Chapter 6
Toby
Control is a construct. It is a lie we tell ourselves to pretend that we aren't just biological machines piloted by chemical impulses.
I had spent twenty-two years building a fortress of discipline. I woke up at the same time. I ate the same macros. I skated the same drills. I compartmentalized every emotion, every desire, every weakness into neat little boxes and locked them away in the dark corners of my mind.
And it had taken Georgia Sterling exactly five days to burn the entire fortress to the ground.
I was in the varsity weight room. It was 6:00 AM on Friday. The sun hadn't risen yet, and the room was a cavern of shadows and fluorescent hums. The air smelled of chalk, stale sweat, and iron.
Clang.
The sound of the barbell hitting the rack echoed like a gunshot.
I sat up on the bench, my chest heaving. Three hundred and fifteen pounds. Five reps. My pectorals burned, a satisfying, tearing heat that almost—almost—distracted me from the memory of Georgia’s thighs wrapped around my waist.
Almost.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the hem of my shirt. My hands were shaking. Not from the weight. From the withdrawal.
Last night, I had held her. I had touched her.
I had felt her shatter in my arms. And then, like a coward, I had walked away.
I had locked my door and spent six hours staring at the ceiling, listening to the blood roar in my ears, fighting the urge to kick down the door between us and finish what we started.
I was a hypocrite. I preached discipline to the team, demanded focus, and yet here I was, strung out like an addict because a girl smelled like vanilla.
"You're going to tear a pec if you keep lifting like you're trying to punish the bar, Cap."
I didn't turn around. I grabbed my water bottle and took a long swig, letting the cold liquid numb my throat.
Jaxson "Jager" Wells strolled into my peripheral vision. He looked disgusting, as usual for this hour. His blonde hair was a bird's nest, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing pajama pants with taco trucks printed on them.
"Morning, sunshine," Jager yawned, stretching his arms over his head. "Did you sleep here? Or do you just regenerate in a pod like an alien?"
"Couldn't sleep," I grunted, standing up to strip the weights.
" clearly," Jager said. He leaned against the squat rack, watching me with a look that was too sharp for 6:00 AM. "You look like hell, T. And I say that with love. You have bags under your eyes big enough to carry groceries."
"Insomnia," I lied. "Thinking about the draft."
"Bullshit," Jager said cheerfully.
I froze, a forty-five-pound plate in my hand. I turned to look at him. "Excuse me?"
"I said bullshit. You don't lose sleep over hockey. You're the Ice King. You have ice in your veins. Hockey is the one thing that doesn't stress you out." Jager tilted his head. "This is girl stress. I know the look. It's the 'I did something stupid and now my life is complicated' look."
My grip on the plate tightened. Jager was smarter than he acted. It was his greatest weapon on the ice—he lulled defenders into thinking he was lazy, then snapped a pass through their legs.
"There's no girl," I said, my voice flat.
"Right. And I'm a virgin." Jager rolled his eyes. "Look, whoever she is, just bang her and get it over with. The sexual tension is making you cranky. And when you're cranky, you make us run suicides. So, for the sake of the team, go get laid."
If he knew.
If he knew that the "girl" was currently asleep in my bed—well, in my guest bed—wearing my clothes, he wouldn't be making jokes. He would be texting the group chat.
"It's not that simple," I muttered, sliding the plate onto the tree.
"It's always simple," Jager philosophized, picking up a five-pound dumbbell and curling it lazily. "Unless... wait. Is it someone off-limits? Is it a professor? Oh my god, is it Coach’s wife?"
"Jager, shut up."
"It is! You homewrecker!"
"It's not Coach's wife," I snapped, grabbing my towel. "I'm just tired. My hip is bothering me."
It was a calculated risk. Giving him a physical excuse to distract from the emotional one.
Jager’s face sobered instantly. The joker vanished. "The hip? Is it bad?"
"Just tight," I lied. "Need to stretch it out."
"Okay. Well, take it easy." He looked at me, his expression serious. "We need you, T. Don't break yourself before we even get to the playoffs."
"I'm fine," I said. "I'm always fine."
I walked out of the weight room before he could ask any more questions.
I'm always fine.
It was the Kincaid family motto. We didn't bleed. We didn't break. We just optimized.
But as I walked down the hallway toward the showers, my hip throbbing in rhythm with my heartbeat, I felt less like a Kincaid and more like a man walking on a frozen lake, listening to the ice crack under his feet.
Campus at noon was a chaotic ecosystem I usually avoided.
I preferred the silence of the library or the sterility of the penthouse. But today, I needed coffee, and the espresso machine at the apartment was out of beans.
I walked into "The Grind," the campus coffee shop that was overcrowded, overpriced, and loud. It smelled of burnt beans and stress.
I pulled my beanie down low and turned up the collar of my pea coat. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to sign autographs for freshmen or answer questions about the season opener.
I ordered a black Americano and stood in the corner, waiting.
That was when I felt it.
It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. A prickling on the back of my neck. A sudden magnetic pull that oriented my entire body toward a specific point in the room.
I turned slowly.
She was sitting at a high-top table by the window.
Georgia.
She was wearing an oversized grey sweater that swallowed her upper body and black leggings. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, secured with a paintbrush. She had her laptop open and a sketchbook next to it. She was frowning at the screen, chewing aggressively on the end of a pen.
She looked... normal.
To everyone else in the cafe, she was just another student. A pretty girl studying art. Maybe a little tired. Maybe a little stressed.
But I knew.
I looked at her hands—the hands holding that pen. I knew how they felt on my skin. I knew the strength in those fingers. I knew how they shook when she came apart.
I looked at her mouth. I knew the sound that mouth made when she lost control. A broken, desperate cry that was currently looping in my head like a favorite song.
We shared a secret.
It was a terrifying realization. In this room full of hundreds of people, she and I were the only ones who knew the truth. We were tethered together by the memory of skin on skin, of heat and oil and heavy breathing.
She must have felt me looking.
Her head snapped up. Her blue eyes locked onto mine across the crowded room.
She froze.
The pen stopped moving. Her breath hitched—I saw the rise and fall of her chest even from twenty feet away.
A flush crept up her neck, turning her pale skin a dusty rose. She remembered. Of course she remembered.
For a second, the noise of the coffee shop faded. The clatter of cups, the indie folk music, the chatter—it all became white noise.
There was just her. And me. And the unspoken question hanging between us: What now?
I should leave. I should grab my coffee and walk out. We had agreed to keep distance in public.
But my feet didn't move.
Instead, I walked toward her.
I moved through the crowd like a ship breaking ice. People moved out of my way instinctively—I had that effect on people—but I didn't see them.
I stopped at her table.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide. She looked terrified. And excited.
"Hi," she whispered.
"Hi," I said. My voice was rough.
"You're... you're in public," she stammered. "You hate public."
"I needed coffee."
"We have coffee at home."
"We're out of beans."
"Oh."
We stared at each other. The conversation was banal, ridiculous even, but the subtext was screaming.
We have coffee at home.
Home.
She had called the penthouse home.
I glanced at her laptop screen. It was open to a page about Renaissance Anatomy Sketches. Next to it, her sketchbook was open to a drawing of... a hand.
Not just any hand. My hand.
I recognized the scar on the thumb. I recognized the thick, square shape of the fingers. In the sketch, the hand was gripping a bedsheet, the knuckles white with tension.
It was intimate. It was voyeuristic.
"You're drawing me," I murmured, nodding at the book.
Georgia slammed the sketchbook shut, her face turning crimson. "I am practicing tension studies. It's academic."
"It looks like me."
"You have generic hands," she lied badly. She started gathering her things, shoving the pen into her bag. "I have to go. I have a... thing."
"A thing?"
"Class. A studio session." She stood up, hugging her bag to her chest like a shield. She wouldn't meet my eyes. "I'll see you later. At... at the place."
She couldn't even say the word home again. She was running.
"Georgia," I said.
She stopped, but she didn't turn around.
I stepped closer, lowering my voice so only she could hear. I leaned in, invading her personal space just enough to make her shiver.
"Run all you want," I whispered near her ear. "But you're coming back to my bed tonight. Even if it's just to fix my hip."
I saw the shudder run through her. I saw her knuckles turn white on the strap of her bag.
"You're the worst," she breathed.
"I know."
She fled. She literally speed-walked out of the coffee shop, nearly knocking over a freshman in her haste.
I watched her go. I felt a twisted sense of satisfaction.
She was just as affected as I was. She was spinning.
"Americano for Toby!" the barista called out.
I grabbed my cup. It was scalding hot.
It didn't feel half as hot as the memory of her body against mine.
That evening, the penthouse felt too big.
It was 8:00 PM. I had returned from afternoon practice, iced my hip (alone, which was difficult and ineffective), and tried to study. But the silence wasn't working.
Georgia wasn't back.