Chapter 4
four
MORGAN
Never again was supposed to mean something.
After three years, four months, and sixteen days of turning myself into a machine that runs on spite and isolation. After three years of perfecting the art of not giving a fuck about James Fitzgerald or his disaster-zone energy. After three years of refusing to trust anyone with a penis.
And all it took was exactly five minutes near him for my body to stage a full biochemical mutiny.
The fire door slams behind me, and my head finds the wall.
Cold seeps through my skull, but it's not enough to freeze out the memory of his gray eyes going wide with recognition as he spotted me, or his stupid grin—the one that suggests an easy familiarity he offers to everyone, but which once made me feel like I belonged somewhere.
I breathe through my teeth, short bursts that fog in the unheated stairwell. The concrete smells like industrial cleaner and decades of trapped air, but I gulp it down anyway, trying to replace the scent of him. Three years, and my treacherous brain still remembers what he smells like…
Argh!
I'd known he'd be here when I joined Pine Barren, of course. Galloway had beamed with pride when talking about him, the new captain of the reigning national champion. But Galloway hadn'tknown our history, and I'd had a plan: treat him like any other obstacle between me and my team's survival.
But plans don't account for biological treason.
He'd been ten minutes late, the boom of his gear bag slamming down announcing his arrival like a twenty-one-gun salute, his arms spread wide as he accepted applause for successfully finding the room.
It was all classic him—turning incompetence into performance art that everyone somehow finds charming instead of grounds for homicide.
And I sat there, frozen, while every one of my carefully calibrated defenses started shorting out. But, worse than that, there'd been the heat crawling up my spine when he'd fired off that booming laugh that colonizes every available frequency…
No.
Refusing to let him cloud my thoughts any more, I push off the wall and take the stairs down two at a time.
After a quick walk across campus, I arrive at the hockey arena and make my way to the women's locker room.
It's tucked into what used to be a storage area before they grudgingly carved out space for us.
The thought alone angers me, and it feels good.
Because anger is so much better than acknowledging that I'm wet.
Not metaphorically, but actually, physically, humiliatingly wet.
And all it took was five minutes of close proximity with James Fitzgerald, making all my delusions about having emotional armor look stupid, and undermining my entire identity as someone who makes decisions based on logic and evidence.
All of it, undone by some primitive limbic response to that crooked grin.
The locker room door swings open and, inside, forty thousand dollars of "startup funding" has bought us cinder block walls painted institutional beige, fluorescent lights that buzz, and lockers salvaged from a demolished high school that still have "GO WILDCATS" stenciled at the top of each.
But it's all mine.
Every meticulously organized and scrubbed-clean inch.
I head for my locker and strip, wanting to burn off all this anger and emotion on the ice.
Blazer first and then the singlet and pencil skirt.
As the items come off, I hang them with military precision while I focus my anger on grown men treating women's athletics like a charity case they're too polite to reject.
The underwear comes off last.
Black. Practical. Athletic cut because I'd planned to practice after the meeting. Designed to wick moisture during athletic performance, not… this. I stare at the evidence with clinical fascination, after three years of conditioning, of building my walls and keeping people at a distance.
And, now?
Damp.
On that hidden stretch of beach, with waves drowning out the rest of the world, I remember the exact moment I let my guard down and let him in. Every wall I'd built after Melissa's betrayal, demolished for a boy with chaos in his eyes and hands that shook when he touched me.
"Are you sure?" His voice was different in the dark, when he was stripped of performance.
"The statistics would suggest—" I started, because even then, even with his breath warm on my lips, I couldn't just say yes like a normal person.
He'd laughed, soft and private. "Fuck the statistics. I'm asking you."
"Yes." Raw. Honest. Terrifying.
The first kiss was careful, almost hesitant, both of us trembling. Then his tongue found mine, and careful went out the window. Cool air mixing with the heat of his mouth, his hands framing my face with a gentleness that contradicted everything about his public persona.
Our clothes disappeared in graceless, fumbling pulls. I remember the shock of air on bare skin, how my nipples tightened instantly in the ocean breeze, how his eyes went dark when he saw me naked. No one had ever looked at me like that, like I was something worth memorizing, worth worshiping.
His fingers had traced my ribs, mapping every sensitive spot until I was shaking. And when we were both naked on the sand, he was everywhere—mouth on my neck leaving marks, on my breasts drawing sounds I didn't know I could make, on my stomach making muscles flutter and contract.
"Jesus, Morgan." He pulled back, pupils wide in the moonlight. "You're—"
"Nervous," I supplied.
"Me too." He pressed his forehead to mine, trembling—this six-foot-three goalie who faced hundred-mile-per-hour slapshots without flinching. "I want this to be good for you. I want—fuck, I want everything to be good for you, but I don't really know what I'm doing…"
The words landed harder than any touch. In a world where everyone wanted something—grades, victories, perfection—he just wanted to give me something good. And, when he finally pushed inside me, after using his fingers to learn exactly how to make me gasp and arch, it burned.
I dug my nails into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks. But it was necessary, breaking down muscle to build it stronger. He went slow, so slow I could feel every inch, his whole body trembling with restraint, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Move," I gasped. "James, please—"
He did. Slow, then faster when I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper. The rhythm we found was clumsy and perfect, punctuated by waves and breathing and the obscene, wonderful sound of skin against skin, everything too much and not enough and exactly right.
When the orgasm arrived, it took over my whole body, every nerve ending firing while I gasped his name. I felt him follow, his groan vibrating through me as he buried his face in my neck, my name on his lips. The whole thing had lasted about five awkward minutes, but it had felt perfect.
Until I ruined it, a day later, the last of the camp, seated on the hood of his truck.
"So… what happens now?"
Words that shattered everything.
I saw him tense, and saw him deflect with a joke and a smile.
The change in him was instant. The easy, comfortable quiet between us didn't just vanish; it detonated. He recoiled as if I’d pulled the pin on a grenade, his body going rigid. Then came the gags, the verbal deflection. But I didn't listen to it all, because I knew then it was over.
I'd trusted him and been fooled.
I'd walked away so he couldn't see that he'd hurt me, even as tears stung my eyes. The boy I'd given everything to had promised me he wanted to give me everything, and instead took it. And somewhere between his truck and my bed, Morgan Riley died and I was born.
The locker room door bangs open, breaking my reverie, and I realize I'm standing in nothing but my sports bra. "Coach," I say, trying to mask the weird.
"Rough meeting?" The female team's coach—Bri Walsh—doesn't wait for an answer, dropping her gear bag with a thud. "Let me guess… Galloway promised nothing, implied everything we're missing is our fault, and made it sound like we should be grateful he lets us exist."
"While explaining how the men's team deserves their new video analysis system because they're 'proven winners.'" I pull my practice jersey over my head with enough force to catch my earring. "Apparently we need to demonstrate our 'marketability potential' before we can have functional equipment."
"Marketability." Bri's voice could freeze vodka. "Maybe we should all become cheerleaders…"
"He did allude to the tits and ass quotient…" I smirk, despite my earlier mental torture. "Though he called it 'fan engagement metrics.'"
Bri starts changing with practiced efficiency. "You know what kills me? He was a third-string linebacker who spent four years keeping a bench busy."
"Welcome to the meritocracy, where merit is determined by guys who peaked at seventeen."
The door opens again. Amelia Ramirez ("Mills") enters, already dressed for practice, and takes one look at my face before whistling low. "Shit. Who died?"
"Our equipment budget." I shrug. "Also my faith in humanity, but that's been on life support for a while."
"Are you OK?" She steps closer, genuine concern radiating from her, along with the threat of violence to whoever needs to be on the end of it.
"I'm fantastic, Mills." I snort. "I love begging for scraps from men who think I exist for their entertainment."
Mills raises her hands in surrender, but I catch the look she exchanges with Coach Walsh. The Morgan's in a mood look. I hate that look almost as much as I hate that my body is still cataloging exactly how James Fitzgerald's hands felt three years ago.
"Ice," I say, finishing pulling on the last of my gear. "Now."
The rink is perfect, with fresh ice reflecting overhead lights, and when the cold air hits my lungs it feels like home. I step onto the ice and push off hard, needing the burn in my thighs, the scrape in my ears, the simple physics of blade against ice.
Control. Precision. Power.
Everything I built myself to be after that night on the beach.
When the other girls join me, on time rather than early, I drive them through drill after drill, whistle sharp in the empty arena. Stops that spray perfect arcs. Starts that make quads burn. The other players—my girls, my team, my responsibility—get no respite.
And, while they respond with grimaces and muttered curses, they do the work. Because I push myself harder than I ask them to. Because, unlike everyone else in this building, they believe in what we're building. Because they trust me to lead them through the bullshit to something better.
"Riley!" Bri calls from the bench. "Can I see you?"
I skate over. "Yeah?"
"You need to ease up," she says. "Every one of those girls is already giving you everything."
"Everything isn't enough," I say. "They need to be perfect, because everyone's waiting for us to fail and to prove women's hockey is just a Title IX checkbox."
"They need to not be injured before we play our first game." Her voice is gentle but firm. "And anger isn't a sustainable fuel source."
Want to bet? I think, but don't say.
Because anger got me through Montana, through building a reputation as someone you don't fuck with, through every coach who said I was too cold to be a real leader. Anger is reliable, controllable, and safe—unlike whatever my body did in that conference room.
Unlike the memory of Rook saying my name, soft and surprised.
Unlike the part of me—small, buried but apparently not dead—that wonders what would have happened if I'd stayed on the hood of that truck, if I'd fought back instead of walking away, or if I'd made him explain why two weeks of perfection deserved to end with jokes.
But that's the thing about anger.
It's so much easier than hope.
Except my body didn't get the memo.