Chapter 37
LIVELY
I didn’t look back once as I walked out of the ice rink and down the corridor.
It was only when the door to the locker room clicked shut behind me that I let my legs buckle, all the strength draining from them all at once.
I crumpled to the floor like a pack of wet tissues, my heart pounding in my ears so that I could barely hear anything.
“This is the fifth time you're running away. I guess…I should let you go.” My own words from four days ago bounced around inside my skull like ping pong balls, throwing my hypocrisy back in my face. Because, this time, I was the one running.
But then, how could I not? Run away, I mean?
Four days. Four fucking days of rebuilding myself into someone who could stand in the same room as Hailey Baleman without combusting, and it had taken exactly three seconds of eye contact to undo everything.
Just one look, and every carefully constructed defense had liquefied.
Two years of muscle memory screaming at me to close the distance, to lean into her space, to coax out that sharp-tongued response that always made my blood sing; never mind the fact that she would probably…
definitely claw my eyes out for even trying.
And that was exactly the reason why I’d had to run.
Why I was going to have to keep running.
I had to remain fucking professional. Distant.
Exactly what she’d asked for. It had taken everything in me to face her like that, tone flat, to call her Baleman like it was nothing even as that name— “Hailstorm” —wanted to crawl up my throat.
The cold concrete bit into my palms as I pressed them against the floor, trying to ground myself in something real, something that wasn’t rooted in the longing ache I could feel streaking through my nervous system.
The door slammed open, effectively cutting my pity party short. I scrambled upright, yanking my mask back into place as the guys filed in.
“Jesus, Cap, you trying to break through to the basement?” Logan's voice carried that careful edge they’d all perfected since Blackwater. Like I was nitroglycerine and they were all terrified of providing the spark.
“Just dropped something,” I said, flashing the grin I'd weaponized since middle school. All surface, no substance. The Lively Summers special.
Dylan’s eyes narrowed—he'd always been able to see through my bullshit better than most—but he didn't push. None of them did anymore. They just exchanged those goddamn looks and went about their business, treating me like spun glass.
Ugh.
I yanked my practice gear from my bag, grateful for the familiar ritual. Tape. Pads. Skates. Each piece of equipment was another layer of armor between me and the raw, pulsing want that threatened to consume me whole. I could do this. I could stay away from her.
“Mixed scrimmage today,” Evan said, trying for casual and missing by miles. “Should be interesting.”
My hands stilled on my skate laces for a beat, even though I already knew what I was walking towards once I stepped foot out of this locker room.
Interesting , huh. I supposed he was right.
It was going to be interesting for them.
Couldn’t say the same about me, though. Not when I was going to be fighting for life on the ice, each moment no doubt testing every ounce of restraint I’d cobbled together from the wreckage of my dignity.
I tugged my jersey over my head, the familiar weight settling across my shoulders. “Should be good practice for the upcoming games,” I said, keeping my voice level. “We need to work on our defensive zones anyway.”
More careful looks. More walking on eggshells. Christ, I missed the days when they’d just chirp me mercilessly about my obvious obsession. At least then I hadn’t felt like such a loser.
“Alright, let’s get moving,” I said, needing to escape the suffocating concern radiating from my team. “Ice time’s wasting.”
We headed out together, the familiar sounds of blades on ice and pucks hitting boards washing over me like a benediction. Hockey. The one thing that still made sense when everything else had gone to shit.
And then— fuck me —there she was.
My eyes found her without permission, drawn like iron filings to a magnet.
She carved across the ice with that lethal grace that had hooked me two years ago and never let go.
Controlled violence wrapped in feminine power.
The rink lights caught the sheen of perspiration on her throat, and I had to physically wrench my gaze away before my body broadcasted exactly how gone I still was.
Don't look. Don't fucking look . I thought, jaw clenching.
“Hey man, you good?” Dylan materialized at my shoulder, voice pitched low.
“Fucking peachy.” The words tumbled out without thought, and Christ, that phrase— her phrase —drove a stake through my ribs. I could still hear her voice from that night in the woods as she’d said it: “Just fucking peachy.”
Back when I'd been stupid enough to think her walls were finally crumbling. When every cutting remark felt like foreplay and every glare was just another form of wanting. Before she’d carved my heart out with surgical precision and handed it back like medical waste.
Dylan's hand landed on my shoulder, brief but grounding. Then Coach's whistle shrieked, and it was time to pretend I was fine. Time to skate and shoot and check like my chest wasn't caving in on itself.
Practice blurred past. I buried myself in drills, in the burn of overworked muscles, in anything that wasn't the constant awareness of where she was on the ice. Always in my periphery. Always just out of reach. Even as I kept my distance, and maintained the space she’d demanded.
Even when every fiber of my being screamed at the wrongness of it.
Then Coach blew the whistle for mixed scrimmage, and my carefully maintained control started fracturing.
The second she stepped onto the ice for the face-off, everything else faded to white noise.
Two years of watching her play, and she still took my breath away.
The way she bent at the waist, stick poised, every muscle coiled and ready—it was poetry wrapped in violence, and my body responded like Pavlov's dog.
Heat pooled low in my belly, my cock stirring despite every mental command to stand down. This was neither the time nor the place, but apparently my dick still hadn’t gotten the memo about maintaining professional distance.
The puck dropped.
She exploded into motion, stealing it from Dylan with a move so smooth it looked choreographed. Her ponytail whipped behind her as she pivoted, and I caught myself tracking the line of her throat, the flex of her thighs as she powered down the ice.
Focus, you pathetic fuck .
I threw myself into the game, channeling every ounce of frustrated desire into my play. Check. Pass. Shoot. Anything to keep from dwelling on how fucking beautiful she looked when she was in her element—
“Summers!” Coach's voice cracked like a whip. “Get your head in the game!”
Right. Game. Hockey. Focus .
The game got chippy, more physical. Bodies crashing together in front of the net, everyone fighting for position.
I found myself in a scrum with three other players, the puck somewhere in the mess of skates and sticks.
Then suddenly she was there, pressed against me by the crush of bodies, her back to my chest as we both reached for the loose puck.
Time slowed. Every point of contact burned through my gear—her ass against my hips, her shoulders against my chest, the way she fit against me like she was made for it.
Two years of muscle memory screaming that this was right, this was home, even as she shoved away from me with a grunt of "Get off me! "
“Fuck,” I gasped, the word lost in the chaos of the game, as I tried to keep on my feet.
Every accidental contact after that was torture.
Her hip checking mine in a board battle.
Our sticks tangling as we fought for the puck.
The brief press of her back against my chest when play got congested in front of the net.
Each touch was gasoline on a fire I couldn't extinguish, my cock now fully hard and aching against my cup.
Come on, man. Be professional. Distant. Don't let her see .
But Christ, how was I supposed to maintain distance when she played like that? All controlled aggression and fluid grace. When she scored—a wicked wrister that found the top corner—her face lit up with that fierce joy that made my chest cavity feel too small.
I wanted to skate over, tap her helmet like I used to, to lean in close and tell her how incredible she looked out there. Wanted to see if that would make her look at me—really look at me—instead of through me like I was made of glass.
Instead, I skated back to the bench. Grabbed my water bottle.
Pretended my hands weren't shaking with the effort of staying away. By the time Coach called time, I was vibrating out of my skin. Every muscle coiled tight with restraint. Pretending like every fucking atom in my body didn’t want to go to her, like I couldn’t see her standing fifteen feet away, pulling off her helmet and shaking out her hair, systematically destroying me.
A strand stuck to her cheek, and my fingers actually twitched with the need to brush it back. I clenched them, my nails digging half-moon crescents into my palms.
God, I was so fucked.
“Better,” Coach Hawkins was saying from her spot beside Coach Gunner, but her words were white noise compared to the bead of sweat trailing down her throat. “Defensive transitions still need work, but I'm seeing improvement in the neutral zone…”
I forced myself to focus on his words. On anything except the way her chest rose and fell with each breath. The way she absently wiped her face with her jersey, flashing a strip of skin that made my brain short-circuit.
When she glanced my way—just a flicker of those whiskey eyes; I forgot how to breathe. For half a heartbeat, our eyes locked, and I thought I saw a flicker of something that looked a lot like…guilt. Then she blinked, and the ice was back. Thicker than before.
The second— the fucking second —Coach finished, I bolted. Off the ice. Through the doors. Down the corridor like the hounds of hell were on my heels. Which, in a way, they were; if hell was shaped like Hailey Baleman and tasted like everything I couldn’t have.
I slammed into the locker room, chest heaving, body still humming with unspent energy and frustrated need.
My cock throbbed angrily, refusing to accept that this was our new reality—that all that restraint I’d forced it to endure since, now all amounted to nothing .
But worst of all was the gaping ache in my chest that was growing with each breath I took, making room for the panic I’ve tried my best to hold at bay to occupy.
“Quit acting like some lovesick puppy and leave me alone.”
The memory was like ice water, dousing the heat but not the ache. She'd been crystal fucking clear. And I was going to respect that, even if it killed me.
My phone buzzed in my bag—a welcome distraction from the taste of copper in my mouth and the persistent throb in my cock… until I saw the name on the screen.
Dr. Summers .
And just like that, my blood turned to ice water. Of course. Because this day wasn’t already enough of a goddamn dumpster fire.
Fucking hell.