Chapter 23
GARRETT
Garrett watches her go, listening to the sound of her footsteps fading. Every step feels like a bruise he can’t stop pressing.
He exhales, slow and rough, trying to steady the hammering in his chest. His pulse won’t listen.
Despite the ice bath, he’s boiling with hot, choking fury.
He’s furious that she showed up here. Furious she looked like that—hair falling loose, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with that reckless fire that always makes him forget himself. Furious because she stood there and said things that hit too close to the truth.
But mostly, he’s furious with himself.
Because the second she walked in, every ounce of discipline he’s built—every wall, every hard-won shred of focus—cracked like an egg.
He’d been fine. He’d been good. Focused.
Detached. The version of himself the league might finally take seriously.
Then Naomi Piccolo had to storm in with her wild hair and sass mouth, and now his veins are full of reckless fire again.
“Idiot,” he mutters, dragging a wet hand down his face.
The water’s freezing, but not enough to abate the heat roaring through him.
He stands abruptly, the tub clattering with chunks of ice, and the air is shockingly warm against his numbed skin, almost burning by contrast. His legs tremble, muscles tight and wooden from the shock, but he welcomes it. It feels deserved.
The lingering chill gnaws at him, and he breathes through it. He tells himself it fits. Cold body, cold heart. Easier that way.
He snatches a towel from the rack, raking it roughly over his arms, across his chest, down his back.
Garrett tells himself he’s worked too damn hard to let someone crawl under his skin. He’s finally close—so close—to getting the call-up, the one that’s been dangling in front of him all season. All he needs to do is stay focused. No distractions.
And Naomi is nothing but a distraction.
He tosses the towel in the hamper and yanks a hoodie over his head, the fabric sticking to damp skin. His jaw is locked so tight it aches. He pushes open the door to the dressing room, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and heads for his stall.
Then he stops short.
His stick isn’t where he left it.
It’s leaning a few inches off its usual spot and it’s angled wrong, resting against the bench instead of the wall.
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
Someone moved it.
He lunges for the stick, fingers curling around the taped butt end, ready to throw it across the room—or break it, maybe. He feels the urge to hurl something.
But then he sees the message, scrawled in thick black Sharpie across the blade:
Not as fun as the last stick I handled.
He stares at the words, the handwriting unmistakably hers—loopy, and dramatic.
But it’s the second line that guts him.
I miss you—N.
It’s written smaller and neater beneath the first, like she added it afterwards. His throat tightens, a pressure that burns and won’t let go. He blinks once. Twice. The room feels too bright, too still.
It’s not an insult disguised as a flirt. It’s not a joke.
And he does not know what to do with that—no idea what to do with her feelings written in permanent marker on the one thing he doesn't let anyone touch.
He sits down hard on the bench, elbows on his knees, stick still in his hands. Everything in his chest is pulling in different directions.
She misses him.
And worse—he misses her too.
But he doesn’t know how to miss her and still be sharp. Still be focused. Still be good enough to make the damn call-up.
He doesn’t like this feeling. Doesn’t like how it unspools inside him, fraying the edges of the person he’s worked so hard to be.
“Damn,” Carter’s voice cuts through the dressing room, sharp and unwelcome. “Didn’t think anyone was still around.”
Garrett’s head jerks up, his whole body going rigid.
Carter’s standing in the doorway, slinging his duffel over one shoulder, grin already halfway to obnoxious.
Garrett says nothing. Just glares. He is not in the mood for Carter’s bullshit.
The forward steps further into the room, eyebrows lifting. “Everyone else dipped hours ago. You lose track of time in your ice coffin, or…?”
Garrett doesn’t answer. He’s still holding the stick. Still feeling like his skin doesn’t fit right.
“Ohhh. I know why you’re still here.” Carter points at him, smug as hell. “It’s because of Red, isn’t it?”
Garrett’s on his feet before he even realizes it, the stick still clenched in his fist, his knuckles white.
“Don’t,” he growls, voice low and sharp, more threat than warning. “Don’t start.”
Carter raises both hands in mock surrender, like he’s backing away from a skittish dog. “Hey, man. Just making an observation.”
“Keep it to yourself.” Garrett’s voice is ice, but his chest is burning. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Carter tilts his head, amused. “Don’t I?” He strolls toward his own stall, unhurried, completely unbothered by the fury radiating off Garrett like the heat of a wildfire. “We’ve been teammates for what—seven months now? I think I know you pretty well.”
He slings his duffel onto the bench and tosses Garrett a look over his shoulder. “I know you don’t like me. Probably because I’m better looking. And funnier.”
Garrett stares him down, jaw tight.
It’s true. He strenuously dislikes Carter. But it’s not because of the constant chirping, or that Carter never seems to take anything seriously.
It’s because nothing ever rattles him.
Because he floats through the world like it’s rigged in his favor, while Garrett has to fight for every second of calm.
“I know you hate it when I call you Stretch,” Carter adds, pulling off his hoodie and shoving it into his bag. “But I keep saying it to remind you the media doesn’t get to decide who you are.”
Garrett blinks.
Fuck him. No one ever brings that up. Not to his face.
“And I know you like Red,” Carter says, gaze slicing right through him. “No one gets under your skin like she does. Not even me.”
Garrett looks away, jaw tight, fingers twitching on the shaft of the stick.
“She’s a distraction,” he mutters, eyes locked on the ink burned into the blade like a brand. “That’s all.”
There’s a beat. A quiet shift in the air.
Then Carter laughs—low, disbelieving, like he can’t believe what just came out of Garrett’s mouth.
“You’ve always been an uptight prick,” he says casually, zipping up his bag. “But you’re less of a prick when she’s around.”
Garrett stiffens.
“And you still keep winning,” Carter adds, glancing over his shoulder. “So maybe stop pretending it’s about her, when it’s really about you.”
The words slam into Garrett with brutal accuracy—so fast and precise they don’t leave a mark until they’re already under his skin.
He looks down at the stick in his hand, at the ink smudged slightly at the edge of her neat handwriting. His throat clenches again. His pulse won’t slow.
But Carter’s not finished.
“Look, man. You’re so obsessed with staying focused, with blocking out what happened, that it’s ruining you.”
He slings his bag over his shoulder and heads for the door.
“To keep the noise out, you’ve gotta be above it—not pretend it doesn’t exist. Blocking it out just makes it build until something cracks.”
He taps his knuckles against the doorframe. “Jesse and I are taking Red to Huck’s to get a bite.”
Garrett stares at him, white-hot wrath surging through his veins.
Carter pauses, clocking the look on his face, and shakes his head. “Not because we want to bang her, you absolute dipshit. Jesse saw her leaving in tears and refused to let her eat alone. She’s fun. She works her ass off. She’s good for the team.”
He shrugs. “But you and I both know Jesse and I aren’t the ones she wants to spend her evening with.”
With that, he raps his knuckles once more and walks out—Garrett’s least favorite teammate, leaving a trail of truths he never wanted to hear.