Chapter 15
MARCH
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame.
I pressed my fingers to the hand-shaped mark on my cheek. It still stung.
Something crashed against the wall inside, and I flinched, backing away. God dammit. Damn him. Damn me. Why didn't I—
I broke off the thought and forced my other hand to stop shaking, forced the fingers open from the fist I'd been making.
Part of me was already standing outside myself, watching. Noting the way my breathing had gone shallow, the tremor I couldn't quite suppress. Joel Coffey, who had put Danny in the hospital in fifteen seconds, flinching at a sound through a door.
I'd known what I was doing when I pushed him. Milo ran hot before shows, all that nervous energy looking for somewhere to land, and I'd picked at him anyway. Told him his new song was derivative. Watched his face change and kept going.
I'd seen the swing coming. My body knew exactly what to do with it—the block, the counter, the way to put him on the ground before his hand ever reached my face.
I'd let it land.
Behind the door, Milo was crying big, theatrical sobs that would translate well to an Instagram story later. I noted the observation, noted the cruelty of it, noted that I was standing here dissecting his performance while my cheek throbbed where he'd hit me.
My mother made excuses for the men who hurt her. I made observations about them.
I wasn't sure which was worse.
The elevator button was cold under my thumb. My reflection stared back at me from the brass doors. The mark was already darkening, spreading across my cheekbone in a shape that was unmistakably fingers. My mother's jaw. Her eyes. Her face in every mirror I'd ever looked into.
The elevator opened, and I stepped inside.
Outside, the March air hit, and my eyes watered from the sting. I pulled out my phone before I could think better of it.
I turned off the phone and slid it back into my pocket. My hand was shaking again, and I let it, detached, like it belonged to someone else.
Red was in this city.
The thought surfaced, and I couldn't push it back down.
I'd known it when I agreed to come to Salt Lake for Milo's concert.
I'd told myself it didn't matter, that I wasn't going to do anything about it.
The Hive had called him up in January, and he'd had a goal and an assist in his first game, and the sports blogs had called him a revelation, this undersized center who played like he had something to prove.
I'd read every article. I'd watched every clip. I'd told myself that was normal, that anyone would be curious, that it didn't mean anything.
The public rink on Fifth Street was half-empty. Families and teenagers traced wobbly circles under fluorescent lights, and the air had that familiar bite to it, cold and clean and smelling like nothing else in the world.
I paid for an hour and walked past the rental counter toward the boards. The cold hit my face, and the swelling throbbed, and I wrapped my hands around the rail and let myself breathe.
Red was on the far side of the ice.
He wore jeans and a hoodie instead of gear, his hair longer than I remembered and curling at the back of his neck. He was skating lazy figures in a corner away from the crowd, his body low and loose, and I couldn't look away from him. I'd never been able to look away from him.
He moved like the ice owed him something, like it had always been his and he was just collecting what he was due.
My hands ached where I was gripping the rail. He turned on the far end and started back toward center ice, and halfway through the turn his head came up.
His eyes found mine.
His whole body changed. His jaw went tight. His rhythm broke, his edge catching wrong for just a second before he corrected. He held my gaze as he crossed the ice, and whatever warmth I remembered was gone.
He stopped at the boards in front of me, close enough to see the new lines at the corners of his eyes, the set of his mouth, the way his knuckles had gone white on the rail.
Then his eyes cut to the families behind him, and his nostrils flared, his jaw going tight, his gaze darting toward the exit.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
"I needed to skate."
"You need to leave." He was already moving toward the gate. "Now. Before someone sees you."
He was off the ice and shoving his feet into sneakers before I'd made it to the rubber mats. His movements were jerky, rushed, his head turning every few seconds to check the door and the parking lot beyond.
"Red—"
"Not here. Don't say my name. Don't look at me. Just walk."
He grabbed his bag and headed for the back exit. I followed three steps behind like a stranger, like we'd never touched each other, like I hadn't spent the last three months trying to forget the taste of his skin.
The parking lot was dark and mostly empty. Red stopped next to his truck and finally turned to face me. His eyes went straight to my cheek and stayed there.
"Who hit you?"
My hand went to my cheek before I could stop it. I'd had a response ready for his anger, words lined up to defend myself, and now they were useless.
"It doesn't matter."
"Milo?" His hands curled at his sides. "Did that piece of shit put his hands on you?"
"It's over. I ended it an hour ago."
"An hour." He laughed, and the sound was ugly. "So you dumped your boyfriend and came straight to the one rink in Salt Lake where I skate. What, you thought I'd feel sorry for you? Kiss it better?"
My throat tightened. I swallowed against it and made sure my expression didn't change.
"I didn't know you'd be here."
"Bullshit."
"I didn't. I came because I needed ice." My voice was steady, which surprised me. "Ice is the only place I feel safe when everything else falls apart."
The hard line of his mouth softened. His shoulders dropped half an inch.
"You should have called first." The edge in his voice had dulled slightly. "Warned me. I have a life here, Joel. I have a team that doesn't know anything about me, and it needs to stay that way."
I looked away.
"You get to be out." He stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"You get to hold hands with pop stars and walk red carpets and nobody tries to end your career for it.
I don't—" He stopped, and started again.
"I lose everything. Do you get that? Everything I've worked for my whole life, gone, if anyone finds out. "
“I get it, Red.”
His jaw was tight. "What do you want from me, then? Why are you here?"
The bruise on my cheek was throbbing in time with my pulse. I shoved my hands in my pockets to hide the shaking.
"I thought Milo would make it stop." The words came out before I could weigh them. "Being with someone. Having something that looked like a relationship. I thought if I just tried hard enough—"My throat had gone tight and I had to swallow before I could continue. "It didn't work."
"Make what stop?"
"Wanting you."
The parking lot was silent. I kept my eyes on the cracked asphalt because I couldn't look at him while the words hung between us.
"That's not fair," he said quietly. "You don't get to show up after three months with a bruise on your face and say things like that." His voice cracked. "You don't get to just—fuck." He pressed his hands against his eyes. "Fuck."
I kept my hands in my pockets. If I touched him now, he'd bolt.
He dropped his hands. His eyes were bright in the darkness.
"Tell me to leave," I said. "I'll get in an Uber and fly back to Colorado and you'll never have to see me again."
He didn't say anything.
"Just say it, Red."
Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm started, then stopped.
He unlocked the truck.
"Get in," he said. "Before someone sees you."
His apartment was in a complex near the arena, the kind of place that housed rookies and call-ups. He pulled into a spot at the back of the lot, away from the streetlights, and killed the engine.
Neither of us moved.
"This is stupid," he said finally. His hands were still on the wheel. "This is so fucking stupid."
"Maybe."
"I have a game tomorrow. If anyone sees you here—"
"No one's going to see me."
He turned to look at me. In the dim light his face was all shadows and sharp edges.
"The rink was an accident," I said. "Being here isn't. Milo had concerts all over the country. I picked Salt Lake."
Red went still.
"I told myself I wasn't going to do anything about it. I was going to sit in the audience and fly back to Colorado, and that would be the end of it." I was watching my own hands in my lap, the way my fingers had laced together. "And then he hit me, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go."
"So I'm what? Your backup plan?"
"No. You're the only thing I've wanted for three months. I just didn't think I was allowed to have it."
His breath caught. His throat worked as he swallowed.
"Get inside," he said. "Before I change my mind."
The apartment was small and dark and smelled like him. I stood just inside the door and breathed it in while he locked up behind us.
He didn't turn on the lights.
"This doesn't change anything," he said to the door. "I'm still angry at you."
“Then be angry. I didn’t ask you not to be.”
He turned around and stopped. His eyes went to my cheek, and his whole body shifted, the tension draining out of his shoulders.
"Joel." His voice had changed. "Jesus. Look at your face."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine." He crossed the room and stopped in front of me, close enough that warmth radiated off his body. His hand came up and his thumb brushed the edge of the bruise.
I flinched before I could stop myself.
"Sorry." He pulled his hand away. "Did I hurt you?"
"No." I caught his wrist and brought his hand back to my face. "No. Don't stop."
His thumb traced the edge of the swelling, and I closed my eyes because I couldn't keep them open, because no one had ever touched me like this. Milo's hand had been a fist. Red's was open, careful, mapping the damage like he wanted to understand it.
He kissed me.