CHAPTER 7 — THE KISS IN THE RESTRICTED HALLWAY #2
“Don't,” Mason said quietly, still gripping my forearm, his tone dead serious. “Not now. Not over Ward.”
“Let go,” I said, not looking at him.
“Gladly, once you stop looking like someone about to commit athletic homicide over a physical therapist you claim to hate.”
“I do hate him.”
“Sure,” Mason said, slowly releasing my arm. “And I'm terrible in goal.”
The third period was a war hanging by a thread.
Hartwell kept trying to provoke me, Elias smiled whenever he skated too close, Coach Bennett limited my shifts, and Noah kept watching me with that damn attention that felt like care and prison at the same time.
I notched another assist—not the goal I wanted, but enough to turn the game.
Northaven won by one, a result too tight for my taste, and the final buzzer brought no relief.
Only the end of witnesses and the certainty that I needed to talk to Noah before my anger found a worse target.
In the visiting locker room, the smell of sweat, old ice, and cheap cleaner hung in the air.
Players shouted, laughed, complained about hits, celebrated like that exhibition game meant more than it should.
I changed with short movements, avoiding raising my left arm while trying to ignore the pain throbbing under the wrap.
Noah came in once to check on a defenseman with a cut above his eyebrow, talked to my father, avoided looking at me, and left before I could decide if that was professionalism or escape.
The second option felt more useful, so I chose to believe it.
I waited for the locker room to clear out enough.
Mason shot me a look when he realized I was leaving through the restricted corridor instead of following the group, but he didn't stop me.
Maybe he knew stopping would only make it worse.
Maybe he wanted to see how long it would take me to admit that Noah Bennett had once again become the center of a storm I only pretended to control.
I crossed the corridor still in my thermal shirt, team jacket hanging open, hair damp from the quick shower, shoulder aching and blood running too hot for the cold of the rival arena.
I found Noah near the side exit, checking the equipment bag with his tablet propped on a supply crate.
He was alone. That should have calmed me.
Instead, the sight of him—head lowered, focused, mouth still serious after Elias's provocation—made the anger return with cruel precision.
Not just anger at him. Anger at Ward, at myself, at my body for reacting, at the past for refusing to stay buried, at the photo in my pocket the whole trip, like some idiotic secret I couldn't leave behind at the penthouse.
“So that's the kind of desperate case you used to take at Hartwell?” I asked, stopping a few steps away.
Noah didn't startle. He just closed the tablet with a calm that irritated me instantly. He looked up, assessed my face, then my shoulder, because not even in a fight could he stop noticing what I was trying to hide. That clinical attention now felt like provocation.
“If you came to discuss Elias, pick another time,” he said, sliding the tablet into the bag. “If you came to talk about the shoulder, sit in that chair and tell me if the pain's past a six.”
“Don't use my shoulder to run away.”
“Don't use my casual past to pretend this is about recovery.”
The answer came too quickly. I stepped forward, and Noah straightened up, positioning himself between me and the side door without giving ground.
The restricted corridor was narrow—gray walls, cold lights, the distant sound of the team fading behind a closed door.
No bleachers here, no sponsor, no Mason or my father.
Just Noah, me, and the anger that swelled every time someone reminded me he’d lived without me.
“He talked to you like he knew things,” I said, my voice low, controlled only on the surface. “Like he had some right to inside jokes, memories, anything.”
“He knows some things,” Noah replied, and the honesty stung worse than evasion would have. “Because I had a life after leaving Northaven. I imagine that’s offensive to your personal mythology, but the world didn’t freeze the moment you decided to hate me.”
“You left,” I said, moving closer, the words heavy with four years I couldn’t untangle. “You weren’t dragged away. You weren’t kidnapped. You weren’t erased. You left.”
“And you never asked why.”
“I saw why.”
“You saw what they put in front of you.”
That should have stopped the fight. Should have opened space for a real question, maybe the most important one.
But my jealousy was a stupid, hot, proud thing, and the image of Elias smiling at Noah had crowded out whatever rational thought I had left.
I moved closer until Noah had to lift his chin to keep his eyes on mine.
His scent hit me—clean, mixed with the cold air and something medicinal.
My body recognized it before my anger would accept it.
“Did he touch you?” I asked, and I hated the question the instant it came out. Hated the right it pretended to have. Hated wanting the answer.
Noah went still. His eyes changed—not to guilt, but to something harder, sharper.
He closed the bag slowly, pulling his hands away as if he needed them free to really defend himself.
When he spoke, his voice was low enough not to carry down the corridor, but each word landed like a blow to the ribs.
“You don’t have the right to feel jealous of someone you say you hate.”
The words landed square in my chest. Because it was true.
Because it didn’t help. Because, even without the right, I was there, boiling inside, imagining another man’s hands where mine had never been brave enough to stay.
The anger lost its disguise and revealed something older underneath, something dirtier—made of longing, desire, and resentment.
I took another step, and Noah was finally trapped between the wall and my body, though there was still room to leave. He didn’t leave.
“I’m not jealous,” I lied, and my voice came out too hoarse to convince anyone.
“Then what is this?” Noah asked, and this time there wasn’t enough irony to protect him.
His gaze dropped to my mouth—quick, almost involuntary—and snapped back up, angry at being caught.
“Control? Possession? Another way to punish me for not waiting around while you decided if I was guilty enough to hate or attractive enough to want?”
The last part of that sentence ignited something I’d been trying to crush since the penthouse hallway.
The word want in his mouth was both confession and accusation.
My right arm rose before I could think, my hand bracing against the wall beside his head—the same way I had in the penthouse hallway, except now there was no phone call from his father, no photo between our bodies, no almost to hide behind.
Noah inhaled deeply, and I watched the movement travel down his throat.
“Careful,” he said, but his voice failed just enough to destroy the threat.
“You said that before.”
“You didn’t listen before.”
“I heard everything, Noah.”
His name in my mouth, said that way, seemed to pull something loose inside him.
Noah put his hand on my chest, probably to push me away, but his fingers closed on the fabric of my thermal shirt instead of pushing.
The gesture ended whatever control I was still pretending to have.
I lowered my face, giving him just enough time to pull back, to say no, to turn away, to remind me this was a terrible idea.
Noah did none of that. He just lifted his chin, eyes locked on mine, breathing too heavy to be calm.