29
Ryan
The Uber left me beneath the resort lights with Milwaukee’s contract tucked beneath my arm and enough silence waiting inside the main lodge to make me regret sending everyone away.
I’d handed Rider my truck keys outside the arena because he and Briggs planned to stay at Ember’s until Gray either found his pants or got arrested.
Cade and Easton would leave early with Bliss and Aura, which meant nobody had to cut their night short to bring me back.
It made sense when I arranged it. I told the guys I needed a few hours alone to understand how one of the best nights of my life could hurt this fucking much.
Now the taillights disappeared down the drive, and being alone felt different from wanting it.
Snow crunched beneath my dress shoes as I crossed the parking lot. The travel suit was required after every game, but it had become another thing I wanted off my body. The collar pressed against my throat, my tie felt too tight, and the bruise beneath my eye pulled every time the cold touched it.
Milwaukee’s logo was stamped across the black folder in my hand, and my signature waited inside it.
I had fucking made it.
The thought lifted something beneath my ribs before everything surrounding it dragged me back down.
I’d played the best game of my life in front of three professional organizations.
I signed the contract I’d wanted since I was eight years old.
A team looked at every jagged piece of me and decided I belonged in its future.
After every goal, I still searched the stands for Charm.
I unlocked the lodge and stepped into the dark.
The celebration remained everywhere. Bottles covered the counter beside half-eaten pizza.
Frost-colored streamers hung from the beams, and Briggs’s flashing blue cowboy hat sat crooked on the dining table.
Someone had left music playing quietly through the speakers, and the song was upbeat enough to feel insulting.
I placed the contract on the counter and stared at it. The numbers hadn’t changed, and neither had my name.
Loosening my tie didn’t relieve the pressure around my throat. Taking it off felt like admitting the night had ended, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. As long as I wore the suit and the folder remained closed, I could stay inside the moment before this became my real life.
I was a professional hockey player moving to Milwaukee and building a future that no longer included the woman I once expected to follow me into it.
I gripped the edge of the counter and lowered my head. My reflection hovered inside the dark kitchen window, a bruised face above an expensive suit, looking like someone who belonged in a life I hadn’t learned how to wear.
A cabinet closed behind me.
Briggs had probably returned because trusting me to spend the night alone would require a respect for boundaries none of my friends possessed.
“I thought I told you fuckers to celebrate without me.”
No one answered.
I turned toward the pantry while pulling at my tie. “Briggs, I’m—”
Rounding the island stopped me.
Charm stood near the refrigerator with a glass food container balanced between both hands. Her coat was zipped to her throat, a stocking cap hid most of her hair, and snow melted across the shoulders of the dark fabric.
We saw each other at the same time, and her fingers opened.
The container struck the tile and exploded. Glass skittered across the kitchen while pasta and sauce spread between us. Charm jerked backward, one hand catching the counter as she stared at me.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
“I didn’t know you were here,” she said.
My hand remained wrapped around the end of my tie. “What are you doing?”
“I came to get something to eat.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I’m staying in the second cabin. I thought everyone would be at Ember’s, so I came over to get food before I went back.” She glanced at the broken dish. “I’m leaving in the morning.”
“You came back for food?”
“I came back from the game.”
My mind caught on the word. “What game?”
Her face changed.
“You were there?”
Charm looked toward the floor, and the movement sent enough rage through me that I took a step before stopping myself.
“Mírame.”
Her eyes lifted immediately.
“You were at my game?”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
I stared at the heavy coat, the stocking cap, and the face I’d searched thousands of people for without finding. “Where were you?”
“The upper section on the Frost side, almost against the back wall.”
“The nosebleeds?”
She nodded. “I sat alone.”
“You hid.”
“I stayed away from you like you asked.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“You told Briggs not to let me near you.”
“So you went around him.”
“I went to watch you play. I kept my coat over your jersey and my hat on. Nobody knew who I was, and you couldn’t have seen me from the ice.”
My attention dropped to the strip of blue visible beneath her partially opened coat. The bottom of my number reached her thighs.
She’d worn my jersey. She hid from me, but she wore my fucking name.
Every emotion I’d fought through the game rose again. The empty seat beside Bliss, the crowd screaming while I searched the faces around my friends, and the stupid, desperate part of me that kept believing she might appear if I looked one more time pressed against my ribs.
“You were there.”
“I told you I would be.”
“I told Briggs to keep you away from me.”
“He did. He didn’t know I went because nobody did.”
I dragged both hands over my face and pressed my palms against my eyes until colors burst behind them. “This is so fucked, Charm.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you agreeing with me.”
She closed her mouth.
The refrigerator hummed behind her. Sauce spread between pieces of broken glass while snow melted from her coat onto the tile. I should’ve told her to leave. The second cabin was less than a hundred yards away. I could move aside, give her room to avoid the mess, and watch her walk out.
Briggs wasn’t there to get between us, though.
No one stood inside the lodge to tell me I’d already said everything that needed to be said, and I hated how grateful I was for that.
Some part of me had been waiting for another fight because the last one ended with a locked door and half the words still trapped inside me.
Charm bent toward the broken container.
“Don’t.” I caught her wrist before her hand reached the glass.
Her skin was cold beneath my fingers. We both looked at where I was touching her, and I released her before stepping back.
“You’ll cut yourself.”
“I was going to pick up the larger pieces.”
“And then you’d cut yourself.”
“I can clean it.”
“I said I’ll do it.”
I retrieved the broom from the pantry and swept the broken glass into a pile while Charm remained near the counter.
She knew where the paper towels were, and I knew she would wipe the sauce from the cabinet before she left because she couldn’t tolerate leaving a mess for someone else to handle.
We moved around the same kitchen with the old familiarity of my apartment, and recognizing it became another thing I resented her for making me feel.
“I heard you signed,” she said.
I pushed the ruined food into the dustpan. “News moves fast.”
“The group chat went nuts.”
“Glad I missed it.”
“Milwaukee.”
The pride in her voice almost took my legs out from under me. I dumped everything into the trash and kept my back to her.
“Yeah.”
“You chose Milwaukee.”
“The offer was better.”
“I thought Washington was the dream.”
“So did I.”
“What changed?”
I turned around. Understanding reached her before I said anything, and her eyes moved from my face to the contract folder across the kitchen.
“Milwaukee is close to the guys,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“And far enough from Kimball Falls.”
“Yeah.”
“Far enough from me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Then don’t ask questions you’ve already answered.”
“I wasn’t trying to start a fight.”
“Standing in the kitchen of the lodge I rented for us is a strange way to avoid one.”
Her expression tightened. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“You also said you would leave me alone.”
“I have.”
“You’re standing in front of me.”
“Because you came back early!”
“So now this is my fault?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You never fucking say anything until there’s no safe answer left.”
The blow landed. I saw it in the way her shoulders pulled inward, but she refused to lower her eyes.
“I came for food,” she said. “You’re the one keeping me here.”
I gripped the broom harder. “Well, I came for blood, so there’s the door, mamacita. You don’t want this fight.”
She looked toward it, and the possibility of her walking through sent panic into the same space as the anger. I hated her for making me feel both.
Charm saw something change in my face. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did that look like it hurt you?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stand there and analyze me like you still know what anything on my face means.”
“I do know, and you hate it.”
“You knew me so well that you didn’t understand what I was asking for when I begged you to stand beside me.”
“I understood.”
“That makes what you did worse.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Her eyes filled, and my body responded before my mind could. Every muscle tightened with the instinct to cross the kitchen, wipe the tears away, and tell her I didn’t mean to hurt her.
I stayed where I was. “I don’t want your tears tonight.”
“They aren’t for you.”
“They’re happening in front of me.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You could leave.”
“You could stop me.”
The answer hit hard enough to silence both of us. Charm wiped beneath one eye while she looked over the suit I still wore.
“You look nice.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Your suit looks good on you.”
I glanced down as though I’d forgotten what I was wearing. “I feel like an asshole.”
“You don’t look like one.”
“You should know better than anyone that appearances don’t mean shit.”