Chapter Fifteen Rhys #2
“You asked me what my deal was. This is my fucking deal.” The other voice is nearly a growl, intense and low. Angry. “I don’t play in an arena she might be in. I can’t see her. Otherwise, I’m going to fucking kil—”
“Okay, Tor. Okay.”
I don’t recognize the name beyond an inkling of familiarity that I can’t really follow. He sounds insane, but I trust Coach enough not to have someone like that messing with our team mojo.
I retrieve my keys and leave, quiet and quick, before driving to my new favorite coffee shop, hoping for even the slightest chance at spotting Sadie.
It’s Ro I find inside the cozy, well-named Brew Haven, standing at the counter chatting with a well-dressed guy.
I stand behind him for only a moment before Ro catches my eye and the reserved expression—which seems strange for the enthusiastic girl I only recently met—melts from her face. Maybe she is more reserved when not drunk off her ass and screaming Taylor Swift into the night air.
“Rhys Koteskiy.” She smiles, but her eyes track to the guy still leaning against the counter next to us. “Here for a coffee or for a girl?”
“You two know each other?” the guy asks, eyebrow ticking up as he directs his question at me instead of her.
“Rhys,” I offer, reaching my hand out to him with my captain’s smile. He takes it, giving a hard quick shake before letting me go.
“Tyler. Ro’s boyfriend.”
Got it . I keep the smile plastered across my face as I look back to Ro, her nervous expression making me feel a little nauseous. I lean in and pointedly ask, “Is Sadie not working today?”
Tyler laughs, nodding at me with a renewed twinkle in his eye. “Sadie really does have a type, huh? Surprised she isn’t the one thirsting after—”
“Tyler, stop. Please,” Ro quietly begs before looking up at me. “She’s not, but she is at the dorms—at least, I think.” She clicks the side of her phone where it rests on the counter. “Yeah, she’s still there, but she’ll go home for the weekend so…”
She trails off with a little shrug.
“So I should text her instead of showing up unannounced and sending her into a spiral?”
Ro smiles again, somehow broader, like the thought of me understanding some of the complexities of her dear friend makes her ecstatic. “Exactly.”
“Gotcha.” I nod, sticking a five in the overly decorated yellow tip jar with multicolored flowers drawn all over it. “I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
“I hope so. She deserves something good.”
It warms something in me that this enigmatic girl, Sadie’s best—and I honestly think only—friend, approves of me. Even if Sadie herself doesn’t.
I do text Sadie later that night after gorging myself on the premade meal marked with my name that Bennett labored over at the beginning of the week.
Lying back on my sloppily made bed, staring at the ceiling with a movie playing off my PS4 on the mounted TV, I can’t get her out of my head.
I’ve listened to Sadie’s Songs playlist until I can pull it up in my head like a file, mentally playing my favorites and trying to imagine what she was thinking when she added them.
But it isn’t long before my own feelings and thoughts invade each one.
“Barely Breathing”—the way she unlaced my skates for me when my hands were shaking.
“Don’t Look Back in Anger”—the raging look in her eyes when she does her long program.
“Sleep Alone”—her smile, her laugh.
My current favorite, Beck and Bat for Lashes’ “Let’s Get Lost,” plays over my speaker as my fingers pull up her contact information and shoot off the text before I can think twice about it.
RHYS
Hey.
SADIE
Is this the equivalent of a Koteskiy “You up?” text?
RHYS
Do you want it to be?
Panicking, I send another text right after.
RHYS
I’m just lying in bed and listening to music.
Instead of a text back, I get a picture of her that has me shooting upright in bed, dropping my phone through suddenly slippery hands before pulling it up to my face as if I’ll miss the image if I close my eyes for even a second.
She’s lying down, her hair in a mess of waves playing around tangled blue sheets and a white comforter.
She’s not smiling, really, but her lips tick up lightly in one corner of their slightly pursed position.
Her eyes are sharp, the dark gray piercing even through a screen.
Her skin is slightly flushed, and the worn wire of her old headphones—which she must’ve stolen back from me—dangles across her sharp collarbones.
My eyes trail over her bare shoulders; one of the straps of her tank top is slinking half off, revealing a multitude of freckles scattered like stars across her skin.
I wonder how long would be too long not to respond—if I have time for a shower while imagining my fingers touching every single freckle I can find in a very thorough search.
Shaking my head, I spot the text beneath the photo—after I save it to my phone so I can stare at it for an embarrassing length of time.
SADIE
Funny, I’m doing the same thing.
I feel ridiculous for a moment while retyping my texts four times, knowing full well she can see the little dots appearing and disappearing repeatedly.
RHYS
Too bad I don’t look as good as you doing that.
SADIE
Yeah, then Freddy might try to sleep with you.
A laugh threatens to burst out of me, pulling at my lips—even just this, just her written words, are enough to chase away a little of the anxiety from sitting in this too-empty room.
SADIE
I’m as exhausted as I look tho, so I’m probably gonna crash soon and ghost you.
It takes me another too-long moment to decide what to say, finally settling on:
RHYS
You don’t look exhausted.
I wait, uselessly bringing my phone up to my face and then dropping it face down on the bed, as if it will prevent me from checking again and again. But her lack of response must mean she’s sleeping now.
Standing, I leave the phone in my bedroom and head into the large, dark bathroom that’s been spotlessly cleaned this summer by Bennett to the point it looks as if no one has ever lived here. I strip and close the door behind me before turning the shower all the way hot.
For a moment, I look in the mirror as I run my hand along the light scar over my eyebrow, the smaller one beneath my eye that’s nearly unnoticeable unless touched—both from visor injuries during the hit, both of which I don’t remember receiving.
My body is healed fully, every bit of it pressed back together. My mind is the thing that’s permanently broken.
There is a video out there of the game and the injury. I tried to watch it once, but got sick and didn’t make it past the first intermission. I couldn’t remember when the hit happened; the constant anticipation made me so nauseous, I gave up.
I wonder if Sadie’s seen it, but I’m too afraid to ask her. One Google search is all it would take.
Shaking my head, I step into the steamy, warm shower, letting the hot water roll over my tightly coiled muscles, dipping my head under the spray and pushing my hair off my forehead.
The change of temperature makes me dizzy for a moment, and I try to ground myself, placing both hands against the still-cold tile wall.
Sadie .
Sadie with freckles over bare shoulders, with her messy waves, bare-faced and looking up at me with her gray cat-like eyes.
Just the thought of her settles me immediately, the image burned into my mind of her hovering over me in the locker room like a queen atop a throne. Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?
My cock hangs heavy between my thighs, pulsing as my thoughts take me through every moment I’ve touched her soft, supple skin. She’s burned into my every thought, like some sweet scent that brings back every good memory I’ve locked away.
I picture her here in my shower beneath the hot spray, because I want her in my space. To feel like she’s wholly mine, even for a minute. She’s so fucking small, but larger than life to me.
Rhys , she breathes.
In my head, I press her against the tile and drop to my knees; I picture her above me as my hand glides up and down my shaft, slow. Steady.
With her, it’ll never be slow and steady.
No. I imagine her bucking wildly as I fight to hold her still, until I sling her legs over my shoulders. Her skin probably feels like silk here, too, even with the hard muscle beneath.
God , I know she tastes good, and just the thought of it has me gripping harder, faster.
I imagine her climbing with me, her sighs and moans growing louder until the entire house can hear that she’s mine.
That I make her feel like this, like a fucking man pleasing his woman until she can’t help but scream.
I chase the high with the Sadie in my head, just wanting to feel the euphoria that I know I can make her feel. I’m desperate to please and worship her like this, but to control it—to have the wildcat figure skater at my mercy for once.
Her gray, taunting eyes are forever locked onto mine as I close my eyes and my legs shudder under the effect of the fantasy of her. I brace a hand on the tile, my head fuzzy, but not with pain.
In my head, she says my name again, that same light whispered moan, and it sends me soaring over the edge. I come with her name spilling out of my lips like a desperate plea.
My forehead presses into the tile as I nearly collapse under the relief. Fucking hell.
Maybe I should feel ashamed for thinking of Sadie like that, but it’s hard not to when she’s everything good. For the first time since March, I feel… alive. Which is somehow more dangerous, because now, I don’t think I can let her go.
I want to cling to her, to prove that whatever is left of me is worth something.
I send one more text to Sadie before plugging my phone into the charger.
RHYS
You look beautiful.