Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I swipe at my cheek, annoyed at the tears.
“He scares you,” Elias says, not unkindly.
“Yes,” I admit. “Because he’s honest in a way that leaves no armor. Because he makes me braver just by standing next to him.”
There’s a pause—heavy, loaded.
“I started falling for him,” I say slowly, “because he trusts me with the parts of himself he hates the most.”
The silence stretches.
Then Elias says quietly, “Sounds to me like you love him.”
I shake my head instantly. “No. I—”
The word catches.
I freeze.
My breath stalls, the ground vanishing beneath me as the truth lands all at once—loud, undeniable, impossible to outrun.
Oh.
Oh my God.
I stare at the floor, my heart thundering. “I do,” I whisper, stunned. “I love him.”
Elias doesn’t smile. He just nods, as though he knew this was inevitable.
“Yeah,” he says. “You really do.”
“I love him.”
After a long moment, he nods once. “Then you know what you have to do.”
My heart stutters. “I do?”
“When is he home from the road trip?” he asks.
“Tomorrow night,” I say. “Late.”
Elias leans back, certainty settling into his posture. “Then you know exactly where you need to be the moment he gets home.”
I smile.
“I do.”
Chapter 27
Grizz
The pine tree air freshener hanging from the driver’s rearview mirror is so strong, I can taste it in the back of my throat. It’s bothersome but the least of my worries. I sit low, one arm draped over my duffel, forehead resting lightly against the cold glass as the city slides by.
We lost both games on the roadie.
Not blowouts. Far worse. They were both tight games and completely winnable for us. The kind of games that live in your head because they hinge on key moments, on you doing the thing you’re paid to do and not doing it when it matters most.
I didn’t score.
Not in Carolina. Not in Toronto.
Because my teammates are good at what they do, I had chances. Because I play with the best of the best, I always do.
A half-second late on a rebound. A post instead of twine. A stick lift that came just a hair too early. Hockey is cruel—it punishes you not with absence, but with proximity. There’s nothing so torturous in sports as when you’re close enough to taste it but can’t manage to take a bite.
Dry spells aren’t new to me. I’ve had them my whole career and anyone who says otherwise is lying or doesn’t play this game at a level where expectations have teeth. You can do everything right and still come up empty, and the league doesn’t give a shit about your process. It cares about the red light.
I know the script. Stay patient, stick to your game, don’t force it and the goals will come.
They always do.
And still—every time it happens, it feels personal. Like the game is rejecting me. It seems my hands don’t belong to me anymore. Like everyone is watching and pretending they aren’t, waiting to see if I’ll self-destruct.
Part of me knows this is normal. Seasons have peaks and valleys. Rhythm and drought. You don’t panic over two games.
Another part of me knows I haven’t been fully locked in.
I’ve been distracted—Daisy is all I think about. My thoughts haven’t stayed where they’re supposed to. They drift between shifts, on flights, in hotel rooms when I should be sleeping. They drift to conversations instead of plays. To expressions instead of angles. To the sound of a voice saying my name like it matters.
Daisy.
I hate that.
I hate that someone outside the game of hockey can get under my skin this deep. I’ve built my entire career on compartmentalization, on keeping the game clean and sealed off from everything else, and Daisy has toppled that foundation into rubble. Hockey is supposed to be the one place where the noise shuts up, and it’s failing to protect me from her.
The cab hits a pothole and my shoulder bumps the door, jolting me out of my head.
“Sir,” the driver says, slowing to the curb. “We’re here.”
I blink, pull myself upright, and nod. “Yeah. Thanks.”
I pay, step out into the cold, and grab my suitcase from the trunk. The door thuds shut behind me and the cab pulls away, its taillights disappearing down the block.
My building looms in front of me, dark and familiar.
And then I see her.
Daisy’s standing off to the side, half in shadow, hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat like she’s been there long enough to get cold. The streetlight catches the edge of her hair, the curve of her cheek, and for a second my brain refuses to process it.
We just stand there for a moment, the two of us facing each other under the streetlight.
“Hey,” I say finally.
“Hey,” she replies.
That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.
It’s strange after the way things ended the last time we were together. After the heat and the certainty and the feeling that something had been broken for good, this quiet feels wrong. Like we’re both afraid the smallest movement will set off trouble.