The Shots You Take
59 pages • 1-hour read
Rachel ReidThe Shots You Take
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Chapters 15-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, substance use, mental illness, antigay bias, and death.
Chapter 15 Summary
At Paula’s Diner, Adam buys coffee and cinnamon buns to bring to Tuck’s Sporting Goods for the reopening. A local named Seb invites him to watch hockey at the Dropped Anchor that evening. At the shop, Adam finds Riley overwhelmed by a customer named Cathy, who is organizing the minor hockey banquet that Harvey always hosted. When Cathy asks if Riley or Susan would take it on, Riley declines, but Adam volunteers to host. Adam spends the day at the shop attracting customers and signing merchandise. Later, he invites Riley to join him at the bar to watch the game.
Susan and Lindsay arrive at the shop. Lindsay pulls Riley aside to ask about Adam. Riley confesses he was in love with Adam for years, but that Adam didn’t love him back. Lindsay suggests Adam’s presence proves he cares, but Riley says it’s too late and he’s in no state for romance.
After closing, Riley returns home to find Adam emerging from the bathroom in a towel. Riley is visibly aroused, and Adam notices. Riley awkwardly announces he’s reheating lasagna for dinner.
Chapter 16 Summary
That evening, Riley decides to join Adam at the Dropped Anchor after Adam texts him a photo of their old jerseys hanging side by side. Inside, he’s quickly overwhelmed by condolences about Harvey. Adam rescues him, and they sit together to watch the game.
Adam reminisces about their on-ice partnership, calling it a perfect chemistry he never found again. Riley counters that it had deteriorated by the end. When the broadcast shows elite alumni in a luxury box, Riley learns that Adam was invited but chose to come to Avery River instead. Riley admits he wasn’t invited, blaming his breakdown and trade request for damaging his reputation in Dallas.
Adam reveals that he’s been worried about Riley for 12 years and wishes things could have been better for him. He then suggests Riley left Toronto because of Adam’s drunken mistake the night they won the Stanley Cup. Riley furiously tells Adam to stop and storms out.
Chapter 17 Summary
Riley drives home with Adam following in his rental car. In the driveway, Adam urges Riley to express his anger properly. Riley yells that his mental illness and unrequited love aren’t Adam’s fault, but a visibly devastated Adam insists Riley was his entire world and losing him was agonizing. Riley confronts Adam about sleeping with him after winning the Cup and then rejecting him immediately afterward.
Adam apologizes repeatedly, explaining that marrying a pregnant Maggie felt like a safe choice and a way to stop Riley from sacrificing his career. Riley scoffs, but Adam confesses he was also in love with Riley. Riley tells him to stop rewriting history, but Adam reiterates his feelings.
Overwhelmed, Riley retreats to his bedroom; Adam follows. Riley breaks down, and the moment turns tender. Adam takes Riley’s hand, and Riley kisses him.
Chapter 18 Summary
Riley kisses Adam with desperate intensity, backing him against a wall. Adam breaks the kiss, saying he wants to do things properly and won’t take advantage of Riley. Riley lets out an anguished cry and collapses to the floor. Adam rushes to comfort him, insisting he isn’t rejecting Riley but wants to earn what Riley is willing to offer.
Adam holds Riley tightly until he calms, then helps him onto the bed and retrieves a wet cloth from the bathroom. When Adam asks if Riley wants him to leave, Riley is uncertain but agrees when Adam says he wants to stay. Adam lies behind Riley on top of the covers, still fully clothed, and wraps an arm around him. Riley relaxes and quickly falls asleep. Adam feels that providing this comfort matters more than any physical intimacy.
Chapter 19 Summary
Riley wakes after a good night’s sleep and mulls over Adam’s love confession. On the back deck, he apologizes for the previous night and reveals his diagnoses of clinical depression and an emotional dysregulation disorder. Finally, he admits that he’s no longer sorry Adam is there and invites him to the farmer’s market.
At the market, Adam is delighted by the vendors. Riley introduces him to Bea, who sells honey with her wife Nell, and to Darren, who sells maple syrup with his husband Tom. Darren recognizes Adam from Riley’s stories and invites them both to a dinner party the following evening. Adam is eager to meet Riley’s friends, so Riley accepts.
Back in the truck, Riley mentions that he and Darren used to hook up but are now just friends. He drops Adam at the house before heading to work. They agree to talk more later, and Adam squeezes Riley’s shoulder goodbye, privately resolving to court him properly.
Chapter 20 Summary
Riley returns from work to find Adam has cooked fish chowder, bought flowers, and picked up his favorite pie. Riley realizes the domestic scene is his ultimate fantasy. A charged moment passes when Riley wipes cracker crumbs from Adam’s mouth, then retreats, overwhelmed.
Over dinner, Adam says he hopes for a chance to do things better between them. Riley admits he’s unsure if too much time has passed. They discuss Adam’s shoulder injury, and Riley regrets not calling when it happened. Adam confesses he thought about Riley constantly over the years, while Riley tried not to think of him at all.
Riley admits that Adam’s presence—and Adam being gay—frightens him. Adam shares that his parents mostly ignore his sexuality, and his brother doesn’t understand why he’d tell anyone, then shows Riley a list of pros and cons about coming out publicly. Riley helps him dismiss several concerns. Adam tentatively mentions his attempts at dating men and starting PrEP.
Later, Riley falls asleep on Adam’s shoulder during the hockey game. When he wakes, Adam hints that he’d like to share Riley’s bed again. Riley agrees. In bed, they revisit the painful Stanley Cup night, taking turns accepting blame, and end up holding hands under the covers. Adam asks to see the beach tomorrow.
Chapter 21 Summary: “November 2003”
In November 2003, 20-year-old Riley blocks a crucial shot in New York, setting up an empty-net goal by Adam that wins the game. Because Riley isn’t yet 21, he can’t join the team’s celebrations, and Adam chooses to stay at the hotel with him instead.
They walk through the city. They get lost searching for Times Square, talk about buying a television for their apartment for movie nights, and end up at a park by the Hudson River. While looking for a diner, they pass a bar with a rainbow flag and see two men kissing across the street. Riley is both fascinated and embarrassed; Adam stares silently, then leads them away.
Back at the hotel, Riley tests Adam by saying it was good that the men they saw on the street felt safe being affectionate in public. Adam agrees, relieving Riley’s fears of an antigay reaction, then quietly observes that being gay must be frightening. When Riley asks why Adam stayed in with him tonight, Adam says he wouldn’t have had fun without him. In that moment, Riley realizes he’s in love with Adam.
Chapter 22 Summary: “April 2024”
Adam and Riley take a morning run on the foggy beach with Lucky. Adam struggles on the uneven sand while Riley appears effortlessly fit; Adam theatrically sprints to victory at the end and collapses, joking that the sea can take him. He takes photos to send to his children, Lucy and Cole, but struggles with what to write.
When Lucky discovers a hermit crab, Adam films it and photographs Lucky for the kids. Riley mentions regretting that he never watched Lucy and Cole grow up, having long assumed he wouldn’t have children of his own, given the secrecy of his hockey career and his later mental health condition. Adam wishes his children knew Riley.
Adam admits to insecurities as a father, saying Harvey was his parenting role model rather than his own harsh father. Riley and Adam share a warm moment, imagining Harvey’s pride looking down on them. Adam finds a moon snail shell and, at Riley’s suggestion, decides to keep it for Lucy.
Chapters 15-22 Analysis
The narrative utilizes confrontational scenes of dialogue to dismantle the characters’ long-held defensive distortions, advancing the theme of Reckoning With the Past to Earn a Second Chance. During Riley and Adam’s driveway argument, for example, Riley voices his pain over his perceived unrequited love and the humiliation of the 2010 Stanley Cup incident. In response, Adam confesses that he married Maggie as a safe choice to protect Riley’s career and reveals that he was also deeply in love with him. This confessional exchange reframes the history Riley has carried for 12 years. By shattering the illusion that Riley suffered alone, the narrative forces both men to face the reality of their mutual fear rather than hiding behind lingering resentment. In surrounding scenes, Riley and Adam are compelled to work through their past in conversation, too—at the bar, in the shop, and over dinner. Despite their growing intimacy over the course of these emotional exchanges, Adam refuses to use sex as a quick fix. Instead, the characters create a space for each other where they can reinvent their destructive youthful patterns and build a foundation of honesty. Adam insists on establishing trust, telling Riley, “I want to do this right. I want to earn it, and I won’t take advantage of you” (158). This confrontation functions as the necessary threshold in second-chance romance conventions, requiring the characters to excise their deepest wounds and recontextualize their shared trauma before any genuine reconciliation can occur. Riley’s revelation of his emotional dysregulation disorder the following morning further cements this new transparency. While Riley and Adam have a rich romantic and sexual history, in the present, they are leaning into the core of their relationship, which is friendship. Their fraternal bond facilitates their emotional healing, leaving room for love to regrow.
Despite Riley and Adam’s gradual transformation and evolution, tension remains between them due to The Conflict Between Public Persona and Private Identity, a central theme. The recurring images of Adam and Riley’s side-by-side jerseys at the bar underscore Riley’s sustained fear of letting Adam back in because of his public-facing identity. While watching the game together beneath their framed numbers at the Dropped Anchor, Adam nostalgically recalls the magic of their on-ice synergy. Riley rejects this romanticization, pointing out that their personal connection had severely deteriorated by the end of their time in Toronto. The physical jerseys immortalize a sanitized, hypermasculine ideal of teamwork, which Adam initially uses to try to bridge the current emotional gap between them. However, Riley recognizes that this public perfection masks the secret pain and isolation that ultimately drove him out of the league and into a depressive, self-destructive spiral in Dallas. Riley’s refusal to accept Adam’s nostalgia forces both men to negotiate the stark contrast between how the adoring hockey world saw them and the hidden, corrosive toll of their closeted dynamic.
In the present day, Harvey’s recent passing continues to challenge Riley’s emotional interior, furthering the theme of Grief as a Catalyst for Connection and Change. Because Riley lost his father so recently, he is emotionally vulnerable, his usual defenses stripped away. As a result, he is more ready to engage with Adam in a more authentic manner, thus creating space for renewed intimacy. Riley isn’t always accepting, open, gracious, or tolerant of Adam, but he is always honest—even if he is sharing his pain, anger, frustration, or sorrow. Meanwhile, Adam steps into the void left by Riley’s father, taking on the role of the supportive, guiding figure Riley needs. He does so by organizing the minor hockey banquet, cooking meals for Riley at his home, and accompanying Riley to events and gatherings. When Riley experiences an emotional overload after initiating a kiss, Adam provides nonsexual comfort, holding him fully clothed on the bed until he falls asleep. By prioritizing emotional stability over physical escalation, Adam subverts their historical pattern of unspoken, alcohol-fueled sexual encounters that always ended in regret. Riley’s clinical depression and profound mourning render him incapable of maintaining the hostile, self-protective boundaries he initially established, creating space for Adam to prove his reliability through consistent acts of service rather than mere apologies. The narrative suggests that navigating shared vulnerability and offering steady, unglamorous support is the essential building block for sustainable relationships.
The 2003 New York flashback structurally juxtaposes the characters’ youthful internalization of antigay bias with their present-day navigation of queer life, emphasizing their divergent paths toward self-acceptance. In the flashback, young Adam and Riley see two men kissing outside a gay bar; Adam immediately pulls them away and later remarks in the safety of their hotel room, “It must be scary, being gay” (201). In the present, Adam shares a pros and cons list regarding coming out publicly and admits his anxieties about dating men and starting PrEP. By way of contrast, Riley introduces Adam to his openly queer friends at the local farmers market and invites him to join Darren and Tom’s dinner party. The flashback pinpoints the exact origin of Adam’s immobilizing fear, rooted in an era and a professional sports culture that equated being gay with ostracization and career ruin. Present-day Adam still approaches his identity with strategic hesitation, viewing his sexuality through the lens of public risk and his potential Hall of Fame legacy. Conversely, Riley’s integration into his rural community demonstrates a normalized, highly visible queer existence. Riley’s quiet confidence and established support network serve as a direct foil to Adam’s lingering institutional anxiety.
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