I don’t pay much attention to the route I take. I know where he lives, and I’m familiar enough with the Denver streets by now that before I know it, I’m standing outside the door of the new place he recently moved into with Violet, my knuckles rapping against the wood.

I work my jaw, scrubbing a hand through my hair as I wait.

“Declan?” Sawyer’s eyebrows shoot up when he opens the door and sees me, and his head snaps back a little as he registers the look on my face. I have no idea what he sees in my expression, but I probably look like a fucking zombie. “Shit, are you okay? Come on in.”

He leads me inside, and I collapse onto his couch, the cushions sagging beneath my weight. The familiar surroundings—Sawyer’s hockey memorabilia on the walls, the comfortable furniture, the faint smell of whatever he cooked for dinner—only highlight how unmoored I feel. The maelstrom of emotions finally breaks free, the dam inside me crumbling.

The story pours out of me in painful, halting sentences. I tell him about how I found Hannah alone in her apartment after she’d obviously been crying, about her insistence on ending things, and about my gut-twisting sense that something else is going on that she won’t share. My voice breaks multiple times, and I have to stop, breathe, and force myself to continue each time. Telling the story, even to a friend like Sawyer, is like reliving every excruciating moment.

My teammate listens without interrupting as I spill my guts, his brows furrowed and his expression serious as he sits across from me with his elbows braced on his knees. When I finally fall silent, emotionally spent, he leans back in his chair.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, man. I know this feels like the end of the world,” he says, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “But don’t lose hope. I have a feeling Hannah is going to come around.”

I look up, my fingers gripping the edge of the couch cushion. “Why would you think that?”

“Because she was crying too.” Sawyer shrugs, shaking his head as he gives me an empathetic smile. “When someone breaks things off because they genuinely don’t want to be with you anymore, they don’t fall apart when they’re doing it. They might feel guilty, but they don’t shatter. What you just described? That’s someone who’s hurting just as much as you are.”

“He’s right,” a soft voice adds.

Sawyer’s fiancée Violet enters the room as she speaks, with Jake trailing behind her. The little boy gives me a curious look before settling into an armchair with a handheld game. Violet gives me a sympathetic pat on the arm before she sits on the armrest of the chair Sawyer is in, her hand draping easily around his shoulder.