Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Mick rolls his eyes, pulling his damp socks off. “The only shit you have to do is attach your ass to your couch cushions. One of these days, Thorne, you’re going to turn into an actual glacier, and we’ll have to chip you out of your apartment. Live a little.”
“I am living,” I reply, standing up to head for the showers. “The way I want to.” That’s a fucking lie, and we both know it.
The water is scalding, damn near boiling the skin off my bones, but it doesn’t come close to reaching the cold that’s been locked in my marrow through these last three seasons. Every day, I wake up knowing there’s something missing. And I can’t fucking figure out what it is.
I scrub with more force than necessary, chasing away the grit and stink of the game, watching ugly white suds circle the drain and disappear, taking the tension in my shoulders with them. When I finally switch off the spray and step out, the place is already clearing. The boys are halfway down the hall, laughter trailing after them.
My locker looks like something out of one of those sports magazines. The expensive watch. The suit waiting for me. Standing there, I can see right through it all. Professional shine. Personal void. I shove myself into the charcoal suit, the fabric stiff and crisp, a different kind of armor wrapped tight around me after the soft, padded kind. It doesn’t help, not really.
My phone vibrates on the bench, loud and persistent in the hush that settles once the last echo of the guys’ laughter dies. Cleaves right through the silence, like a reminder that the night isn’t done with me yet.
I pick it up, expecting a congratulatory message from the owner or a stat sheet from the goalie coach. Instead, it’s a text from my agent, Mark, who manages my life with the clinical precision of a surgeon.
Mark
Check your email. Charity gala next Friday. Seattle General. Mandatory attendance, Jax. No early exits. The Knights are the lead sponsors this year.
I stare at the screen until the light dims. A gala. Three hours of smiling for cameras, shaking hands that feel like sandpaper, and making small talk with people who know absolutely nothing about the real me. Fucking hell.
The drive home is a blur of city lights and rain-slicked asphalt. Seattle is beautiful in the dark, a collection of glass towers that reflect nothing but their own ambition. I pull into the underground garage of my building, the engine of my car echoing against the concrete. The security guard gives me a nod, his eyes lingering on my face as if looking for the man from the television, but I don't give him anything to find.
My penthouse waits for me exactly as I left it. Perfect. Silent. Cold. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Sound, a black expanse of water mirroring the emptiness inside these rooms. I toss my keys on the marble counter. The clatter echoes like a gunshot through the vacuum of the apartment. I don’t turn on the lights. The city provides enough of a glow to navigate by.
I walk toward the kitchen, my bare feet sinking into the plush rugs, muffling my steps. When I open the fridge, light glows out and spills over shelves that look like they’ve been arranged for a photoshoot: lines of supplements, stacks of meal-prep containers, and then, tucked to one side, a single bottle of high-end scotch that I haven’t touched in six months. I pull free a bottle of water, the plastic making a satisfying crackle in my grip.
Fuel. That’s all food is now. I eat for fuel, I sleep so my body can recover, and every move I make is about playing hard and winning. Discipline wraps around me like armor; nothing else gets through. But even with this strict routine, inside this quiet apartment, the silence presses in. It fills all the space around me, real and heavy.
I perch on the edge of my bed, silk sheets slick and cool beneath my hands, like the ice in the crease, like the chill that used to run down my spine before the first drop of the puck. My brain is still in the rink, caught in the replay, every save on a loop, every inch and angle scrutinized as if the next shot is coming any second. If my paddle had dipped even a hair, that puck would’ve rocketed behind me, erasing the perfect game. If I’d leaned left instead of holding center on that breakaway, I’d be chasing the memory of a shutout already lost. I get stuck obsessing over every little flaw, every split second where it could’ve shattered, because if I let myself stop, if I let the silence come in, I have to sit with the fact that I don’t have a family to come home to.