Chapter 15
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The windshield wipers of Louis’s SUV are working overtime, fighting a losing battle against the deluge hammering us as we head west. It’s not just rain; it’s a gray curtain of water that blurs the world into streaks of slate and charcoal.
I should be white-knuckling the steering wheel. Visibility is shit, the roads are slick, and I’m driving a car that costs more than my mom’s house. But I’m weirdly calm and comfortable.
In the passenger seat, Louis is shifting around, trying to get comfortable without jostling his sling.
Every so often, he lets out a small hiss of breath.
I can’t tell whether it’s from pain or from frustration at still being in the sling, but whenever I glance over, he flashes me that trademark grin, the one that disarms referees and charms the pants off—well, everyone.
“We’re getting clo-o-se!” he says excitedly as he peers through the rain-streaked glass.
“GPS says ten minutes,” I say, keeping my eyes on the wet asphalt. “Unless this rain washes the road out.”
“Makes for great atmosphere,” Louis counters. “It's cozy.”
“It’s a car wash without the wax,” I mutter, though I don’t actually mind.
There’s a safety in this setup that I didn’t expect. When Louis asked me to come with him, my brain practically short-circuited. Four nights together. Alone. It felt dangerous. But now that it’s actually happening, it feels natural.
We round a curve in the road, and suddenly, the dense forest on our left breaks open.
Lou lets out a low whistle. “Whoa,” he breathes.
I ease off the gas, captivated by the view spread out before me.
The trees have given way to a drop-off, and below us, the Pacific Ocean reveals itself.
It’s a churning expanse of gray-blue waves crashing against jagged black rocks.
White foam sprays high into the air, carried by the icy wind.
It’s wild, untamed, and breathtakingly beautiful.
Lou leans forward in the passenger seat. “Riley wasn’t kidding. She said the view from the highway was the best part, but damn.”
My hands tighten on the wheel at ten and two. “Riley?”
“Yeah, Riley Campbell. The receptionist? She’s the one who told me about this place. Her cousins own a renovation company, Hot Dam Homes, and they did the work to upgrade this place. I guess it was pretty dilapidated before they fixed it up.”
An ugly, hot spike of feeling drives straight into my gut. I picture Riley—blonde, bubbly, incredibly nice, and exactly the kind of person everyone expects a guy like Louis Tremblay to be taking on romantic weekend getaways.
“Oh. Right. I didn’t know you guys were close,” I say. My voice is sharper than I planned.
Louis turns his head, studying my profile. The silence stretches long enough to make my skin itch.
“You jealous, Sinclair?”
“What?” I scoff, keeping my eyes locked on the road. “No. I’m just making conversation.”
“You’re a terrible liar. You twitch when you lie. Did you know that?”
“I do not twitch.”
“Your left eye. Just a little tic.” His voice drops an octave, losing the teasing edge. “Riles is a buddy. She’s great, but we’re just friends.”
The leaves my chest in a whoosh as I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“Okay,” Louis echoes. He doesn’t push it. He doesn’t dunk on me for being insecure. He lets the fact sit there: I’m here with you, not her.
A mile later, the GPS guides us down a narrow gravel drive, the tires crunching as we wind through a cathedral of massive trees.
Sitka spruce and cedar trees tower overhead, their branches interlocking to form a sort of roof that, amazingly, blocks out most of the rain. It’s like entering a different world.
The Seastack Lodge appears at the end of the drive like something grown from the earth rather than built. It’s perched right on the edge of the cliff, facing the fury of the Pacific Ocean head-on.
The building is somehow both modern and traditional at once. Weathered cedar, gray stone, and glass frame huge windows that spill amber light into the dark, rainy afternoon, making it seem cozy and inviting. It’s stunning.
I put the car in park and kill the engine, and the muffled roar of the wind and surf outside fills the cabin.
Behind the reception desk is a large great room furnished with soft, comfy-looking chairs and sofas clustered in different seating arrangements.
But the massive stone fireplace, flanked by two-story-high windows that face directly out to the ocean, draws my attention, and I wander over to it while Louis checks in and gets our keys.
“Amazing, right?” he says, appearing beside me a couple of moments later.
“No kidding.” I can’t hide the awe in my voice. Obviously, I’ve seen the ocean before—hell, I lived in Florida for a couple of years. But I’ve never seen the ocean quite like this. “For a working-class kid who grew up in the Midwest, this view is something else.” I shake my head.
Lou chuckles. “Agreed. I grew up close to lots of lakes in Ontario, but after living on the coast for the last few years, I think the ocean has me hooked.”
“Yeah, I can understand why,” I murmur. We stand shoulder to shoulder, enraptured by the view for a few moments, before he holds up our key cards. “Wanna go check out our home for the next few days?”
“Hell, yeah.”
A few minutes later, I pull the car up to Cabin 4, The Osprey.
Inside, the cabin takes my breath away even more than the drive.
It smells of cedar and sea salt. The entire front wall is glass, with floor-to-ceiling windows framing the churning ocean.
There’s a smaller version of the stone fireplace from the main building, surrounded by a plush sectional that looks like it could swallow you whole.
It’s incredible. The sense of being all alone here is palpable, and as crazy as it sounds, it’s almost like a piece of the tension I’ve been carrying for months drains away with each breath I exhale. It’s fucking perfect.
“Wow,” Louis murmurs, standing in the center of the room. “This is—yeah—this is exactly what I was hoping for.”
“You should sit down,” I command gently, nodding at the couch. “I’ll grab the bags.”
“I can get the lighter stuff—”
“Nope, you’re not grabbing anything. I’m not about to let you fuck up your stitches on a vacation. Try explaining that to Coach and Carson.”
He rolls his eyes but drops onto the sectional with a sigh of relief.
I head back out to the car, grabbing our duffels and the two bags of groceries we picked up in Aberdeen. Once I’m back inside, I lock the door behind me, shutting out wind and rain.
I carry the groceries to the small but luxurious kitchen and unpack systematically. A place for everything and everything in its place. Stupid, maybe, but having everything organized always makes me feel more calm.
I grab both our bags and take them into the bedroom.
After unpacking my own stuff, I unzip Louis’s bag and start putting his things into the drawers without thinking about it.
I line his toiletries up in the bathroom next to mine and get everything neat and tidy before heading back out to the living room.
I know enough about psychology to understand that being slightly obsessed with neatness and order is a coping mechanism for my anxiety—it’s my subconscious trying to control the environment.
But the truth is that if my physical space is chaotic, my head gets chaotic.
And right now, I don’t want to start overthinking anything.
Like how I’m here in this amazing place with a man I’m feeling some kind of way about—even though those feelings are not going to make my life easy.
Especially since we haven’t discussed what this is between us or what will happen when Louis is healed and ready to play again.
When I walk back out to the living area, Louis is still on the couch, but he’s not looking at his phone or the TV. He’s not even watching the ocean as it churns and crashes against the rocks. The wind is picking up and it's getting more violent out there. But Louis is watching me.
He gives me a soft, gentle smile as I approach him.
“What?” I ask, slightly self-conscious. “Did I forget something?”
“Nope,” Louis says softly. “You’re just really good at that. At taking care of things.”
Heat climbs up the back of my neck. It’s not the embarrassment I usually feel when people point out my need for control. He’s not telling me I’m too uptight and I should relax. Instead, he looks as though he’s seeing something he likes. Something that makes him smile.
“Someone has to be the adult,” I deflect, walking over to the fridge.
I grab two bottles of local IPA we bought. I twist the caps off, the hiss of the escaping CO2 sharp in the quiet room. I walk back toward the couch, holding one out to him.
His fingers brush mine as he takes it from my hand, and the contact sends a jolt up my arm.
“Cheers, Rookie,” he says, his dark eyes glittering with an emotion I can’t name as he clinks his bottle against mine.
I take a long pull of the beer. It’s cold, bitter, and perfect. I blow out a long breath, staring out at where the darkness has almost completely shrouded the ocean from view. But it’s still making its presence known with the crash of the waves against the rocks below us.
It’s so isolated, so removed from real life, that it’s easy to buy into the idea that this thing between us doesn’t have to be complicated. That when we’re here, we’re not the veteran injured goalie and his rookie substitute. We're just two people who like each other. A lot.
“Cheers,” I say.
The wind howls like a banshee clawing at the windows, but inside, the world is nothing but warmth and the delicious smells of garlic, wet wood, and obscene amounts of cheese.