Chapter 29
twenty-nine
MORGAN
The water streaming out of my apartment's old showerhead burns hot enough to blister, and I’ve decided if I stand here long enough, I can scald away what just happened. What I just let happen, if I'm being honest, and what my body is currently staging a full biological revolt to repeat.
I scrub with the loofah, ignoring the fact that red welts have bloomed across my arms, my chest, and the insides of my thighs where his fingers left their calling cards.
But physical evidence I can deal with—I'm a hockey player with more bruises than limbs on any given day—but it's the other evidence that's a worry.
The evidence currently making its leisurely, obscene descent down my thigh.
His DNA that's literally dripping out of me.
The thought should trigger my gag reflex. That’s the goal here, disgust and revulsion, or anything but this hollow ache that my neurons keep misidentifying as want. But as his seed mixes with shower spray, I'm left with a cocktail of poor decisions.
The rational, sensible part of my brain scolds me hotter than the water. "This is what five minutes of weakness costs you. Your biggest mistake reacquainted himself with your cervix, and somehow you were the one saying please…"
I pour some more body wash on the loofah, the label promising to “purify and restore balance.” But when I squeeze half the bottle directly onto my skin, lathering until foam thick enough to hide evidence builds up, I feel as impure and unbalanced as before.
This isn't working.
I crank the water to arctic, punishing my body like I do after I fuck up on the ice. The shock steals oxygen from my lungs, but my nipples just tighten to painful points, sending signals straight to where I’m—fuck—still slick despite the punishing shower.
My body has gone rogue, running on some primitive setting that overrides twenty-one years of careful conditioning, every neuron lighting up like a Christmas tree and sending orders to my body to respond accordingly at the mere thought of him.
My phone lights up through shower glass:
Are you OK?
No, James. I’m leaking while my vagina campaigns for round two.
I’m the antithesis of OK.
It lights up again:
Morgan, please. Just tell me you got home safe.
The please almost works.
Almost resurrects the girl who believed in happily-ever-after.
One last time:
I know I fucked up before, but… I just don't understand, okay?
I shut the water off hard enough to rattle pipes. Then, once I'm out of the shower and dry (though still shivering from the cold blast), I delete the notifications and block his number with the efficiency of someone who’s practiced this mental drill for three years.
Our entire text history.
Gone.
If only the real thing was as easy.
On autopilot, I dress in my pajamas, desperately needing to sleep before a punishing day of practice tomorrow. But my apartment feels contaminated and chaotic, like his molecules have somehow infiltrated my hermetically-sealed environment, and I know sleep will be elusive.
The kitchen gleams under surgical lighting, every surface already sterile from this morning’s routine. But that doesn't matter right now. I attack the already spotless counters, pouring chemicals onto granite that could already host open-heart surgery.
The fumes make my eyes water.
Definitely the fumes.
By the time I’m on my knees attacking immaculate grout with a toothbrush, I catch my reflection in the oven door. Here’s Morgan Riley: captain of a D1 hockey program, currently scrubbing imaginary contamination at 2:00 a.m. because she let James Fitzgerald past her lines and he scored.
The bruise on my neck is clear as day, reminding me that tomorrow requires a turtleneck. My players will know anyway—hockey players can smell sex like sharks smell blood—but they won’t dare comment. They recognize the facial expression that says mention this and I’ll make you regret it.
Because that’s my brand.
I sit back on my heels, surrounded by enough toxic fumes to strip paint.
My hands are raw and my knees bruised from the tile, a matched set with the bruises he left on my thighs.
The apartment smells like a crime scene, which tracks, because I murdered three years of control, and now I’m just the cleanup crew.
After more cleaning and a few hours of sleep, the walk to the rink the next morning presents a tactical challenge. I’ve mapped out three different routes, considering the probability of encountering James based on his schedule, his usual paths, and the places where our worlds might intersect.
Route A takes me through the main quad—thirty percent chance of contact.
Unacceptable. Route B passes the library—absolutely not, that entire building is now enemy territory.
Route C, through the eastern academic quad behind the science buildings, adds seven minutes but reduces probability to five percent.
Perfect.
It's the only thing that's perfect about this whole mess.
As I walk, hands balled into fists and giving off my best do-not-talk-to-me-under-any-circumstances vibe, the November air stings my face. Each breath comes out of me in small puffs that dissipate into nothing—there and gone, like they never existed, like last night should never have existed.
The entire time, my peripheral vision stays on high-alert while I maintain a brisk, purposeful pace.
Every tall figure makes my pulse spike, every head of dark hair triggers muscle memory I haven’t deprogrammed yet, and every group of guys raises my threat alarm because he might be the ringleader among them.
A group of guys emerges from the physics building.
My body locks, ready to execute evasive maneuvers, but their laughter rings too high to be his.
Still, I take a sharp left, adding another detour.
And as I walk, I try to convince myself that this isn’t avoidance, that it’s strategic excision, cutting James out like a growth.
Finally, after taking much longer than usual, I reach the women's locker room.
Or, I should say, the shared locker room.
And, thankfully, there are no guys—and no James—around right now.
But what I find instead is Coach Walsh, standing frozen, holding a single sheet of paper with the delicate grip of someone handling live ordnance. I've seen her in plenty of stressful situations in the last few months since we started working together, but nothing quite like this.
“He just gutted us, Morgue.” Her voice has that dangerous quietness that precedes detonation. “The bastard actually went too far this time.”
I close the distance between us and take the memo, my mind shifting into analytical mode with the relief of a dislocated joint popping back into place. Because anything is better than thinking about him and that and what the hell happens now?
University letterhead.
Athletic Department.
Galloway’s signature slashed across the bottom.
The first cuts are predictable brutality. Our travel budget has been slashed to the bare minimum. And, worse, we've had our travel funding and fees to attend the Winter Showcase—where actual scouts show up looking to learn more about prospects—“suspended pending review.”
Translation: Your girls can forget about being seen.
My stomach clenches thinking of players who transferred here from lesser programs in the hope that it would get them to the pros.
There's still a chance, sure, but in an ecosystem where every single ounce of attention and effort can be the difference, this might keep some of my girls from their dream.
But that's not all.
Equipment budget: frozen.
Who needs tape or sticks or pucks, anyway?
Facility access: 5:00 a.m. ice time each day is our only slot.
The zamboni gets priority…
Coach Walsh’s hours: capped at twenty per week.
Work yourself to death for free, ladies. We’re counting on it.
This is more than just tying up purchase requests in red tape. It's reducing our ability to be a viable team at all. It's death by a thousand paper cuts, each one deeper than the previous set of conditions he put on our program, which necessitated teaming up with James.
Then I see it.
Buried at the bottom:
"New institutional guidelines regarding inter-team resource allocation and academic support services."
The words crystallize into meaning with slow-motion clarity:
"To maintain integrity… unauthorized inter-team resource sharing, including equipment, training materials, or academic tutoring services, is strictly prohibited…"
The memo continues its bureaucratic masturbation, but I’ve stopped processing. My blood turns arctic, freezing me from the inside out, because the references to inter-team resource sharing and academic tutoring services tell me he knows.
He fucking knows.
About the stolen gear and the sociology tutoring.
About James and me working together to overcome his bullshit.
“Morgan?” Bri’s voice sounds underwater. “You’ve gone very pale.”
“He knows.” The words scrape out raw.
“Knows what?”
The truth sits heavy on my tongue—that I made a devil’s bargain with James, traded for contraband equipment, compromised everything for rolls of tape and the pathetic fantasy that someone had my back, and succumbed to temptation that I could not give in to.
“Morgan.” Bri moves closer, her face creased with concern that hasn’t been beaten out of her yet. “If he’s got something on you, we tackle it together.”
“Nothing.” My voice sounds mechanical. “He’s just… undermining female sports because that's his default setting."
Her eyes narrow—it's clear she can smell the bullshit—but she doesn’t push. Maybe she recognizes the expression I’m wearing or that Galloway's power play is a targeted strike aimed directly at both hockey programs, not a general campaign because he's a prick.
“We’ll figure it out,” she offers, though even her idealism can’t quite sell it. “We always—”
“I always do.” The correction slips out before I can stop it. “This is my fight, Bri, and I don't want you ruining your career over it.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I turn my back and walk to my locker, movements automatic.
Because, suddenly, I've got an outlet for all my frustration, a cure to the disease, and a way to atone for all my mistakes.
Just like three years ago, when I'd turned heartbreak into a focus that got me to D1 hockey.
I'm focused.
Or so I need to tell myself.
Because if I'm not focused, I might think about the way I’d kissed him, like I was drowning and he was oxygen. The way I’d pulled him closer instead of maintaining a safe distance. The way I’d let him breach every defense I’d spent three years fortifying.
And that twenty minutes of chaos—of pleasure—is non-refundable.
And maybe the most expensive mistake I've ever made.