Chapter 16 - Landon
Landon
I was halfway through my first coffee when my front door flew open.
Nicole didn’t knock. She marched straight past me in a towel, hair twisted up.
“Thank you,” she tossed over her shoulder, already halfway to my bathroom.
I stood there in the kitchen with my mug suspended near my mouth, bare chest cooling in the morning air, sweatpants sitting low on my hips. She didn’t spare me a glance. Not even a pause. Just purpose and momentum and a woman who had decided my shower belonged to her for the next ten minutes.
The bathroom door shut.
I took a sip of coffee and smiled. The first time she’d done this, I’d tried to argue. But somewhere between then and now, I’d learned a valuable lesson about Nicole Gordon. Once she set her sights on something, resistance was a waste of breath.
The water kicked on. Pipes rattled. The shower roared to life.
I moved to the couch and dropped onto it, coffee cradled in my hands as I listened to the sounds carry down the hall. The steady rush of water underscoring the faint, unselfconscious tune she always made up when she was in there. Breathy and off-key in a way that made me feel like joining her.
I cleared my throat and shifted on the couch, mostly to interrupt the stirring in my pants. I tried not to picture her under the spray, naked and wet. I failed immediately.
When I did get a short break from the fantasy, it was James who intruded without invitation. His name had a way of doing that lately. A fourth-year resident with a steady future as a surgeon. The guy she was with when she wasn’t working or barging in here wrapped in a towel.
My jaw set as I took another sip.
So far, Nicole and I being friends had been working out fine. But after her high school reunion, I wasn’t sure how long that would be the case.
The water shut off sooner than I expected and a few moments later, she was back in my living room. Her hair was loose now, curling a little at the ends, and her skin was all flushed and damp.
“You’re efficient even when you’re stealing my utilities.”
She stopped short and blinked at me a few times, as if she’d only just noticed me sitting here. Her gaze tracked over me without apology, and her throat moved through a hard swallow that was impossible to hide.
“You changed your shampoo.”
“What?”
She tipped her head toward the bathroom. “Your shampoo. It’s different.”
“Oh…” I stood up and cleared my throat, angling for the right approach. But she was staring at me and I didn’t know what to say so I just said, “Ran out.”
Her brows drew together as she studied me. “How did you know it’s the one I like?”
I lifted my mug and took a careful drink, buying myself a second.
I couldn’t exactly tell her it was easy once I knew that her hair smelled like jasmine and something sweet, like pineapple.
Then all I needed to do was go to the store and uncap every bottle of every brand until the smell matched the memory I had of her head pressed into my shoulder when we danced.
That was private information. Dangerous information.
“Lucky guess,” I said instead, and cleared my throat.
She stared at me a little harder, as though she could tell the way my pulse had started to race. But then she smiled.
“Well, thanks,” she said. “It’s way better than that paint stripper you had before.
She moved for the front door and the sudden motion caused the corner of her towel to slip. My eyes dropped before I could stop them. When I looked back up, she was clutching her towel and watching me, heat rising between us in the small space.
Neither of us moved.
I reached out without thinking and caught a damp strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek in the panic, and guided it back behind her ear. My fingers lingered there, just long enough to feel the warmth of her skin, the quiet intake of her breath.
Her hand tightened on the towel, and I followed the line of her jaw as her tongue came out to wet her lips.
“Nicole—”
“Thank you,” she said quickly, taking a tentative step out of reach. “For… the shower. And the shampoo. That was nice. I swear I’m getting the water heater fixed. I can’t keep breaking into your apartment like this.”
“You can,” I said. “I don’t mind.”
Her gaze lifted fast.
Something unspoken passed between us. Want, held in check by circumstances and better judgment and a man named James who wasn’t here but might as well have been physically holding us apart.
She nodded once, as if sealing something away. “Okay, bye.”
My front door opened and shut behind her before I could think of a single clever thing to say.
I stayed where I was, listening. Waited for her apartment door to open next door. Then it closed.
I dragged a breath as my shoulders sagged, and stared at the bathroom door, at the faint fog still clinging to the mirror.
“Keep going, Landon,” I muttered under my breath. “What a champ you are.”
*
Frost Bank felt different before puck drop. Tighter, somehow, as though everyone had cinched the place at its proverbial waist but still expected it to hold the game.
I stepped onto the ice for warmups and the boards rattled under my skates. Utah Mammoth sweaters dotted the far end, thick shoulders, heavy legs. They were a grinding team with no finesse. The type who leaned on you until you made mistakes, and then punished you for them.
“Shawn would’ve loved this,” I said, scanning the crowd.
“Said he’ll be watching from his room,” Grayson replied, skating up beside me. Then the others were there too, tapping their sticks as they pulled me into a slow circle around the rink.
“For Shawn,” they started chanting in time to the beating of their sticks.
I joined in. “For Shawn.”
The ref blew the whistle for us to clear the zone, and I headed for the bench, tugging my helmet down, eyes flicking instinctively toward the stands. Nicole was in her usual spot, and beside her, far too close for my liking, was James.
He was taller than I expected. Dark hair, neat. The kind of guy who looked like he owned several expensive watches and never lost his keys. He leaned in to say something to her, and she smiled, polite, distracted. Not the full smile. Not the one she gave when she forgot herself.
“How’s that?” Mason asked, following my not-so-furtive daggers.
I turned away before I did something stupid. “Nothing. It’s game time.”
“Then let’s do it.” He clapped me once on the shoulder, practically shoving me onto the ice.
The puck dropped.
Utah won the opening faceoff and dumped it deep, immediately trying to set the tone. I chased it into the corner with their left winger on my hip. He tried to pin me, forearm up, shoulder grinding. I let him have it for half a second, then rolled off and slid the puck back to Tucker behind the net.
“Wheel,” I called.
He took off, smooth as ever, and I cut up ice instead of hanging back, pulling their defense with me. Grayson picked up the drop pass at the red line and carried it in clean.
The bench erupted and our fans shook the arena.
We didn’t score on that rush, but we hemmed them in for almost a full minute. Shots from the point, rebounds, Utah icing the puck just to catch a breath.
When I got back to the bench, Coach nudged me with his elbow. “See what happens when you don’t try to do it all yourself?”
I smirked. “I’m just easing them in, Coach. Giving them a shot to shine.”
The first goal came seven minutes in.
Utah tried to clear, and bobbled the puck at the blue line. I knocked it down with my glove, dropped it to my stick, and instead of winding up like I used to, I slid it laterally to Mason.
Their goalie bit on me. Mason ripped it far side.
Red light.
Crowd went insane.
1–0 Surge.
I skated past the bench, pointing at Mason. “That’s you.”
He grinned, breath fogging. “Keep feeding me like that and I’ll buy you dinner.”
Utah answered back the way grinding teams always did. A greasy net-front scramble. Hunter made the first save, then the second, then someone jammed it under his pad.
1–1.
I coasted to center ice for the faceoff, jaw tight. These fuckers weren’t going to do this to me tonight. Not with James-asshole-Resident in the stands.
Grayson leaned in. “Next one’s ours.”
Second shift after the goal, Utah tried to run me along the boards. Their defenseman caught me high, shoulder to chest. Old me would’ve dropped gloves or taken a retaliatory penalty.
Instead, I kept my feet, chipped the puck ahead, and chased.
“Again,” Grayson shouted.
We cycled. Theo’s replacement had been doing fine to hold his own all season. Nothing special, but enough to help Tucker with the last line of defense. Tonight though, Caleb finally started moving like he was getting paid.
I sailed up the ice with two defenders on my ass, and he smashed both of them to shit then got back in time to clear my pass to the point.
“Cash Money!” I saluted him, and he responded with a stiff nod. He hated the nickname, which made it even more fun to use.
My shot rebounded into chaos. Grayson crashed the net and buried it.
2–1.
I lifted my stick toward the rafters without thinking. “For Shawn!”
“Shawn, Shawn, Shawn,” came the echoes from on and off the ice. If there were time for it, I might’ve spared a second to get emotional about it.
By the end of the first, Utah had started jawing. Little slashes, extra shoves, anything to bait us.
But we didn’t bite.
In the locker room, we all buzzed with adrenaline. Grayson stood in the middle, helmet still on.
“In the words of our coach, I’m gonna remind you boys to leave it all out there. Shawn’s watching from the hospital, but you know he’d be doing the same if he were here.”
“It’s win, or win,” Coach piped up. First period had taken it out of him and it showed, but he wasn’t bowing yet.
So neither did we.
Second period came fast and hard.
Utah tied it again on a power play, a one-timer from the circle that Hunter never saw through traffic.
2–2.