Chapter Ten Sadie
Rhys might as well have a sign plastered across his forehead saying KISS ME . And I should be wearing one that says THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA .
None of this has gone according to my plan.
Seeing him like this makes my chest ache, hunched over in just his sweatpants and an athletic tee stretched across the broadness of him. With his head in his hands, fingers scraping through the thick, unruly brown locks, and breath shuddering from the tight line of his lips.
“Make This Go On Forever” is playing in my right ear, the music of Snow Patrol kicking up in intensity every few moments, feeding the energy between us.
My previous hookup experiences have been quick, handsy, in-the-dark moments, usually over before they really began. They’re a personal favorite distraction when I feel so much it seeps from my home life into everything else.
But the way Rhys is looking at me isn’t just lust—it’s that desperation I know so well in the darker parts of my mind that close me off from everything.
The need to feel something, just to ground myself.
I have to remind myself of what this is before I dare to touch him. To let myself be this for him. He’s a popular hockey player with a mask that must be as good as gold. I’ve seen him vulnerable, repeatedly now, and I know he won’t ask outright, even as he leans in a little closer.
So I match him, breath-for-breath, move-for-move, until his tensed forehead is pressed to my own, the sweat on his brow now cold in the chill of the room.
His breath is minty and cool as it puffs against my lips, and I know how terrible this is, how much I truly should pull away, take back my headphones and dial in my focus, skate off my bubbling emotions like I usually do—but something is keeping me here, drawn to his deep well of hopelessness like a moth to a flame.
I can’t save him, even if I wanted to. If anyone needs saving, it’s Oliver and Liam, and it’s definitely not my place to try to hold up the drowning hockey boy in front of me now.
He needs me.
Yeah. Sure. For this, maybe.
It isn’t slow, just a hitch of my breath before I shove myself into him, lips meeting his with no hesitation, only need.
A low moan rasps from his throat that sounds like absolute relief, and then he’s responding, giving me back the passion I’m feeding him until it feels like we’re part of a continuous loop.
His hands reach for my waist, pulling almost harshly; I seat myself across his hips, legs straddling him on the low bench.
His back hits the lockers behind him as the skates half-tied on his feet dig into the rubber mat flooring.
Pulling back to look down at him, I take in every detail: the thick brush of his dark hair falling over his forehead, the pink flush of his cheeks, and the darkness of his swollen lips that are lightly open, huffing quickened breaths.
His hands are still bracketing my hips, making me feel so delicate with the way they span the entirety of my waist as they move upward.
“Is this what you want?” he breathes out, voice raspy, as he gazes up at me with half-lidded eyes. I reach out for him, but he catches my wrist and holds it. “Tell me.”
My voice is gone, my mouth so dry it feels like I’ve gone months without a drop of water. I can only nod.
A breathtaking smile I’ve never seen before breaks through Rhys’s lips, two dimples showing in his cheeks as he laughs and closes his eyes before pressing his mouth to the skin of my wrist and muttering against my pulse, “Good. Me too.”
I can’t decide what I want to do with him first.
I slide my hands up his shoulders and neck, and into his hair.
I grip it lightly and dive for the strong column of his throat this time, licking and kissing it rapidly.
He moans again, long and loud with lips right at my ear, sending goose bumps across my skin.
The movements of our bodies are harsh enough to dislodge both headphones; his phone clatters to the floor, leaving us in echoing silence.
Rhys’s hands trace a pattern across my lower back, and for a moment they wander south.
I wait for him to do something , anything—I just need more.
But after a brief hesitation, his palms soothe up my covered spine and into the hair at the base of my neck, moving to cradle my face in his hands as he kisses me again.
I grab his massive palms in my own hands, hard and insistent, and slide them down, down, down to cup my ass.
Rhys groans, squeezing me, and I smirk and dive in to swallow the sound.
It’s intoxicating, the feeling of being on top of him and in total control. We’re only kissing, but it feels like more than any of my previous hookups.
Minutes or hours—there’s no real concept of time while I’m here across his thighs. The only thing keeping me sane is the space I maintain between us, my knees planted on either side of him so I hover over the prominent distraction below me. I won’t even allow myself to look.
Which is possibly the only reason I hear the loud, echoing bang of the back rolling door slamming, signaling someone’s arrival.
I scamper from Rhys’s lap, tossing myself onto the floor.
“Jesus,” he mutters, but I can’t look at him as my phone lights up.
It’s barely even six, so there shouldn’t be anyone strutting the back hallways at this hour. Still, it’s a reminder that these aren’t our summer mornings together anymore; this is real life.
Which means a very specific someone will be here before I can remove the blush from my cheeks.
Standing, I fix my hair into a messy bun and spin back toward the hockey boy who will, unfortunately, be starring in my fantasies from now on.
I sit on the bench across from him as if nothing has happened, ignoring the searing feeling of his gaze on me yet again.
“Sadie—”
The spell is broken. Everything warm in my stomach is rotting the longer I look at him, guilt taking over.
You can’t help anyone. You’ll just mess them up forever.
“I need to practice.” I slip on my skates and quickly lace them with shaking hands, like I’ve absorbed every bit of his anxious energy into my body. He opens his mouth, but I raise my hand to stop him. “Seriously, Rhys, don’t mention it. It was good.”
“Then why are you leaving?” I hate the vulnerability in his voice almost as much as I hate myself.
Because this changes everything we’ve built in our quiet mornings. I can’t be your savior if I’m pulling you down with me.
I need to focus. Oliver, Liam, Ro, skating, work, school. That’s what matters.
Don’t disappoint Coach Kelley. Don’t let this year be like last year.
Don’t get distracted.
Oliver, Liam, Ro. Skating, work, school.
I want to say something kind, apologize even, but the only thing that manages to leave my swollen lips is another brittle, “I need to practice.” Standing on my covered skates, I finally look at Rhys once more. “And I need to focus . This can’t happen again.”
His brow dips, and he watches me while I toss my hoodie into my bag and nearly sprint through the tunnel to the ice.
I skate for only thirty minutes before I decide to head back, hoping he’s where I left him. I practice my apology in my head once or twice, because apologies aren’t exactly a regular event for me. But before I can round the tunnel into the locker room, I hear two voices.
One is a now-familiar male voice.
The other one I also, unfortunately, recognize.
Turning the corner, I see Rhys standing, sans skates, stretched to his full height, towering over Victoria’s lithe spandex-clad body.
She’s gorgeous, her lean muscles easy to see with her tan tights and ruffled skirt, complete with baby blue leg warmers bunched prettily on her bright white skates.
She looks like the posters of girls I had in my room as a child; the Olympians cut out from magazines that I pasted to the insides of my school folders.
She looks exactly like I thought I would now.
Graceful and strong, yet beautiful.
Not this tired, overly emotional—even hateful—skater that I’ve become.
Victoria looks good with Rhys, I realize.
Both of them are long-limbed. She has her buttery blond bun secured tightly, has plump lips and skin still tanned from her summer on the Italian coast that I watched play out with envy on social media while underneath the comforter in my bedroom, eating far too many chocolate-covered cherries.
And Rhys, with his mask of perfection, every trace of fear and vulnerability now gone.
In their place is the handsome college hockey star I imagine that he usually is: messy hair like he just came off a hard skate, flushed skin, and a smile that looks like stars—bright and glimmering.
It even flashes in his irises, the little flecks of hazel brighter as his eyes crinkle and dimples pop.
He’s exactly the campus golden boy I imagined. A slightly more rugged version of his team photo that my illicit internet search yielded.
Something about it makes my stomach hurt.
Victoria lays a delicate hand on his arm as she speaks again.
An irrational flare of jealousy has my spine straightening before I sit far away from the both of them on the bench, slamming my bag down with more force than necessary.
“Oh!” Victoria perks up at the sight of me, turning slightly so she can face us both, her hands holding lightly to the strap of her bag where she clasps and unclasps a pink claw clip. The sound is grating in my ears, but not more grating than her chipper giggle.
“Good morning, Sadie. I didn’t see you. Have you met Rhys?” She gestures to him, angling her shoulder into his bicep like they are familiar.
While I can still taste him .
I lick my lips.
My eyes slide to meet his curious gaze, fixated on my face in the same way it continually has been.