Chapter Text
Shane’s vision starts to blur at the edges.
Not much. Just enough that the lights in the ballroom begin to halo slightly, the sharp edges of the room softening into something indistinct.
Too many people.
Too many voices layered over one another, each one demanding his attention. Laughter. Glasses clinking. Someone calls his name from somewhere behind him. A donor explaining something loudly about investment portfolios like that’s a thing Shane should have useful opinions on. A teammate a few feet away laughing obnoxiously, very obviously more than a little intoxicated. Music humming somewhere under all of it.
None of it separates cleanly.
It should. Sound is supposed to have edges. One voice, then another. One sound in the foreground, everything else behind it. Instead, it all stacks together until the noise becomes a single, dense mass pressing in on him from every side.
People keep talking to him.
All at the same time.
A donor on his left asks him a question about his expectations for the second half of the season. Before Shane can finish processing the question – not answering it, just processing it – someone on his right is already speaking, asking if he’s enjoying the weekend. Then another voice behind him jumps in with a comment about the charity game tomorrow.
The Open Ice Foundation charity game.
That part, at least, makes sense.
Open Ice funds youth programs across the country. Equipment, ice time, and coaching for kids who would never otherwise get the chance to play. Kids whose families can’t afford the gear, or the rink fees, or the travel.
Kids who might never step onto the ice at all if someone didn’t make space for them.
The game tomorrow will be worth it.
The kids always are.
Because hockey makes sense.
It always has.
The ice has lines. Rules. Movement that follows patterns you can learn if you pay attention long enough. Position, timing, angles. Things that behave the way they’re supposed to behave.
Shane understands that.
The world off the ice?
Shane never understands that.
And if there are kids out there like him, kids who feel like everything else around them is noise and shifting expectations and rules no one bothered to explain?
Then he wants them to have something that makes sense, too.
Shane would play this charity game every year for the rest of his career if it meant even a handful of them got their first pair of skates. He’d happily give up a few of the winter break holiday days he could have spent with his family if it meant that.
He’s snapped back to the present when he starts to feel the attention of the whole cluster turning toward him. And all of them are waiting for him to respond as if there is an obvious order here, some natural social sequence everyone else can see and he somehow keeps missing.
Three conversations.
Three separate expectations.
And they’re all slightly different.
Three chances to get it wrong.
His brain tries to sort them.
Okay. Left spoke first. That should matter. First question, first answer. That is how conversations are supposed to work, isn’t it? Except the man on his right is smiling at him now, the sort of fixed, pleasant smile that already expects a response, and the person behind him might be important because the people closest to Shane shifted when he started speaking, which usually means money or status or both, and those things matter at events like this whether Shane likes it or not.
Three conversations.
No.
Four now.
Because Hayden appears at the edge of the circle, an easy smile in place, leaning in with another comment and clearly expecting Shane to pick up the thread of whatever joke he’s trying to make.
Shane’s chest tightens.
He knows Hayden doesn’t mean anything by it. Hayden never does. He’s being friendly. Normal. Social. This is what people do at events like this. They overlap and interrupt and circle back and somehow no one else seems bothered by it.
He just… doesn’t understand.
Very few people actually do.
To Hayden, this is easy. Just talking. Just trading comments and reactions and letting the moment move wherever it wants.
To Shane, it feels like going to the grocery store without a list.
The thought arrives fully formed and absurdly specific, which is probably a bad sign, but it’s true.
No order.
No plan.
Just aisles stretching in every direction and people acting like that isn’t a problem.
Most people don’t think about it. They grab things as they remember them. Double back if they forget something. Wander. Pick up whatever sounds good at the moment. Change their minds halfway through and go back across the store because they suddenly decided they want something else for dinner.
But that doesn’t make any sense.
How did you plan your meals?
How did you know what you already had at home?
How did you know what you actually needed, as opposed to what just happened to catch your attention while you were standing under fluorescent lights with six different brands of the same thing staring back at you?
And if you didn’t know what you were getting, how did you know which sections to go to and which to bypass? How did you decide your route? How did you make sure you weren’t wasting time or forgetting something essential and then having to circle all the way back because now your whole plan was off?
You should move through the store in sections.
Produce first, because that’s right there when you walk in.
Or at least it is at the only grocery store he shops at.
That’s part of the reason he keeps going back to the same one. The layout never changes. Product to the left when you enter. Bakery to the right. Dry goods straight ahead. Refrigerated aisles along the back wall.
Predictable.
Reliable.
A place where the route always starts the same way.
Where he knows exactly where to begin.
No need for the bakery. Too much sugar. Too many carbs. Easy to skip.
Dry goods next. He never needs much there unless he’s low on something specific.
Personal care if necessary. Shampoo. Toothpaste. Replace what needs replacing.
Nothing in the freezer aisles unless it’s intentional.
Refrigerated goods last. Always last. Give them as little time as possible to get warm before you get home.
A route.
A structure.
A routine.
Otherwise you’re just circling the store for no reason, backtracking past the same displays, losing track of what you’ve already grabbed, getting in everybody’s way while everyone else gets in yours.
And they always do.
Stopping in the middle of the aisle with their carts turned sideways.
Turning suddenly without looking.
Standing in front of the shelves while they stare at labels like the rest of the world has nowhere else to be.
Pure chaos.
A hand lands on his shoulder and Shane nearly flinches out of his skin as the ballroom rushes back into focus all at once.
Right.
He is here.
Still here.
Still trapped in the center of four overlapping conversations, each one waiting for him to respond like there’s an obvious order he’s somehow failing to see.
The donor on his left is watching him expectantly.
The one of his right is already halfway through another question.
The man just barely behind him has that patient, polite expression people use when they’re used to being acknowledged first.
And Hayden…
Hayden is looking directly at him now, waiting for him to pick up the joke he started a second ago.
Four directions.
Four expectations.
The donor on his left wants enthusiasm about the season, but the one on his right wants Shane’s charm. The man behind him probably wants gratitude for his donation. Hayden just wants Shane to laugh at his joke.
And the worst part is that none of those expectations are wrong. But they are all different versions of the same thing.
Everyone wants something from him.
And none of them want the same Shane.
Shane’s brain tries to find the route again.
Left spoke first, except the pause has already gone too long. Right is closest, but the man behind him might be the biggest donor in the room. And Hayden will notice if he ignores him. Not in a judgmental way. That would almost be easier. Just confusion. Mild concern. A crease between his eyebrows. A “you okay?” later, when they're alone, asked with genuine kindness Shane won’t know how to answer.
Questions Shane doesn’t want.
Answers he doesn’t have.
Sponsors want confidence.
Donors want gratitude.
Fans want accessibility.
Teammates want easy camaraderie.
The foundation wants him to be the face that convinces people the cause matters.
All of it makes sense.
Individually.
But all at once…
His brain snaps back into the present, trying to find the path through the chaos. Answer the first question, then pivot to the second, then acknowledge the third, then smile at Hayden so he doesn’t think he’s being dismissed. That should work. It sounds like it should work. It would probably work if everyone would stop adding new information for five seconds.
But the order keeps shifting.
Someone interrupts.
Someone laughs.
Someone adds another comment before Shane has finished processing the first one, and now the words are tangling together in his head. He can feel himself getting half a beat behind. Then a full beat. Then more. And the worst part is that he knows enough to know it’s happening, which means he also knows other people might be starting to notice.
The voices overlap again, and this time they don’t even sound like separate conversations anymore.
Just noise.
Shane grabs the first question he can still remember and answers too fast, brightness forced into his voice because it has to sound natural, it has to sound easy, it has to sound like he isn’t standing here actively drowning.
“The second half of the season should be good,” he says. “We’ve been working really hard and–”
Then the space after his words opens up.
Too quiet.
Not the good kind of quiet. Not relief. The wrong kind. The kind that means something has gone off-script.
The donor on his left blinks at him.
“That’s… great,” the man says slowly. “But I asked if you were enjoying the weekend.”
For a second Shane actually stops breathing.
Heat floods his face so quickly it feels chemical.
Wrong question.
Of course it was the wrong question.
Because he’d held onto the first one instead of the most recent one, which maybe was stupid, except if he answered the most recent one first that would have been rude too, wouldn’t it have? Unless that was the correct choice socially because the donor on the right was the one directly facing him when he asked it, or because the pause had already gone on too long, or because maybe there had never been a correct answer here to begin with and everyone else just knows how to fake it better.
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. I just–”
Someone chuckles.
Not cruel.
That almost makes it worse.
If it were cruel, at least it would be clear. Anger is clear. Meanness is clear. Amusement is slippery. Amusement means maybe it was harmless, maybe it was noticeable, maybe everyone is being polite about the fact that he’s acting weird, maybe…
Hayden tilts his head slightly.
There it is.
The faint crease between his eyebrows.
Concern. Confusion. The beginning of noticing.
Shane’s stomach drops so hard it feels like missing a step in the dark.
He can feel it now: the exact moment the mask slips just enough for other people to see the crack in it. Not enough for them to understand. Just enough for them to know something is off.
The donor on his right says something else, probably trying to smooth it over, maybe about the charity game, maybe about tomorrow’s skate, but Shane can’t make the words stick. They hit his ears and slide off again before his brain can hold onto them.
The noise is louder now.
Closer.
The room feels hotter.
Another hand lands on his shoulder.
Too much.
Shane smiles automatically and nods like he understood whatever was just said.
He didn’t.
And that – more than the wrong answer, more than the chuckle, more than Hayden’s expression – is the moment he knows he has to leave.
Now.
Before it gets worse.