Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Quinn
Being told I didn’t have to give up skating completely had been the highlight of my recovery. At first, I was afraid it would feel like a compromise—and in a way, I suppose it did. Watching people at the rink move around the ice with an ease that I no longer had was hard some nights.
But usually, it just felt good to be out there.
Nothing worked up a better sweat than powering around the wide expanse of ice until my hip ached and my knee felt like it wanted to evict itself from my body.
It was also freer than it had been when I was playing. Everything in the NHL had been so regimented. My diet, my ice time, my public face, my gameplay. Hell, even my free time was carefully curated and scheduled, so nothing about it was actually free.
I hadn’t realized how much of myself I’d lost to the world of sports, which I knew was entirely my fault. Not every player was like me. Not everyone struggled to regulate or compartmentalize. Not everyone made their position and stats their entire personality.
It was the one thing I’d been afraid of when I decided to go back to school. What if I lost myself again to a new career? And maybe that would have happened—hell, maybe it still could. But for the moment, Ferris was back in my life, and he was holding me like an invisible tug-of-war.
Everything about the relationship was wrong on so many levels. He might have been a virgin, but he was so much more in tune with his own body than I was. And he understood his own heart, where I had always tucked mine away in a little closed box.
I used to blame that on having no one. My parents died when I was young. I had no siblings. There were distant cousins who didn’t live anywhere near me, and no one had really checked up on me when my mom passed.
I was just some guy they could brag about every time we made playoffs or I won some sort of trophy. Occasionally, one of them would call asking for money, but since being retired, those had also dried up.
So yeah, it was easy to make that part of my personality too. But meeting Ferris made me realize how much of it was my fault. Over the years, so many of the guys had reached out, trying to pull me into their little family orbit, but I’d been so fixated on not getting attached.
What if I got traded? What if they got traded?
What if the worst happened and I was unable to play again? Back then, I very much doubted any of them would try to stay in my life.
Except they had tried to keep me in the loop after my injury, and I was the one who shut them out.
I was feeling a bit foolish and very lonely. Having Ferris in my space had been thrilling, erotic, and terrifying all at once. One set of wrong eyes and a single report, and everything I’d worked for would be down the drain. I couldn’t imagine the scandal headlines.
NHL rookie fresh from college seduced by former NHL star turned physical therapist.
Or…something like that. There was a reason I wasn’t a journalist. But it wasn’t just my reputation on the line. I didn’t want to ruin Ferris before he had a chance to make something of himself.
But dear god, he was addicting. I didn’t know if something was fundamentally wrong with me or if the universe was trying to show me that there was that one perfect man out there for me.
He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I was quiet or closed off.
He didn’t care that I rarely smiled or that my laugh was so unused it sounded like a wheeze.
He didn’t mind that I had nearly two decades on him.
He just…liked me.
I didn’t know how to handle that.
“Yo!”
I spun when I realized the strange voice was talking to me.
It was a very tall man who was holding two hockey sticks, skating toward me with a very stiff gait.
I wondered if he was new, but the look on his face said he was not.
He was very tall, pale with a lot of freckles and blond hair that edged toward red.
“Hey.” I frowned as he came to a stop a few feet away.
He grinned, and I could see dimples in each cheek. “Sorry. I know it’s weird when a total stranger comes up to you, and I don’t mean to interrupt your contemplation.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t that deep,” I told him. No, really. It was just a total relationship crisis with a soon-to-be NHL goalie who was just shy of half my age.
It was fine.
He snorted a laugh and tapped his right stick on the ice. “Sweet. Anyway, I’m Alex.”
“Quinn.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Quinn Rhodes. It actually is you.”
Well. Fuck. “Mm.”
“I’m not trying to make it weird, bro. I promise. My brother and I had a bet whether or not you really had moved up here after the whole…thing.”
The whole thing. Meaning losing my entire career.
“Who won?” I asked.
He laughed again. “He did—the fucker. It’s fine though. He’s in so much debt to me I was starting to feel bad. Anyway, pretty sweet to see you out on the ice.”
“Hard to give it up.”
Normally, when I had interactions like this, I fled as quickly as I could. But there was something about Alex that made me feel less on edge. Maybe it was the way he didn’t start asking me invasive questions about how I felt now that I’d lost my former life.
“I feel that.” He used his sticks to help himself shimmy back and forth, and then he jerked his head ahead of him and started skating.
It only took me a second to realize he was inviting me to come along.
“I was in the USHL when I was a kid. I thought I was gonna go pro, but I ended up signing up to do four years in the Marines.”
“Shit,” I said.
He sighed. “Yeah. Best worst mistake of my life.” He transferred one stick under his arm, and as we fell into an easy glide, he lifted his right pant leg, and I could see he was wearing a prosthetic.
That explained his stiff gait. “Got deployed, got my legs blown off, met my wife in rehab, and now I own this rink.”
I blinked at him. “I…don’t know what to say. I kind of feel like a shit for complaining about my knee.”
“Nah, man. We don’t do oppression Olympics here. But we do do hockey.”
I knew what he was talking about. Sled hockey. It was up and coming in the professional world now that a league had been established, but just like women’s hockey, it didn’t get the time, attention, or funding it deserved.
I thought about looking into it once, but it felt way too much like a compromise. And frankly, I was done with the idea of being pro anything. I just wanted to live my life.
“Ah, I know that face. I don’t mean to overstep,” Alex said quickly.
I waved him off. “It’s not that. I skate for fun now. My life is busy as hell.”
“That’s what we do. My brother kept telling me I should look into getting agented—see about joining one of the pro teams—but I like this. The guys show up here, we have a few drinks, put our asses in some sleds, and fuck each other up. It’s great when you’re having a really bad day.”
He did look happy. No, he looked more than happy. He looked content. My gaze caught on his wedding ring. It looked like one of those silicone athlete rings that were so popular these days. It was a deep, royal blue and contrasted brightly against his pale skin and freckles.
“I don’t have the equipment. And I’m not sure what kind of time I’d have.”
“Equipment is easy. We have a guy. He can mold your ass and get a sled going for you in days,” Alex said with a grin. “The rest is all on you. Show up when you can. And if I’m being too much, just tell me to fuck off. My wife says I don’t know social boundaries.”
I couldn’t help a small laugh. Ferris had said something like that to me once. He had charmed the actual pants off me with his lack of social boundaries. And while Alex was different, the fact that he just went for it made me feel good.
Less like a freak.
“Why don’t we exchange numbers. It doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world.”
He tapped my shoulder with his stick. “Fuck yeah, man. Wanna go get some wings after this?”
I stared, then burst into laughter because I realized I could do that. I could have some fucking wings and not care. “My treat,” I told him.
“NHL money?” He grinned at me. “I’m definitely taking you up on that.”
The wings were at a restaurant across the street from the rink.
And that happened to be owned by Alex’s brother.
We got a very nice table on the rooftop patio, which was accessible with an elevator.
I hadn’t considered that Alex’s family might make things more accessible for him when I hadn’t been making many things accessible for myself.
We lounged, and it felt nice. Different. A little odd because I wasn’t used to this. I hung out plenty with the guys on my team, but my mind had always been elsewhere. It was on the game, or the presser I’d have to do later, or how I was going to fill in the hours of my free time.
Most of the guys had husbands or wives to go home to. They had families and kids and hobbies.
I felt lost at sea so often that I forgot to enjoy the quiet moments.
“You alright?” Alex asked.
I blinked at him, then ducked my head and took a swig of the iced tea, which was too cold for how unseasonably chilly it was up on the roof.
The patio heaters were a nice touch though.
“Sorry. It’s been a weird week. I’ve been coming to the rink for a while, and I didn’t think anything like this would happen. ”
“Meeting a nosy rando?”
“Making a friend,” I said, then stopped. “Sorry. I mean, we just met and—”
Alex lifted his glass. “To making friends via socially awkward, legless nerds who don’t know when to keep their mouth shut.”
I burst into laughter, then took another drink before settling back in my chair. “I didn’t do this a lot before my injury.”
“You were kind of like an ice king, yeah?”
“Something like that. I didn’t do well with people. Now, that’s my entire day.” I fiddled with the edge of my plate, staring at the chicken bones now picked clean. It felt weird to indulge.
I could feel Alex studying me, and then he took a breath and said, “There’s something else.”
Damn. He was good.
“I met someone. I have no business doing anything with him, but we can’t seem to stop ourselves. He’s a patient,” I added, “but we didn’t meet that way. We had a…thing before he was hurt.”
Alex didn’t look affronted. “I get it.”
“Do you?”
He laughed loudly and passed a hand down his face with a groan. “Yeahhhh, so. I kind of fucked two of my college professors. They were a married couple and really into messing around with grad students.”
I blinked at him. “Um…”
“I used my GI bill to pay for my business degree, and I did one of those quickie, get your MBA in a year programs, to get it over with, you know? I wanted to actually have some idea about what the fuck I was doing when I bought this place. The wife was a French teacher, and she used to come into his office every time I went in to see him during his office hours. I thought it was great fun.”
He did look pretty pleased with himself.
“Were they older?”
“Oh, yeah. But that was always kind of my thing. My wife’s got fifteen years on me.” He shrugged and sipped his beer. “They weren’t less hot. Trust me.”
I swallowed heavily. “You don’t feel like you were taken advantage of, being that young?”
He scoffed. “I knew what I was getting into. I mean, the idea of it is kind of shady. He could have royally fucked me over for grades—or I could have fucked him over for As. You know? But neither of us did. We just had a grand time after hours. They came to my wedding.”
I choked. “Wait. Were you dating your wife at the time?”
He snorted and shook his head. “Nah, dude. She was working in London back then. I didn’t know if we’d ever get the chance to be a thing, and I was dealing with a lot of personal shit, thanks to my legs. You know how it goes when your body no longer does the things it used to do.”
I knew that far too well.
“They made me feel sexy. It was nice. My wife does too, but she also makes me feel safe. I have zero regrets.”
“Mine—he’s younger than me. He’s part of a whole world that I’m not in, and it feels like I’m chasing this moving target with him that’ll never stop.
But I can’t bring myself to let him go whenever he’s around me.
Especially because he doesn’t want me to.
” I could feel the memory of Ferris’s body against mine—of his dick in my throat, and his hands on my shoulders—like it was a physical thing.
“Don’t overthink it. Have fun. And maybe the fun will become something else, you know? Or maybe it won’t. Just don’t be a dick about it. Or to him.”
There wasn’t a chance in hell I was ever going to be cruel to Ferris. Not even when I should—not even when it might be for his own good.
“Or…not?” Alex said with a small frown.
I sighed and shook my head. “No. You’re right. I’m just kind of learning how.”
His face softened. “Be easier on yourself, yeah? You seem like a good guy.”
Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t. The harshest truth was, I had no idea what kind of person I was at all.