Chapter 7 #2
It’s ridiculous how thrilling that is. A wrong kind of thrilling. I shouldn’t want this. I should want quiet, stability, safety. I should want the soft kiss in the empty hallway and the Saturday night movie and Kyle’s steady hands. I do want all of that.
But I also want the man who sent this text to grind his teeth because he can’t stand the thought of my mouth being soft for anyone else.
“Everything good?” Kyle asks, reappearing at my side, slinging his backpack over one shoulder.
“Yeah,” I say, pocketing the phone. “Just PR.”
He nods, unconvinced but gracious. We walk out together. The cameras catch us on the periphery and decide that a captain talking to a rookie on the other sheet is more photogenic. For once, luck feels like a wind at my back.
Outside, the sky is a high white sheet. The air smells like new snow, even though the forecast says clear.
Kyle’s truck is parked crooked, as always.
He fumbles his keys. “Text me if you want to change Saturday,” he says.
“Or if you want me to send a grocery list, and you can pick a meal. Or if you want me to shut up.”
“You can pick,” I say, on a laugh. “Surprise me.”
He laughs, and the sound is warm enough to carry me all the way home.
In the quiet of my apartment, the notifications have slowed to a manageable drizzle.
The team’s statement made the rounds; the worst of the fan hysteria has already found a new toy.
I pour a glass of water and stand at the window.
The city is bright without being loud—one of those afternoons where everything looks clean because the light is honest.
I unlock the phone and open Magnus’s thread.
Don’t go out with Thorn again.
It still makes heat lick low in my stomach. It shouldn’t. It’s controlling and presumptuous and absolutely him. He didn’t bother dressing it up as concern. He didn’t make it about my reputation or the team or the locker room. He made it about what he wants.
I scroll up to last night’s message. Nice view. He sent that in another mood, one that sounded almost human. He wanted to build a room we could stand in without smoke. Now he’s back to fire.
I should reply with something that pushes him away. Something that tells him where to put his arrogance. Something like: You don’t get a vote.
Instead, I set the phone on the counter and take slow sips of water until my body stops wanting to sprint somewhere it shouldn’t.
I tell myself, again, the plan I decided this morning: Fall for Kyle. Let the safe thing do its job. Let sweetness crowd out the dark. Let Saturday be enough to tip the scale. It’s a good plan. It’s also a lie I carry like a talisman against something bigger than me.
The truth is that Magnus Flint lives in my skin now. Practice wore him out of my muscles for ninety minutes; a kiss in a quiet hall washed him from my mouth for twenty. Then a single line of text brought him roaring back.
I pick up the phone. My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I don’t want to reward him. I don’t want to ignore him either. I want him to feel what I feel: the itchy-hot awareness, the almost-pain of wanting to be in the same room if only to end the static.
I type: You don’t get to tell me who I see, Flint. I stare at it, then hit send before I can smother the impulse.
The reply is instant. Like he’s been sitting with the thread open, waiting for me to breathe.
Magnus: Yes, I do.
I snort. The audacity is soothing—like yes, there he is, the man who makes a meal out of nerve. The man who looks at a rule and writes his name across it in a sharpie that bleeds.
My fingers move again before I consult my better angels. Goodnight, Flint. It’s afternoon. He’ll hear the smile in it anyway. It’s a pat on the head and a gauntlet at once.
Three dots flash, disappear, flash again. Then: nothing.
The quiet that follows is not empty; it vibrates. I feel the line between us like static woven into air. I imagine him on some couch, sprawled and restless, staring at the same words and deciding which version of himself he wants to be when he answers.
I should put the phone down. I should make a protein shake, stretch my hip flexors, watch film.
I stretch on the floor, hamstrings barking, quads humming. My body remembers the scrimmage; it remembers the kiss. It remembers a hand at my neck and a voice in my ear and a man whose texts sound like a skate blade carving into clean ice—hard, sure, loud enough to wake the bones.
When I finally check the phone again, there’s no new message. Good. Let him simmer.
I open my calendar and thumb to Saturday.
I add an event: Movies. K’s place. It’s benign on the screen, just three words and a time block.
But when I look at it, my chest loosens.
I want what’s there: the couch, a shitty bag of microwave popcorn, a bad movie, the feel of his shoulder against mine, the oxygen of a room without outside noise.
I want that.
And I want the other thing—the thing with teeth and heat and danger. I want to stand on the knife-edge between them and see how long I can balance before I bleed.
It’s a terrible plan. I know that. I know I’ll have to pick eventually. But right now, the decisions aren’t today’s problem. Today’s problem is practice again tomorrow, a photo I didn’t ask for, a city that thinks it knows me because it learned my nickname.
? ? ?
Kyle told me to dress comfy. Which, coming from him, could mean anything between movie night with take-out and impromptu hike in January. I go with safe: soft gray sweats, a black long-sleeve tee, and a hoodie I’ve owned since college. Clean. Harmless. Non-threatening.
It’s ridiculous how much thought I put into looking like I didn’t try.
The drive to his place takes twenty minutes—enough time for my mind to wander.
The radio hums under the sound of my tires on the asphalt, the kind of dull rhythm that leaves room for ghosts.
I picture the text from Magnus still glowing somewhere in my phone memory like a live wire. Don’t go out with Thorn again.
By the time I pull into Kyle’s neighborhood—a quiet patch of brick townhouses softened by streetlamps—I’ve convinced myself that this is exactly what I need: normal. A friend’s smile. A movie. Maybe something resembling peace.
Kyle opens the door before I even knock. He’s barefoot, hair damp from a shower, wearing joggers and a loose Titans hoodie. He looks disarmingly at home.
“Hey, Ice Prince,” he says with a crooked grin.
But the name doesn’t bring the same fire that it usually does.
“Hey.”
He steps aside, motioning me in. “Dinner’s ready. I may have gone overboard.”
“Define overboard,” I say, kicking off my shoes.
The smell answers for him—garlic, butter, and something rich and herby. His kitchen table is set with two plates, and pasta steaming in a pan. There’s even salad. He shrugs when he sees my expression.
“I like cooking,” he says. “Figured you could use a break from protein bars and post-game shakes.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “You’re not wrong.”
We eat in that easy rhythm that happens when the day has already taken the edge off you.
He tells a story about our rookie goalie accidentally backing his truck into the coach’s car.
I counter with one about Harry punching a vending machine because it “looked smug.” Kyle laughs so hard wine almost comes out his nose.
And just like that, the noise in my chest quiets.
After dinner, we migrate to the living room. His place is warm, lived-in, the kind of space that smells faintly of coffee and cedar. A throw blanket slumps over the couch back; there are mismatched coasters on the table, and a half-finished jigsaw puzzle spread on a sideboard. It’s all… him.
He plops onto the couch, patting the cushion beside him. “Okay. I have three options: stupid action, stupid horror, or stupid romance.”
“I thought this was movie night, not psychological torture.”
“Come on, Hale. Pick your poison.”
“Action,” I say. “Always.”
He grins, cueing up something loud and self-aware. The screen flickers blue over the walls as we settle in. A bowl of popcorn materializes between us; the salt dusts my fingers. Kyle’s thigh brushes mine once, then again, lingering this time.
I tell myself not to move.
The first half of the movie passes in jokes and running commentary. He groans at plot holes, I throw popcorn at him, he catches one piece in his mouth and cheers like he’s won gold. It’s easy, maybe too easy.
For a while, I let myself believe I could really fall for him.
He’s the kind of man you build a quiet life with.
No scandal, no mess, no obsession clawing at your ribs.
He’d bring me coffee in the mornings, tease me about my sleep-hair, make sure I eat breakfast. He’d never call me in the middle of the night just to say you belong to me.
Halfway through the second act, Kyle stands, grabs his phone, and flips the camera. “We should commemorate this domestic bliss.”
Before I can protest, he snaps a photo of the coffee table—popcorn bowl, two glasses of wine, his slippered feet crossed at the ankle. I open my own phone, tweak the angle, and post it to my own story before common sense can intervene.
Just the table. The movie’s paused mid-explosion. His feet in the frame. No faces.
Still, I know exactly who I’m aiming the shot at.
The instant it posts, my heart skips. It’s pathetic how fast I imagine Magnus seeing it—his phone lighting in some dark room, his jaw tightening, that cruel grin curling at the corner of his mouth. The thought shouldn’t make me warm. It does.
The space between us narrows like the tightening of a string. His arm drapes along the back of the couch behind me, casual in theory, deliberate in fact.
I glance sideways. “You’re awfully touchy for a man watching explosions.”
“Just keeping you warm,” he says.
“Right.”