Chapter 18
Eighteen
Back in his hotel room, Luke couldn’t seem to settle down.
He’d let the trainers brace his shoulder and wrap it with ice, then he’d shuffled to the bus with one hand gripping the railing, head bowed as teammates patted him on the back.
The adrenaline had faded on the ride and left him with a dull ache that seemed to spread from his shoulder down through his chest. He’d been injured before — bruised ribs, a torn oblique in junior — but the sensation this time was different.
This time, he couldn’t get Cassie’s worried eyes out of his head.
Luke flipped through television channels without watching, the glow of late-night infomercials washing over the dark room.
He scrolled through his phone, half composing messages and then deleting them.
“You okay?, Thanks for checking on me, You looked… worried.” Each one felt inadequate.
Outside, the city was quiet. Inside, his thoughts were loud.
The shoulder throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
He lay back, hoping exhaustion would pull him under, but every time he closed his eyes he drifted not toward sleep but toward a fantasy he’d tried to suppress since training camp.
In the fantasy, Cassie knocked on his door.
She stood there in jeans and a sweater, hair pulled back, the same press pass he’d seen swinging from her neck a thousand times now discarded on her nightstand.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she’d say, her voice low.
She’d step inside, her eyes softening when she saw the bruise on his shoulder.
She’d sit beside him on the bed, gingerly touch the edge of the ice pack and then kiss the spot just above the tape.
Her lips would trail from his collarbone to his jaw.
He’d forget about the pain as her fingers tangled in his hair.
He let himself imagine her climbing into his lap, his good arm wrapping around her waist, their mouths meeting in a kiss that started tender and turned urgent.
He could almost feel the weight of her as she straddled him, the warmth of her breath on his throat, the way she’d tilt her head and whisper his name when he moved against her.
It was a reckless, delicious thought, and he felt a flush rise up his neck even alone in the dark.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, chest heaving.
Get a grip, he told himself. He hadn’t been a teenager in years.
Fantasies didn’t belong in the middle of a season, much less with a reporter.
He tried to picture the consequences, but all he saw was the way Cassie had looked at him in the locker room, equal parts professional and personal, worry and something like affection.
The clock on the nightstand glowed 2:03 a.m. He rolled onto his side, careful of his shoulder, and picked up his phone again.
His thumb hovered over her name. He typed: Room 1127.
I need to see you. He stared at the message for a long moment, then deleted it.
He set the phone down. Five minutes later, he picked it up again.
His shoulder ached; his chest ached more.
He typed the message again, hit send and immediately felt both terror and relief.
If she ignored it, he could chalk it up to the painkillers.
If she came… he didn’t let himself finish the thought.
He turned off the lamp and lay in the dark, waiting for the buzz of a reply and listening to his own breathing.
He didn’t know if he was inviting salvation or disaster.
He just knew he couldn’t pretend he didn’t want her there.