Unsteady

With our first preseason team practice and meeting under my belt, I feel somewhat light as I stroll into our second practice of the season.

The first day I’d woken up late on purpose, so Bennett wouldn’t try to drive us all together, even if I only waited until he turned off our street to head out. I needed the time in the quiet space of my own car to calm myself, deciding an all-black ensemble might hide the sweat of anxiety nearly dripping from me—at least until dressing out.

I nearly called Dad, letting my finger hover over his contact for a solid three minutes before I tossed my phone to the floorboards of the passenger side and drove in silence.

Somehow, nothing cracked—not my phone or my mind—even through the semi-easy first skate together. I spent time getting to know the new freshmen, apologizing for being the absentee captain over summer intensive camps, and thanking Holden, a defenseman who’d taken up as my alternate after the injury.

Coach had asked Bennett to be captain more times than I could count, but he refused each time.

I’m not sweating as much now, at least not from anxiety, more from the hard pace as I round the rink, working the puck on my stick on the sharp turns before hitting a quick stop as Freddy takes off, our relay team quicker, smoother than the others. Practice is officially over, but that only means it’s my time for team-building drills before the conditioning stretches.

Leaning against the boards, I nod to Bennett where he sits with his cage off, spraying water into his mouth.

“They look good.”

Bennett nods. “Better than this summer. That Sinclair kid’s quick as fuck.”

“Yeah?” I smirk at his clearly displeased face. “Got a wicked backhand too.”

Bennett shakes his head again, left shoulder twitching up to his ear, even if it only shifts his pads a hair. “You caught that, yeah? Had to get used to the zig zag he runs for it, but he’s only gotten a few past me. He’s killing Mercy.”

That makes me smile a little, flickering a glance to Bennett’s tandem, Connor Mercer. “Mercy” affectionately, who looks exhausted and soaked, having already emptied his water bottle over his head.

“Mercy needed a little knocking down.”

“Coach wants to start him more this season, and trade off more games.”

That does make me pause, but instead of offering a reaction—because I know Ben—I only flick up an eyebrow.

He shrugs. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“Scouts?”

“They’ll see me. They saw me last year too.” He takes another swig of his water. “Besides, we’re supposed to be a tandem and I played 26 out of 34 games last year in regular season.”

“Because you’re near perfect.”

He shrugs.

Freddy skates up, heaving breaths through a smirk as he pulls his own cage off. “What are we talking about, ladies?”

“Bennett’s not talking to you after that stupid shit you were pulling in the shootout drills.”

My tone is filled with unreleased laughter, but Ben looks like he might be ready to snap Freddy’s stick, if not his spine.

“C’mon, Reiner, you can’t be mad at me for keeping you on your toes.”

“I was in butterfly for so long I thought I pulled something, you blockhead.”

Freddy raises his hands in surrender. “Not my fault the freshies want to be just like me.”

“You had your entire team of fucking wingers dangling all over my zone.”

“You did?” I ask, smiling despite Bennett’s seething tone. “They all just did what you said?”

“Just call me Daddy.” Freddy’s smirk grows teeth and gleams like the sheet of ice we’re standing on. Holden gags, only catching that last golden nugget of our conversation.

As the rest of the team finishes up the race, offense winning by a smidge, I call a quick huddle and plan a team cookout at our house for Wednesday. First day of school, but not the first weekend, so that the freshmen don’t get the wrong idea of what this event is—bonding, not boozing.

The locker room is buzzing lightly after practice, and I feel the want there, to participate and joke around, but each time someone tries to engage with me, there’s only exhaustion. A bone-deep numbness.

It’s something I know easily now; from all the expensive therapy my parents have paid for—masking. Dr. Bard calls it a negative coping mechanism and says it’s a symptom of PTSD, which I definitely don’t have and she will not convince me otherwise.

I took a hit playing a sport—I wasn’t in a goddamn war.

It’s easier this way, to pretend to be who I was before that game, to be the same team player and leader who earned the C on my jersey sophomore year. It’s who I am, who I should be—just lost beneath the dark cloud insistent on following me everywhere.

Stepping into the warm sun outside the athletics complex, I pause to wait for Bennett—who is most likely stacking his pads in the exact order he prefers them.

My phone lights up again, a text from my dad.

Lunch?

Above it sits a trail of long paragraphs and ridiculous uplifting quotes that read like the inside of a self-help journal, along with quick one word responses from my end.

I hesitate in my reply, waiting for an excuse.

It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with him. My dad is my hero, always will be. It’s just confusing and complicated now. And I can’t get the echo of his voice out of my head.

My son.

Bennett steps out of the door, hair perfect, decked in slacks and a dark green polo that looks a little out of place considering we should be headed home to gorge on food and rest. His phone is pressed to his ear, using his free hand to slide his Ray-Bans over his eyes against the sunlight.

“I said I was going to be late,” he mutters, jaw tight in a way that quickly tells me exactly who it is he’s talking to. “I told you last time that this week was the first week of practices, so I needed to push lunch back.”

He’s close enough now that I can make out the gruff identical tone of the other caller.

“It’s fine, Bennett, I can wait.”

Adam Reiner: former NHL prospect, current cutthroat corporate lawyer.

Bennett comes from more money than he’d ever know what to do with, the kind that ensures generations could choose not to work and be fine with it. His father was a silver spoon baby with a trust fund larger than a full roster of NFL contracts, which makes it somewhat surprising that he became best friends with the Russian transplant who’d been living in a dingy apartment after turning eighteen in a boys’ home, and learning to speak English from an elderly college professor who lived above him.

The rich kid center whose future wasn’t dependent on anything, and the poor, scrappy defenseman whose future was entirely dependent on that rookie year—and yet, they’d never stopped that friendship.

I have no problems with Bennett’s father, never have—but after the divorce, Bennett could barely stand to be in the same room with him.

So, his father missed more games than he attended, stopping altogether during our time at Berkshire. Now, I know that once a month Bennett meets his father at Bar Mezzana in South End.

Besides the extravagant gifts that often bless our home or garage—most recently the undriven new Bronco sitting in our garage with a tarp still tucked over it—Bennett and his father do not have a relationship.

“Don’t bother,” he snaps back. “Go back to work. I’m not driving into the city for twenty minutes of staring at each other over stupidly expensive food.”

He hangs up without a second thought.

“Missing another lunch?” I ask, realizing after that I wouldn’t know either way.

Bennett shakes his head, rearranging his hair and glasses again, his hands moving with tremors.

“I went to the last one, but it was the first time I’d seen him all summer.”

“Still bad?”

“I’m just… My mom’s happy, finally. Her and Paul are gone for the next two weeks to Europe. I don’t want the reminder.”

“I get it.”

I don’t, actually. Bennett’s parents’ divorce has always been a strange topic for me.

My parents are sick in love, and always have been. To the world, there’s nothing Maximillian Koteskiy loves more than hockey. But to anyone who truly knows him, he’d give up every Stanley Cup win and his entire career if it meant he’d hold onto my mother.

“Headed back to the house?” he asks, holding the button on the side of his phone to turn it completely off.

“I think so—”

“Pool party at Zeta,” Holden announces, walking out shoulder to shoulder with Freddy. Both are haphazardly put together in a way that almost makes them look like twins; where Freddy is all playboy smirk, Holden is boyish innocence.

“I’m good,” I say. I have other plans in mind, namely attempting to sneak another hour of a certain punky figure skater’s time.

“I’ll come,” Bennett says, surprisingly. At my look, he shrugs. “Need something to do.”

“Fair enough. I’ll see you guys back at the house later.”

With a final few chin lifts and waves on my way to the car, I tuck in and shoot a quick, Can’t today text to my father.

My hand is on the handle before I curse, realizing I’ve left my keys in my locker.

Thankfully, everything is empty now, making it easier to run in, grab my keys out of the cubby and get out without the need to stop and talk with anyone.

Coach’s office is lit up, the only room with lights still on, the door half open. I pay no mind to it at first, but the conversation is loud enough it makes me pause against the wall before crossing.

“You swore that it wasn’t on the schedule,” a deep voice growls. “You said it was a home game.”

“It was,” Coach sighs. “Look, if you really aren’t going to play—”

“What’s the consequence of not playing?”

My brows dip. A player then, but I don’t recognize the voice. It isn’t that surprising though, considering how absent I’ve been.

A slam like a hand to the desk, and then, “I won’t be in that damn arena with even the possibility that she—”

“Okay, Tor. Okay.”

I don’t recognize the name, an inkling of familiarity that I can’t really follow, but he sounds insane. And I trust Coach enough not to have someone like that messing with our team mojo.

I leave, quiet and quick, back to my car before driving to my new favorite coffee shop, hoping for even the slightest chance at spotting her.

It’s Rora I find inside the cozy, well-named Brew Haven, standing at the counter chatting with a well-dressed guy.

I stand behind him for only a moment before Rora catches my eye and the strange reserved expression for the enthusiastic girl I only recently met melts from her face. Maybe she is more reserved when not off her ass, drunk and screaming Taylor Swift into the night air.

“Rhys Koteskiy.” She smiles, but her eyes track to the guy still next to us, leaning against the counter. “Here for a coffee or for a girl?”

“You two know each other?” the guy asks, eyebrow ticking up as he settles his question to me instead of her.

I reach my hand out with my captain’s smile. “Rhys,” I offer, reaching my hand out to him. He takes it, a hard quick shake before letting me go.

“Tyler. Aurora’s boyfriend.”

Got it. I keep the smile plastered across my face as I look back to Aurora, her nervous expression making me feel a little nauseous. So, I lean in and pointedly ask, “Is Sadie not working today?”

Tyler laughs, nodding at me with a renewed twinkle in his eye. “Sadie really does have a type, huh? Surprised she isn’t the one thirsting after—”

“Tyler, stop. Please,” Rora quietly begs, before looking up at me. “She’s not, but she is at the dorms—at least, I think.” She clicks the side of her phone where it rests on the counter. “Yeah, she’s still there, but she’ll go home for the weekend so…”

She trails off with a little shrug.

“So I should text her instead of showing up unannounced and sending her into a spiral?”

Rora smiles again, somehow broader, like the thought of me understanding some of the complexities of her dear friend makes her ecstatic. “Exactly.”

“Gotcha.” I nod, sticking a five in the overly decorated yellow top jar with multicolored flowers drawn all over it. “I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”

“I hope so. She deserves something good.”

It warms something in me that this enigmatic girl, Sadie’s best—and I honestly think only—friend approves of me. Even if Sadie herself doesn’t.

I do text her, later that night after gorging myself on the meal prep marked with my name that Bennett labored over at the beginning of the week. Laying back on my sloppily made bed, staring at the ceiling with a movie playing off my PS4 on the mounted TV, I can’t get her out of my head. I’ve listened to the playlist until I can pull it up in my head like a file, playing my favorites and trying to imagine what she was thinking when she added them.

“Barely Breathing” —the way she unlaced my skates for me when my hands were shaking.

“Don’t Look Back In Anger” —the raging look in her eyes when she does her long program.

“Sleep Alone” —her smile, her laugh.

My current favorite, Beck and Bat for Lashes’ “Let’s Get Lost,” plays over my speaker as my fingers pull up her contact and shoot off the text before I can think twice about it.

RHYS

Hey.

SADIE

Is this the equivalent of a Koteskiy ‘You up?’ text?

RHYS

Do you want it to be?

Panicking, I send another text right after.

Just laying in bed and listening to music.

Instead of a text back, I get a picture of her that has me shooting upright in bed, dropping my phone through suddenly slippery hands before pulling it up to my face as if I’ll miss it if I close my eyes for even a second.

She’s lying down, her hair in a mess of waves played around a mess of blue sheets and a white comforter. Not smiling, really, but her lips tick up lightly in one corner of their slightly pursed position. Her eyes are sharp, the dark gray piercing even through a screen, skin slightly flushed and the worn wire of her old headphones—which she must’ve stolen back—dangling across her sharp collarbones.

My eyes trail her bare shoulders, one of the straps of her tank top slinking half off, giving way to a multitude of freckles scattered like stars across her skin.

I wonder how long would be too long not to respond, if I have time for a shower while imagining my fingers touching every single freckle I can find in a very thorough search.

Shaking my head, I spot the text beneath the photo—after I save it to my phone and stare at it for an embarrassing length of time.

SADIE

Funny, I’m doing the same thing.

I feel ridiculous for a moment while retyping my texts four times, knowing full well she can see the little dots appearing and disappearing repeatedly.

RHYS

Too bad I don’t look as good as you doing that.

SADIE

Yeah, then Freddy might try to sleep with you.

A laugh threatens to burst, pulling at my lips, even just this, just her written words are enough to chase a little of the anxiety sitting in this too empty room away.

SADIE

I’m as exhausted as I look tho, so I’m probably gonna crash soon and ghost you.

It takes me another too-long moment to decide what to say, finally settling on:

RHYS

You don’t look exhausted.

I wait, sitting my phone away from me for minutes, then uselessly bringing it up to my face and back face down on the bed, as if it will prevent me from checking again and again. But, her lack of response must mean she’s sleeping now.

Standing, I leave the phone in my bedroom and head into the large, dark bathroom that’s been spotlessly cleaned this summer by Bennett to the point it looks as if no one has ever lived here. I strip and close the door behind me before turning the shower all the way hot.

For a moment, I look in the mirror as I run my hand along the light scar over my eyebrow, a smaller one beneath my eye that’s nearly invisible unless touched; both from visor injuries during the hit, both of which I don’t remember receiving.

My body is healed, fully, every bit of it pressed back together. My mind is the thing that’s broken, permanently.

There is a video out there of the game and the injury. I tried to watch it once, but got sick instead and didn’t make it past the first intermission. I couldn’t remember when it happened, the constant anticipation made me so nauseous, I gave up.

I wonder if Sadie’s seen it, but I’m too afraid to ask her. One Google search is all it would take.

Shaking my head, I step into the steamy warm shower, letting the hot water roll over my tightly coiled muscles, dipping my head under the spray and pushing my hair all off my forehead.

The change of temperature makes me dizzy for a moment, and I try to ground myself, placing both hands against the still-cold tile wall.

Sadie.

Sadie with freckles over bare shoulders with her messy waves, bare faced and looking up at me with her gray cat-like eyes.

It settles me immediately, just the thought of her, the image burned into my mind of her hovering me in the locker room, like a queen atop a throne. Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?

My cock hangs heavy between my thighs, pulsing as my thoughts take me past every moment I’ve touched her soft, supple skin. She’s burned into my every thought, like some sweet scent that brings back every good memory I’ve locked away.

I picture her here, in my shower beneath the hot spray, because I want her in my space. To feel like she’s wholly mine even for a minute. She’s so fucking small, but larger than life to me.

“Rhys,” she breathes.

In my head, I press her against the tile and drop to my knees, picturing her above me as my hand glides up and down my shaft, slow. Steady.

With her, it’ll never be slow and steady.

No. I imagine her bucking wildly as I fight to hold her still, until I sling her legs over my shoulders. Her skin probably feels like silk here, too, even with the hard muscle beneath.

God, I know she tastes good, and just the thought of it has me gripping harder, faster. I imagine her climbing with me, her sighs and moans growing louder until the entire house can hear that she’s mine. That I make her feel like this, like a fucking man pleasing his woman until she can’t help but scream.

I chase the high with the Sadie in my head, just wanting to feel the euphoria that I know I can make her feel. I’m desperate to please and worship her like this, but to control it—to have the wildcat figure skater at my mercy for once.

Her gray taunting eyes forever locked onto mine as I close my eyes and my legs shutter under the effect of the fantasy of her. I brace a hand on the tile, my head fuzzy but no pain.

In my head, she says my name again, that same light whispered moan and it sends me soaring over the edge as I come with her name etching out of my lips like a desperate plea.

My forehead presses into the tile as I nearly collapse under the relief. Fucking hell.

Maybe I should feel ashamed for thinking of her like that, but it’s hard not to when she’s everything good. For the first time since March, I feel… alive. Which is somehow more dangerous, because now, I don’t think I can let her go.

I want to cling to her, to prove that whatever is left of me is worth something.

I send one more text to her before plugging my phone into the charger.

RHYS

You look beautiful.