Chapter 2 #2
I shoulder through the door, the smell of sweat and rubber slamming into me, and pretend I don’t immediately scan for blonde hair in a ponytail.
Collins is teaching a rookie how to rip sock tape, which is like teaching a goldfish the backstroke.
Helmets hang crooked. Someone’s playlist bleeds tinny bass. Ordinary. Safe.
I sit, dig out a fresh roll, and start over on the wrist because doing something with my hands keeps the other itch down.
Wrap. Smooth. Anchor. The joint complains; I tell it to take a number.
Second period in three minutes. If I focus on forecheck angles and where their D overcommits, there’s no room for the shape of Riley’s mouth when she says deep breath like she doesn’t remember saying it to me in a bed I can’t forget.
“You look mean,” our goalie says, flopping into the stall next to mine. Still in his chest protector, a medieval beetle.
“I am mean,” I say. “I’m also busy.”
He grins behind his mouthguard. “Good. Stay that way.” He taps my taped wrist with his stick—gentle for him. “Don’t make me stop more odd-man rushes because you’re daydreaming about HR violations.”
I glare. He laughs like a man protected by both pads and friendship. “Eyes on the game,” I tell him. Myself. Anyone who needs it.
He points his stick at my chest. “Then stop staring at the door.”
“I’m not,” I lie, and the universe hates liars because that’s when the handle turns.
The room inhales. She steps in with a blue ice kit banging her knee and a clipboard that could cut a man if she decided it should. Hair escaping its elastic. Cheeks pink from tunnel cold. Eyes steady on the job—not on me—except they flick once, and the hit lands center mass.
“Heads up, fellas,” she calls, crisp. “Quick checks before the horn. Anyone bleeding I haven’t met yet?” A few smart answers die when she sweeps them with a look. Power, quiet as deep water.
She moves efficiently, a constellation of small mercies: gauze on a split knuckle, a towel snapped at a neck, a word in a kid’s ear who skates on nerves. I watch and I don’t—because watching is standing on a cliff, and I promised myself I’m done with gravity.
My phone buzzes facedown in the stall: Julia: Cameras nearby. Stay away. The screen goes black, warning swallowed.
Riley reaches our row. My row. Silence cones around us like we’ve been dropped under glass. I flex my wrist as if to remind us both why she’s here.
“Lane,” Coach says across the room, clipped, neutral. A boundary chalked on concrete. “Make it fast.”
“Always do,” she answers, calm as a scalpel. She stops in front of me, cooler thunking by my skate, and finally lets her gaze lock on mine. Not a challenge. Not permission. A test I can pass if I want it enough.
I straighten. Vow tightens like new tape. Eyes on the game. Don’t touch the door that hurts when it closes.
“Wrist,” I say, offering the most dangerous thing I own into the space between us.
Riley snaps a glove into place, powder dusting the air between us like frost. She doesn’t waste words. Doesn’t waste me a look longer than necessary. The blue of her eyes is work-cold.
“Shirt off,” she says.
It hits like a puck off the post—loud in my bones. Around us, the room discovers other things to study with the enthusiasm of men who know they shouldn’t study this. A playlist hiccups. Someone coughs. Collins mutters a prayer to the god of not getting punched.
My phone vibrates again: Julia: Cameras nearby. Stay away.
Right. Sure. Absolutely. I hook my fingers in the hem anyway, because staying away isn’t an option when she’s five feet tall and six feet unignorable. Cotton rasps over skin. Cold air bites what the jersey covered. Gooseflesh lifts across my arms—an honest tell my mouth can hide but my eyes can’t.
Riley doesn’t react. Not outwardly. She steps closer, the toe of her sneaker braced against the rubber mat between my skates, all that quick, competent focus aimed at the problem I’m pretending is just a wrist. She studies the tape like it insulted her personally.
“You wrapped it too tight,” she says, disapproval honed to a blade.
“I like it tight,” I hear myself say, because I’m an idiot and talking is easier than the quiet where I notice her breathing.
Her gaze flicks up. Really? “Congratulations. You like ischemia.” She peels the edge with careful fingers—precise, impersonal, devastating. Adhesive pops against my skin. Heat climbs from every place she touches and settles under my sternum like a bad idea.
“Flex,” she orders. I do. She watches for the jump I can’t control, thumb testing bone like she owns it—because right now she does. “You’re not going back out unless you can manage the stick without compensating.”
“I can manage,” I say, softer. The words mean the game. They also don’t.
Her lashes lift. For a heartbeat, the room falls away—no lockers, no suits, no rules, just weightless space where two stubborn people balance at the edge of a choice. It lasts one beat. She breaks it herself, practical to the last. “Hold still.”
She cleans. Re-tapes. Pads the stitches I gave her a reason to place. The antiseptic ghosts the citrus I remember until I can’t tell past from present. Somewhere behind me a stick clatters. The two-minute horn bleats down the hall. I don’t move. I could. I don’t.
“Breathe,” she says, almost under her breath, like she doesn’t mean me to hear it. Like she doesn’t remember the first time she said it when there wasn’t a single stitch between us.
I inhale. It hurts less than I expect. More than it should.
She finishes with a neat, ruthless anchor. Her gloved fingers skim my forearm to check circulation—once, twice—then hover, as if there’s one more thing she could fix if she wanted to break us both. She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. Her gaze shifts to my chest, impassive. “Any pain there?”
“Only when I play,” I say. It’s a joke. It isn’t.
Her eyes lift and hold. The playlist clicks off between tracks. Silence stretches taut.
My phone buzzes again—cameras, brand, math—and I force a smirk because that’s the version of me everyone understands. My fingers don’t get the memo. They tremble where they rest on my thigh, the tiniest shake— a tell only she can see from this close.