Chapter 34
Beckett
“You’re back!” I yell, yanking open my door when I hear Finley coming down the hall later that afternoon.
I went to the arena to work with the PT team on my rehab today and then hung around for a few hours while the other guys practiced and got their workouts in, but I have been home for a few hours. And I’ve almost lost my mind.
How do people stay home and just… do nothing? I want to be skating. Lifting. Fucking Finley until she cries out my name.
I need to be moving. Staying still is how you get slammed into the boards. How you get left behind. How you miss your dreams when they go skating by at a sprint. Plus, when I’m forced to be inactive too long, I start to think about things best left unexplored.
Like my future… and my past.
I watched some film, but even that seems lonely now when I don’t get to analyze it with Finley.
Though, thoughts of her are what have anchored me during this injury recovery.
Knowing I need to be ready to come back mentally and physically so I can help her get the wins she and the team need.
I’m not sure what I’ll hold on to if the end of the Yeti Challenge is the end of… whatever this is between us.
“Hey, Kane,” Finley replies, still moving toward her apartment.
The hair on the back of my neck stands at the way she uses my last name. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but something doesn’t feel quite right.
“Dinner at my place?”
Finley stares at her keys for a moment before moving her gaze to my apartment door as she considers my offer longer than I would’ve expected.
Like she can’t decide whether she wants to come back to my place or not. Maybe two sleepovers in a row is too much too soon.
Maybe I really tired her out last night.
Or maybe she’s envisioning all the fun ways we can get wrapped up in each other again tonight. I know I am.
“I think I need to be at my place tonight,” she says finally.
I shrug. “Not a problem. Let me go grab the food out of the oven, and I’ll be right over.”
“That’s—okay. Thank you.”
“Sure thing.”
I hustle inside, quickly plating the salmon and broccoli onto two plates.
Finley left the door to her apartment open, so I walk right in, setting the plates on her table before grabbing a couple of forks.
Finley walks out of her room, still in the clothes she must’ve changed into at the rink since it’s definitely not what she was wearing when she left my place this morning. She takes me and the food in for a moment before walking over and sitting down.
“Did you get everything done at the office that you needed to?” I ask.
She nods. “I did, yeah.”
“That’s good.”
After a long pause, Finley asks, “What did you do after you left the rink?”
“I watched some film. Then watched the Mountaineers game.”
“Oh, how’d they do?” Finley asks.
“They won by three, I think. I’ve never been much of a basketball fan, so I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“Ah. I get that.”
I’ve never had a more normal conversation feel so awkward. After multiple minutes go by with us eating in a strained silence, I finally ask, “Is everything okay, Fin?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” she asks. But she stands, taking her plate and turning her back to me as she walks to the kitchen to clean it.
“I don’t know, things just seem… off.”
“All normal over here.” That seems untrue, but I can’t exactly put my finger on what’s wrong. I mean, we’re still here spending time together. It just feels different.
Pushing the thought aside, I reply, “Great. Are we watching Vancouver tonight or Calgary? I watched our last game against the Stormriders already, so my vote is Calgary, but I’m fine either way.”
“I’m fine with Calgary.” Finley pulls the correct video up on her laptop.
“Have you seen the way their center likes to circle off the wall instead of getting inside body position?” I ask, as we sit down.
“Yeah. We’ll have to make sure we take away middle ice,” she notes, completely missing the easy jab she normally would’ve given about not everyone loving the boards as much as I do.
The game starts, and we watch in silence. There’s no easy banter. No discussion. No arguing. We’re just watching. Together. But separately. Like we’re strangers.
“Their goalie favors his right side,” Finley says finally, and it’s like I can finally breathe again.
“Yeah. He drops early, too.”
She’s staring at the screen instead of making eye contact with me, but that’s okay. This game is a big one for us, and I know she’s worried about it. Or maybe I’m only interesting to watch film with when I’m actually going to be playing.
Finley points to the screen, where their goalie has dropped before the puck is even to him. “It’s too bad we won’t have you in the game. If you got a lane, your slap shot could beat him.”
I smile. “Was that a compliment?”
“Just the truth.”
She’s deadpan, not even a hint of playful bickering today, but I banter back anyway.
“Sounded like a compliment to me.”
Instead of responding, she turns her attention to the game, taking notes.
I guess the game is more interesting than I am tonight, and suddenly, I feel in the way. Just an annoying neighbor she has to work around rather than a partner.
The next hour passes slowly, broken up only occasionally by a comment from one of us about a player. When the film ends, my conversations have been shut down so many times, I’m worried I might’ve imagined last night happened at all.
I’ve rarely spent time with a woman socially after sleeping with her, so I’m not an expert on the norms, but I don’t think this is normal behavior. And I’m not sure what to do about it.
“Should we carpool to the final Yeti event next week?” I ask, grasping at any straw I can at this point.
“I’ll have to be at the arena early, so I’ll get there on my own.” The way she says it makes my chest ache. It’s nice. And polite. And if I could force myself to look at her face, I know she’d be wearing her work smile.
“Okay. Well, dinner tomorrow?” I ask, throwing out one final Hail Mary.
“I’m going to be working late all week. But thanks for the offer.”
What the hell? Thanks for the offer? Her mouth was wrapped around my cock this morning. We are so far past “thanks for the offer.”
Or, at least, I thought we were. But maybe I was wrong.
“Sure,” I say. “Well, I’d better head to bed.”
I walk out of her apartment and back to mine in a trance, like I’m in an alternate universe.
It’s like I teleported back to the first few weeks I lived here.
The solitude I felt then was normal—the independence to focus on exactly what I needed when I needed it—but looking back, it was lonely trying to navigate a new town, a new team, with no one to talk to.
Getting paired with Finley for the Challenge changed that. Suddenly, I wasn’t a one-man show anymore. I was part of the larger group, and that was nice. Even if it was always supposed to be temporary.
Though, it hasn’t felt temporary in a long time. Definitely not since that fateful away trip.
I don’t know why, but the Finley from last night, the one who made me feel joy and happiness for the first time in a long time, is pulling away. And there’s something hauntingly familiar about the loneliness starting to burn deep within my chest.