Chapter 20
Miguel
The rideshare dropped me at the players’ entrance, the one tucked around the side of the Grizzlies’ rink.
A thin crescent moon hung over the parking lot, turning the concrete silver.
I texted the night attendant, Luis. He buzzed me in, the way he always did when I couldn’t sleep.
I told him I’d stay an hour, he told me to text when I was done so he could double-lock the exit. Fair trade.
The building felt half-asleep. Only a few lights burned along the hallway, the air carrying that clean, sharp smell of ice and disinfectant. My footsteps echoed until the sound softened into the steady hum of the compressors below the rink.
Inside the locker room, habit took over. I dropped my bag, tied my skates, pulled on gloves. No crowd, no teammates, just the quiet rasp of laces and the creak of the bench.
Out on the ice, the air hit me first, cold and clean. The chill bit my cheeks as I skated slow circles. I wasn’t chasing drills tonight; I was chasing quiet.
Every time I stopped moving, my head filled up again—Drew’s laugh in Mama’s kitchen, the warmth in his voice when he’d thanked her. Every time I remembered, something shifted in my chest, soft and confusing.
I didn’t want to think about any of that. Didn’t want to ask why I couldn’t stop.
So I made it about motion. Glide, set, push, recover.
I focused on breath. The easy in and out that always found me once the ice took over.
Tap left post. Tap right. Set again. I was lost in time.
I’d just dropped into a butterfly when a door slammed somewhere deep in the hallway. My head snapped up, pulse jumping.
Another sound followed—footsteps, slow, confident.
“Hello?” My voice echoed.
“Miguel?”
I straightened. Coach—Drew’s voice carried through the empty arena. He walked out of the tunnel, not in practice gear but in jeans and a jacket. His hair was mussed like he’d run a hand through it more than once on the drive.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.
He nodded. “Figured I’d check the ice sensors before the tech comes in tomorrow, and saw the lights were on.”
That made sense. Coach stuff. A real reason to be here.
He came to the bench, hands on the rail. “How long have you been here?”
“Hm. Maybe about 45.”
His eyes tracked my gloves, the slow shift of my stance. “How’s the shoulder holding up?”
“Fine.” I hesitated. “It’s my head that won’t shut up.”
He didn’t joke. He didn’t have to. “That about the game or something else?”
“Something else.”
My voice felt too small in the rink. I dropped my gaze.
He didn’t push.
For a long minute, we just existed—me breathing hard from the drills, him leaning on the boards.
When I finally looked up, he was watching me like he was trying to figure something out.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said.
“I know,” he rasped. “But I don’t want to leave.”
Those eight words landed somewhere deep. I don’t think he even realized what he’d said.
I skated closer, slow, until I was right at the boards. He leaned down instinctively, hands gripping the rail. His face was only a few inches above mine now—gray eyes steady, unreadable.
The quiet between us thickened, filled with the hum of the compressors, the faint echo of my own breathing.
He tilted his head, eyes flicking over my chest protector. “Your pad’s folded.”
Before I could respond, he reached over the boards and smoothed the padded edge near my collarbone—just a small correction, practical, automatic. But his fingers brushed bare skin where the padding ended, and that touch hit like a jolt.
His voice dropped lower. “Better.”
“Yeah.” My pulse stuttered. “Better.”
The air felt different—alive, charged.
He didn’t pull his hand away right away; his fingers lingered against the padding at my collarbone.
I kept still, pulse steady only in theory. My stick hand hovered uselessly, glove brushing the spot he’d just adjusted.
When he finally drew back, the edge of his palm skimmed the side of my glove—skin against fabric. It shouldn’t have meant anything. Still, the jolt of contact ran straight through me, a current under the armor.
For a heartbeat, even the rink seemed to hold its breath.
Then he looked at me and something in his expression shifted.
My body moved before my brain caught up. There was no thought in it, no warning, just heat and gravity and months of pretending I didn’t notice the way his voice changed when he said my name.
One moment I was staring at his mouth. The next, I wasn’t.
The first touch of his lips stole my breath. My pulse kicked, wild and reckless.
He tasted like coffee and mint—a little bitter, a little sweet. His lips were rough, chapped from long days at the rink, but they softened when I brushed my tongue against them. Heat surged straight through me. The faint scrape of stubble grazed my skin.
His hand came up—hesitant, trembling—and settled at the back of my neck. That single touch undid me.
I leaned in, the scent of him closing around me: clean soap, worn leather, the faint bite of cedar from his jacket. The rest of the world dropped away.
No rink, no season, no noise—just heat and breath and the ache of wanting something I’d never dared imagine.
My lips parted without permission. The first slide of tongue against tongue set off a spark that tore right through my defenses. He made a sound—soft, desperate, caught halfway between surprise and need—and it was over for me.
I was gone, lost in him. In the weight of his hand, the give of his mouth, the rhythm that found us without either of us looking for it. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask—it remembers. The kind that rewrites everything you thought you knew about yourself.
“Oh god, Drew…”
I didn’t know how long we stayed like that—seconds, minutes, hours—but when he finally drew back, our breaths tangled between us, the air thin and electric. His eyes were wide, wrecked, searching.
Reality seeped in in slow, cruel inches—the silence, the space between us, the pounding of my heart that wouldn’t settle.
He swallowed hard, gaze flicking to my mouth, then away. “Miguel…”
My name in his voice felt like another touch. And then—just like that—he stepped back.
And the distance hit harder than the kiss.
He broke the most amazing kiss I’d ever had.
One second he was there—solid, warm, real—and the next, the cold came rushing back. The air hit where his mouth had been, sharp enough to sting.
Drew stepped back fast, almost stumbling into the bench. His eyes were wide and wrecked, his lips still parted like he’d forgotten how to breathe. The hand that had held my neck hung useless at his side.
“Jesus,” he said, voice low and torn. “I—”
He didn’t finish. Probably couldn’t.
My body was still trying to catch up, lungs burning, heart crashing against my ribs. I could still taste him on my tongue. My hands wanted to reach for him again, to prove it had happened, but he looked so shaken that I stayed still.
“This shouldn’t—” He swallowed, voice unsteady. “This can’t happen again, Miguel.”
The way he said my name—rough, almost pleading—made it worse.
I didn’t answer. My pulse was everywhere, loud in my ears, loud enough to drown out the hum of the rink.
He took another step back. “I crossed a line.”
“So did I.” The words scraped their way out.
“That’s not the point.” His jaw clenched. For a heartbeat, he looked like he wanted to say more—something softer, something honest—but the muscle at his temple ticked, and the coach mask came down.
We stared at each other, both waiting for the other to move first. His eyes softened once, just enough to hurt.
“Get some rest, Rodriguez.”
The words landed dull but heavy, like a puck against pads. The surname. Formal, safe. A line drawn across ice. I nodded. If I spoke, something would spill that I couldn't gather back up.
He turned, his footsteps fading into the corridor, each one pulling the air tighter until all that was left was the faint echo of the closing door.
I stayed where I was, gloves slack at my sides, the cold seeping through. My lips still tingled with the ghost of him—proof that it wasn’t imagined, that whatever this thing was, it had weight.
Chapter 21
Drew
I fucking kissed him.
Miguel.
A man.
The thought wouldn’t settle; it looped through my head like static as I walked out of the rink and into the cold.
The air bit at my skin, sharp enough to hurt, but not enough to ground me.
My mouth still remembered him—the heat, the salt, the faint sweetness under it, the soft sound he made when our lips met.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white, as if pressure could bring reason back.
Six years.
Six years since I’d touched anyone like that.
Since her.
And now—him. My goalie. My player.
The drive blurred past in streaks of red and gold, L.A. breathing its steady midnight rhythm while I came apart. Every stoplight became another replay: the shock of his mouth, the pulse under his skin, the way neither of us moved fast enough to stop it.
At home, I fumbled the keys and sent them skittering across the tile. The sound cracked the quiet open. Everything else was too still—my jacket on its hook, the faint scent of detergent in the air, the hum of the fridge. Orderly. Lifeless.
I stripped and stepped into the shower. The water hit lukewarm, running over my shoulders, down my chest, over skin that had forgotten what touch felt like.
It beat against the back of my neck until I could almost convince myself that the sting was punishment—penance—or maybe it was just proof that I was still here.
But nothing washed him off. His taste. The sound of his breath against mine.
And God help me, I was hard.
Most days I couldn’t even remember what wanting felt like. The muscles, the motion, the need. I’d buried it all with her.
But thinking about him—his scent, the way he said my name—brought it all back, brutal and immediate.
I braced a hand against the tile, water cascading down, and let my forehead rest there.