10. Fourth Down #2
Because telling Luke about Drew means telling him about why Drew. Which means explaining that I dated someone to get over him. Which means admitting out loud , in my mother’s living room, that everything I’ve done for the past two years has orbited around a man who keeps choosing loyalty over love.
So I edit. Give him the bones without the marrow.
“Drew and I dated for about four months. Off and on.” I study a loose thread on the blanket.
Easier than looking at Luke while discussing the guy I fucked to stop thinking about him.
“It was never... I wasn’t in it. Not really.
But he was there, and he was a hockey player.
He understood the schedule and… I thought maybe that was enough. ”
“Was it?”
“What do you think?”
He doesn’t answer. But his jaw does a single, controlled clench. Not the frustrated kind from practice. Something tighter. Harder.
“We broke up after Easter.” I keep my voice measured, factual.
Play-by-play without the color commentary.
“He came to Mom’s, actually. Saw photos.
Asked some questions about—” About you. “About people in the photos. Got in his head about some things. Started pressing me for answers I didn’t want to give. ”
Luke’s gone very still. That particular stillness he gets when he’s processing something at a speed his body can’t keep up with .
“What kind of answers?”
That the guy in the photo with my brother is the reason I couldn’t love him. That I have his number permanently inked on my body. That every time he touched me, I closed my eyes and pretended his hands were bigger, rougher, belonged to someone who’d never have me.
I grip the blanket tighter. “Personal ones. He wanted to know about people in my life and I wasn’t ready to explain. So he decided to fill in the blanks himself. Drew’s smart, Luke. Perceptive. He saw things I wasn’t showing him and instead of asking me, he just... decided what they meant.”
“And was he right?”
The question is so quiet I almost miss it.
My heart is doing that traitorous thing where it beats loudly enough that I’m convinced he can hear it. That Mom can hear it in her sleep. That Sienna can hear it from the kitchen, that Grayson can hear it over his phone call, that everyone in this house knows what I’m about to not say.
“He wasn’t wrong about everything.” I meet Luke’s eyes. Hold them. Let him see how much that admission costs me. “He just wasn’t right about what mattered.”
Luke absorbs this. I watch it happen, watch the information settle into his expression like snow accumulating. Quiet. Heavy. Changing the landscape.
“After we broke up, he started seeing someone on the team,” I explain, shifting to the part of the story that doesn’t require me to admit anything about the man sitting three feet away. “My roommate, actually. Another forward.”
“Your roommate ?”
“Yep.”
“Emma—”
“It wasn’t great.” A complete understatement.
“The locker room got weird. People took sides, which—look, I’ve been in locker rooms my whole life.
I know how politics work. But this was different.
Drew’s popular. His family has legacy at BC.
And I was the girl who dumped him for reasons nobody understood, including him. ”
Something dark crosses Luke’s face. Not anger exactly, something more protective. More…dangerous.
“Did he do something? Because if he hurt you? Tried some—”
“Nothing like that.” I shake my head. “He didn’t need to. He just... existed. Everywhere. Practice, games, parties. Him and her, together, in the spaces I used to occupy. My roommate wearing his jersey. The team treating me like I was the problem because I broke it off. Because I wouldn’t explain.”
The silence between us fills with everything I’m not saying.
Because the ‘why’ is you, Luke. Has always been you. And I’d rather blow up my entire life at BC than explain to my ex-boyfriend that the reason I couldn’t love him is because I’ve been in love with someone I can’t have since I was sixteen years old.
“So when Thornton called about Silver Pine...” Luke urges slowly.
“I listened.” I shrug like it wasn’t the biggest decision of my life. Like I wasn’t desperate and heartbroken and furious at myself for not being able to want the thing that was right in front of me. “He had a good pitch. New program. Chance to build something. Be part of history.”
“And get away from Drew.”
“And get away from Drew.”
Luke nods. Layers of understanding rearranging themselves in his expression, connecting dots I’ve left scattered for months.
“You didn’t know I’d be your coach,” he says. Not a question.
“Luke, I didn’t even know you were employed when I committed. You ghosted me after February, remember? Didn’t even respond to my happy birthday message. Just radio silence, good talk.”
The guilt that crosses his face is satisfying in a deeply petty way that I’m not going to apologize for.
He should feel guilty. He should feel what those months of silence felt like from my end.
All the wondering, checking my phone, the eventual acceptance that the person I trusted most had decided I wasn’t worth a text back.
“I deserve that,” he admits quietly.
“You deserve worse.”
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
He almost smiles. It’s not quite there. Too weighted down by everything we’ve said and haven’t said. But the corner of his mouth lifts just enough that I know my Luke is still in there, underneath the guilt and the coaching clipboard and the pathological need to protect everyone from himself.
From the hallway, Grayson’s voice rises: “No, tell him the system works if he actually commits to the—yeah, exactly— ”
Still on the phone. Good. We have another minute. Maybe two.
“Are you worried about the game?” Luke asks.
“The game against BC? Where I’ll be playing my former team in a building where my ex-boyfriend’s name is on the donor wall and half the crowd will be people who think I bailed?” I pretend to consider this. “No, Luke. I’m absolutely fine.”
He gives me a look. That specific Luke look that says I know you’re deflecting and I’m going to let you, but we both know I see through it.
“We’ll be ready,” he says. And somehow he makes we’ll sound like a promise that extends far beyond hockey strategy. “Addison and I have been game-planning for weeks. Their defense has a gap on the weak-side transition and their goalie tracks low. You’ll eat them alive from the left circle.”
“My sweet spot.”
“Your sweet spot.” He holds my gaze for a beat too long. Something that would look innocent to anyone walking in but feels like a lit match between two people surrounded by gasoline.
“We’ll be ready,” he says again, quieter this time. To me. For me .
Something loosens in my chest. Not all the way—some knots don’t untangle just because someone says the right thing—but enough. Enough to breathe a little deeper. Enough to believe that walking into that arena won’t swallow me whole.
Grayson’s voice gets closer. Coming back.
Luke turns forward again, facing the TV, and the invisible curtain descends between us. The one that separates Luke and Emma from Coach Anderson and Cole . I watch him rebuild it: shoulders squaring, expression neutralizing, beer lifted casually like we’ve been watching football this whole time.
Except his hand, hidden between the couch and his body, finds the edge of my blanket.
His fingers close around the fabric. Hold it. Not pulling, not reaching for me, just... holding on. Like he needs a tether and I’m the closest thing.
I don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t do anything that might make him let go.