those whispered conversations with Eli before the game, the weird looks they kept exchanging in the visitors box.

That 'favor' Eli mentioned in the locker room.

I sink onto the edge of the bed, my post-game high evaporating. My fingers thread through my hair as the weight of this moment settles over me.

The decorations, the cake, the whiskey - it's all too much.

"I don't celebrate my birthday," I mutter, staring at the floor.

Sophia lowers herself next to me. "I figured that much out already. Why?"

A humorless laugh escapes my throat. I try to shake it off, but Sophia just looks at me like she's not going to let me get away without telling her.

"Because the last birthday I celebrated... was the day before my dad walked out on us."

Sophia goes still beside me. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t push, just watches me.

"I was ten," I continue, unable to look at her. "One day, he was there… laughing, watching my hockey games, calling me his 'champ'. Then the next, he was just... gone."

The old wound throbs, even after all these years.

"He didn’t even say goodbye," I choke out, the words thick in my throat. "No warning. No fight with Mom, no slow unraveling.Just an empty chair at the dinner table and a closet missing half its clothes."

I force a laugh as I shake my head, recalling endless night of mom crying in her bedroom.

"I remember thinking, maybe he was coming back. Maybe there was an explanation. A reason. That whole night, I sat by the window, waiting for his truck to pull back into the driveway."

I exhale hard, my jaw clenching. "But it never did."

"I stopped counting birthdays after that," I mutter, rubbing a hand over my face. "What was the point? The last one I had was the day before he left. Cake, candles, a brand-new stick he swore was going to make me the next Gretzky."

My throat tightens.

"Thatwas the memory he left me with. The last day I felt like I had a dad."

I swallow, staring at the floor.

"A week later, we got a bill in the mail. Maxed-out credit card, under my mom’s name. She hadn’t known. Had no clue he’d drained everything we had before disappearing. She was barely holding it together as it was, trying to keep a roof over our heads, and I—" I shake my head. "I took the stick and sold it. I just... stopped caring about birthdays after that. Stopped remembering."

"Blake, I'm so sorry," Sophia says, placing a warm hand on my shoulder. "I didn't know. Eli, he just-"

I force myself to meet her eyes. "You know what he did? You know Eli did that night?"

The memory flashes before my eyes. I can remember it exactly.

Sitting there in the cold of Iron Ridge's harshest winter, my too-big jersey swallowing me up, shivering and listening to the silence of the ice like it could tell me what the fuck I did wrong.

Sophia’s quiet, watching me, waiting.

"What did he do?" she finally asks, holding me.

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