17. Kai
KAI
Imake it twelve steps before I have to stop.
I stop because my hands are shaking.
I flex my fingers once, then again, standing in the concrete hallway outside the laundry room with the door shut behind me. The rink is quieter now, but my pulse is still loud enough to make up the difference.
I kissed her.
After 1,267 days, I kissed her with my hand in her hair and her back against a washing machine, and she kissed me back like she’d been carrying the same ache I have.
My ribs tighten until breathing takes work.
I should be panicking, but instead, I feel something worse.
Relief.
It moves through me slow and dangerous, like every part of me that learned how to operate without her has been overruled by the simple fact that her mouth was finally on mine again, and neither of us was sorry.
I press my palms against my thighs and make myself inhale.
One.
Two.
Three.
Get it together.
I am still the captain. Still in the rink. Still surrounded by teammates, coaches, staff, and the exact kind of gossip Wren is terrified of becoming. A door opens down the hall.
Weston steps out of the lounge area. He spots me and stops, his eyes narrowing. “Did you not hear me yelling your name?”
“I did. I was coming,” I say, straightening back up.
Asher appears behind him, fully dressed, hair still damp, expression already exhausted by the conversation. “Are we going yet or what?”
These guys get hangrier than anyone else I know.
Asher’s gaze shifts to me, and his brow lifts slightly. He notices too much for someone who says so little. It’s annoying. Useful during games, but annoying everywhere else.
“You good?” he asks.
No.
“Yeah.”
Weston grins. “Liar.”
I move past them. “Let’s just go.”
“That wasn’t denial,” Weston calls after me.
Asher says something low to him, probably an attempt at shutting him up, and I keep walking before Weston decides to become a detective.
He would be terrible at it, but terrible doesn’t mean ineffective.
Half of Weston’s emotional intelligence seems accidental, which somehow makes it harder to defend against.
I grab my bag from my stall before we head toward the parking lot, where Grayson is leaning against his truck on the phone. There is a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, which means he’s probably talking to my sister. He ends the call as we get closer, his eyes scanning over my face.
“Weston, you’re with me,” Asher says, passing Grayson and heading toward his own truck a few spots down. “Are we hitting Oakley’s or Flap Jacks?”
“Flap Jacks? Hell to the fuck no. I fucking hate pancakes,” Weston argues.
Grayson smiles. “Oh, come on now, Wes. They have other stuff too.”
“Yeah, other breakfast shit and literally nothing else. You couldn’t pay me enough to suffer through that place again.”
We all chuckle at that. I open the passenger door to Grayson’s truck, throwing my bag in the back. “Fine, Oakley’s it is.”
All through dinner, I can’t help but keep stealing glances at my phone.
I could text her.
I shouldn’t.
I could ask if she got home safe, which would be normal enough if we were normal people. We are not normal people. We are two people who kissed like a dropped match in a room full of gasoline and then tried to return to our assigned tasks.
My phone buzzes.
For one stupid second, my heart kicks, hoping it’s her.
It’s Harlow.
Harlow: Did you murder Coleson?
Kai: no.
Harlow: Disappointing but legally wise.
Kai: how do you know about that?
Harlow: Grayson
Of course.
Another text comes through before I answer.
Harlow: He said Wren’s okay. Is she? I texted, but she hasn’t replied yet.
I stare at the screen.
Wren is never just okay. She’s functioning. She’s moving. She’s holding a full house together with duct tape and sarcasm while her own exhaustion waits in line behind everyone else’s needs.
Kai: I don’t know.
I lock the phone and let my head fall back against the seat.
I don’t know.
That’s becoming a theme.
I don’t know what we are now. I don’t know what Wren wants from me. I don’t know what I’m allowed to ask for or whether asking for anything makes me selfish when my future has a team name and a city far away already attached to it.
What I do know is worse.
I know my feelings never went away.
That sounds dramatic even in my own head, but it’s the truth.
They didn’t leave. They didn’t fade into something harmless.
I just built enough distance around them to survive.
School. Hockey. Harlow. The draft. Seattle.
Routines. A thousand little structures keeping me from looking too long at the empty space Wren left behind.
It was easier when I didn’t know she still had my shirt.
It was easier when I hadn’t woken up with her against my chest and felt, for one dangerous second, like I’d gotten something back.
Now she’s everywhere.
My rink. My locker room. My apartment through Harlow. My truck memories. Her kitchen. The school drop-off line. A service hall that smells like detergent and now somehow like the exact place my self-control gave out.
I laugh once, quiet and humorless.
Pathetic.
There’s no better word for it.
I am fully, completely pathetic over Wren Calloway, and the worst part is, I don’t even want to fix it.
When we finally make it back from the bar, Harlow is curled up on our couch.
She looks up as we walk in. “You’re alive.”
“It’s not that late, and Weston was on the verge of a hangry breakdown. I’ll be right back,” Grayson says as he walks over, placing a quick kiss on her forehead before heading down the hall to put his stuff in his room.
Then Harlow says, “So.”
I sigh, setting my bag on one of the stools and reorganizing the few things sitting on my counter. “Nope. We are not doing this right now. Last thing I need is an interrogation tonight.”
Harlow feigns innocence, shrugging. “Just sisterly concern.”
“Same thing.”
Grayson comes back into the living room, joining Harlow on the couch. “I told you he wouldn’t cooperate.”
I look at him. “Traitor.”
Grabbing a water from the counter, I head down the hall to my room. “I’m going to shower.”
“Kai.”
I stop halfway down the hall, turning back toward her.
She studies me with the same eyes she’s always had that seemed to see right through any front I put up.
“Just don’t hurt her,” she says.
That’s the very last thing I’d ever want. “I’m trying not to.”
“I know.” Her face softens. “But make sure you don’t hurt yourself, either.”
Grayson looks away, giving us that much privacy.
I nod once.
It’s all I’ve got.
In the shower, I stand under hot water until the mirror fogs, and my skin turns red. It doesn’t help. I still feel her hands in my shirt. Her mouth under mine. The moment she said kiss me like it cost her something and gave me everything at the same time.
Once I finally crawl into bed, my mind can’t stop replaying what happened earlier.
She told me to kiss her, and I listened. I wanted to regardless, but hearing her say those words broke whatever tiny shred of restraint that I had left.
I cover my face with one hand and laugh quietly into the empty room.
I’m so fucked.
The next morning, Grayson’s sitting at our island when I make it into the kitchen. He takes a sip of his coffee, then looks over. “You gonna tell me?”
“No good morning? Just hopping right to it?” I grab a mug from the cabinet and pour myself some of the coffee he’s made.
“Figured I wouldn’t get anywhere with pleasantries and decided on the direct approach instead. So, you gonna tell me what happened?”
Part of me wants to. I trust Grayson; it’s not like he’d go and share my business with everyone else, but I also think I owe it to both myself and to Wren to figure out whatever this is before sharing it with anyone.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
He nods, then goes back to looking at something on his phone.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“You said no.”
“Since when does that stop you?”
He shrugs. “Since I saw your face yesterday.”
I lean forward. “What does that mean?”
“It means whatever happened, it matters to you.”
Everything in me stills.
Grayson keeps his voice low. “I’m not asking for details. I don’t want them. Harlow definitely wants them, so don’t tell her I said that.”
“Noted.”
“But I am going to say one thing.”
“Of course you are.”
“You don’t have to know exactly what it is before you admit you want it.”
The words sit between us.
I look down at the mug in my hands. “What if wanting it isn’t enough?”
Grayson doesn’t answer right away.
When he does, his voice is careful. “Then you deal with that when you get there. But don’t punish her or yourself now because you’re scared of a future problem.”
I huff a humorless laugh.
He stands, pushing in his stool. “We better get going; weights start in twenty.”
Grayson heads toward his room to get ready, and I stay standing where I am, staring at my counter as if it holds the answers to all of my problems.
Sadly for me, it doesn’t.