Chapter 22
Ryan POV
The laminated draft board on the conference room table had twelve NHL franchise logos arranged in two neat columns of six.
Dan Bradley, an NHLPA-certified player agent out of Boston who had spent three years tracking my penalty minutes, tapped a gold Montblanc pen against the blue-and-orange crest of the Edmonton Oilers.
Outside the third-floor athletic department windows, a freezing dusk was turning the sky over Penobscot Bay into the color of a bruised plum.
"Edmonton has the fourth overall pick," Bradley said, his voice clipped, professional, and dripping with corporate certainty.
"They need a two-way center who can clear the crease, shut down top lines, and protect their scoring wingers from getting hacked to pieces.
If your navicular telemetry stays clean through the Frozen Four, they are prepared to offer the maximum rookie signing bonus the second the draft floor opens in June. "
Coach Vance sat to my left, his arms crossed over his St. Jude fleece, nodding slowly. "It's the best immediate fit for his minutes, Dan. They’ll start him on the second line."
A month ago, that logo would have been my salvation.
A month ago, I would have signed a contract to skate in the Arctic Circle if it guaranteed enough money to keep Leo in the Ann Arbor neuro-rehab clinic for the next ten years.
I would have packed a single duffel bag, boarded a flight to Alberta, and spent seven months a year living in hotel rooms, indifferent to what happened to my life off the ice.
Now, I looked at the map, and my throat tightened with a cold, unyielding finality.
Edmonton was two thousand miles from the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Three time zones away from Colorado Springs, where Nylah had spent four years earning a doctoral fellowship with the Olympic biomechanics division.
"Cross Edmonton off the board," I said.
My voice came out low, gravelly, and flat as an uncarved sheet of ice.
Bradley stopped tapping his pen. His brow furrowed, his eyes darting between me and Coach Vance as if he were waiting for a punchline. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," I said, leaning back into the leather swivel chair, the masseter muscles along my jaw loose and relaxed. "Cross out Edmonton. Cross out Calgary. Cross out Vancouver and San Jose, too."
Bradley stared at me, the color draining from his face. "Ryan, those are three of the top five draft selections. You don't dictate geographic preference to franchises with top-ten lottery picks. You take the draft capital, you take the signing bonus, and you go where they tell you to go."
"I don't give a damn about their draft capital," I rumbled, leaning forward until my forearms rested on the mahogany wood, my scarred knuckles catching the overhead fluorescent glare.
"Put the Colorado Avalanche at the top of my preference sheet.
If they don't move up for me, focus on the East Coast. Boston, the New York Rangers, Philadelphia.
Nothing west of the Mississippi unless it's Denver. "
"You are throwing away millions in leverage!" Bradley snapped, his voice rising an octave in sheer disbelief. "Why in God's name are you anchoring your draft projection to Colorado?"
I didn't answer. I didn't owe Bradley or Vance an explanation.
"Do your job, Dan," I said, rising from the table, my six-foot-three frame casting a long shadow across their neat little charts.
"Steer the Western Canadian scouts away from my medical files.
Tell them I have concerns about long-term relocation.
Put me where I told you to put me, or I'll find an agency that knows how to follow orders. "
I unzipped my team parka, pulled my duffel onto my shoulder, and walked out the door without looking back.
* * *
By five-thirty, the wind was screaming through the rusted iron gantries of the shipyard.
I walked down the dark gravel lane toward the converted warehouse, my breath pluming white in the sub-zero draft. I took the exterior iron stairs two at a time, my boots crunching over the salt grit facilities had thrown on the treads.
I reached unit 3B and pulled my key ring from my pocket, but when my fingers touched the brass deadbolt, the cylinder gave with a quiet, oily click.
It was already unlocked.
A deep, steady warmth bloomed behind my sternum, loosening the lingering ache in my bruised shoulders. She had used the brass key I had cut for her on Tuesday morning.
I pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped inside.
The smell of the loft hit my senses like an anchor dropping into deep water: crushed cedarwood, dark roasted coffee, and the sharp, clean scent of her almond shampoo.
The cast-iron radiator beneath the north window was clanking with steady, rhythmic heat, having been turned up to seventy-four degrees three hours before I left practice.
I dropped my duffel bag on the slate entryway floor, kicked off my boots, and walked into the kitchen.
Nylah was perched on the high wooden stool at the dark granite island.
She was wearing my faded grey St. Jude hockey crewneck—the fleece was massive on her, the wide ribbed collar slipping down to expose the pale, smooth curve of her left collarbone and shoulder.
Her dark hair was twisted up in a tortoiseshell clip, with loose, wavy tendrils framing the sharp line of her jaw.
Spread across the dark stone were three thick biomechanics journals, her open laptop, and stacks of neon-colored index cards covered in her precise, elegant handwriting.
Her bare feet were hooked over the lower rung of the stool, her toes pale from the draft.
I didn't say a word. I crossed the floorboards silently on thick wool socks, rounded the edge of the counter, and stepped directly into the narrow space between her parted knees.
Nylah looked up from her monitor.
The sharp, defensive tension that used to guard her features was gone, replaced by a soft, sleepy warmth that made the breath hitch in my throat.
"You're late, Captain," she murmured, her amber eyes flicking over my face, lingering on the fresh purple bruise along my cheekbone. "Practice run long?"
I didn't answer with words.
I reached down, caught her small, cold feet in my large, calloused hands, and lifted them off the wooden rung.
Her skin was like ice. I pulled a second stool over with my foot, sat down directly in front of her, and settled her bare feet onto my thighs.
My hands—broad, rough, and burning with athletic heat—wrapped around the arches of her feet, my thumbs digging deep into the cold muscles with steady, rhythmic pressure.
Nylah gasped softly, a long, ragged exhale leaving her lips as the friction of my palms forced the circulation back into her skin.
Her head dropped forward, her forehead coming to rest gently against the black cotton over my sternum.
"You're turning into a domestic hazard, Owen," she whispered into my shirt, her small fingers curling into the fabric at my waist. "If the scouts in the concourse saw you sitting here rubbing feet, your reputation as a ruthless enforcer would be ruined."
My thumbs worked deep into the ball of her foot, feeling the delicate bones beneath the skin soften under my touch.
"You think I let anyone else breathe my air like this, Collins?" I rumbled, the gravelly vibration of my chest humming straight into her forehead. "Good girl. Keep your mouth shut and read your papers."
She let out a soft, breathy laugh against my ribs, her hands tightening in my shirt as she yielded to the heat of my hands.
* * *
By eight-fifteen, the texts and journals had migrated from the kitchen island to the living room rug.
Nylah was curled on the leather sectional, her head resting on a charcoal wool pillow against my hip, her legs stretched out over the cushions beneath a heavy knit blanket.
She had tried to read through three more chapters on kinematic load distribution, but her eyelids had grown heavy forty minutes ago, fluttering shut between paragraphs.
Her breathing had dropped into that deep, rhythmic cadence of absolute exhaustion.
Her right hand rested open on my thigh, the silver band on her thumb catching the faint, amber glow of the hearth stove.
I sat motionless, my left hand resting lightly on the curve of her hip beneath the blanket, watching the steady, fragile rise and fall of her chest.
For four years, I had operated under the brutal conviction that loving someone was an act of destruction.
I had pushed Leo onto that ice; I had broken his spine with my own blind, selfish ambition.
I had spent every hour since building a fortress of violence and silence around myself, convinced that if I let anyone inside, I would drag them down into the dark with me.
I looked at the woman sleeping against my leg.
The guilt over Leo hadn't vanished—it was still an iron stake driven through my marrow. But the fear had mutated into something lethal and protective.
I wasn't going to destroy her. I was going to be the wall that kept the rest of the world from touching her.
Carefully, moving with slow, unhurried precision so I wouldn't startle her awake, I slid my arms beneath her knees and shoulders.
I rose from the leather sofa in one smooth, continuous motion.
Nylah made a tiny, drowsy sound in the back of her throat, her face turning into the warm crook of my neck, her small hands clutching the fleece of my shirt by instinct as I lifted her against my chest. She weighed nothing against the dense muscle of my frame.
I carried her down the dark brick hallway into the master bedroom.
The room was cool, smelling of winter air and cedar. I laid her down in the center of the platform bed, eased her arms from around my neck, and pulled the thick charcoal duvet up to her chin, tucking the down tightly around her bare shoulders so the night chill couldn't reach her.
I stood at the foot of the bed in the dim blue light filtering through the snow-dusted windowpanes.
My heart beat with a slow, heavy, permanent rhythm against my ribs.
I had already crossed out Edmonton. Tomorrow, I would tell Bradley to tell the Rangers that my signing bonus had to include an off-season housing stipend in Colorado. I would restructure every contract, every game, and every minute of my future to ensure her path was clear.
She had stepped into the fire for me at the gala.
I would burn the world down before I ever let anything take her out of my perimeter.