Unsteady

I had the best sleep of my life.

Considering it comes right after the best sex of my life, I count the entire week as a win. Those are few and far between for me.

There isn’t even a bite of anxiety when I wake, because I know exactly who I’ve wrapped myself around like a monkey.

And I know my brothers are safe.

I didn’t intend to spend all night away from them, but I think Aurora wanted me to—judging by her continuous stream of all-caps texts to “Climb him like a tree.” So, when I told her I’d be staying over, I got a stream of ecstatic emojis.

I should probably pull away, but I don’t, content to look up at his soft, sleeping face. He’s completely at peace, his forehead relaxed and a contented slip of a smile pulling at his mouth.

It borders on weird, I’m sure, how long I watch him. But it takes all that time to gather the strength to pull myself away and relieve myself in the bathroom, searching for a toothbrush or mouthwash—anything to help with the grime I feel in my mouth.

I splash my face with water and help myself to a clean shirt from his adjoining closet.

He pushes up onto his elbows when I come back in; a wide, dimpled smile spreading across his face.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you in that shirt.”

I look down at the gray material, realizing it’s almost identical to my usual practice shirt, but with hockey printed in big bold letters beneath the university logo.

“This shirt?” I laugh, walking slowly towards him.

He pushes up fully, turning over to prop up against the headboard. The sheets pool at his waist, hiding his very naked, very generous lower half.

“Yeah,” he says, grappling for me as I crawl across the bed. Ignoring my attempt at being sensual, he sits me on his lap, just the sheet between us. “It’s got my last name on it.”

My cheeks blaze, satisfaction rolling through me. His hands tighten briefly on my thighs, like he’s worried I might bolt at any moment. But I’ve decided. He’s worth any of it—and if he doesn’t mind how fucked up and messy my life is, how little time I can afford to lose, then I’m not telling him to go.

“Hey, hotshot.”

“Hey, Gray.” Another grin I bottle up tight and hold close in my chest. It makes my heart skip and my body warm. I snuggle deeper into him, just breathing in the smell of his skin.

“If I’d known my dick would make you this docile, I would’ve done that a lot sooner,” he teases. “It’s like magic.”

“Why didn’t you?” I try to ask it just as teasing, but there is a slip of vulnerability in the words.

Rhys angles my head out from my hiding place in his neck and rubs at my cheek lovingly. “Because it was never going to be just sex for me with you. And I knew you weren’t ready for that.”

My cheeks blaze. My eyes burn and I want to bolt as much as I want to handcuff him to me.

“You think I wasn’t ready for your magical dick?”

He laughs, his head tipped back against the headboard and I can’t help latching my mouth to his pulse and laving over it with my tongue. His laugh cuts off into a moan, hands gripping, but not to encourage. To stop me.

“Come on,” I whisper, nipping at his ear. I’m addicted to him. I want more—endless more.

“Hold on, Gray,” he pleads, groaning as I suck beneath his ear. “Baby, please.”

The soft name makes me want to giggle and twirl my hair, and bask in everything that he is. I manage to only pull back and look at him, my hand splayed across his well-defined stomach, trailing blunt fingernails across his abs.

“What?” I ask.

His hand tilts my chin so he can meet my eyes. And he’s still smiling. I smile too.

“I just want to check in. We didn’t talk last night after everything.”

After he fucked me speechless, he means. In a way that made me regret everything I’d ever wasted on another man because that wasn’t sex—this, it feels like even more. I didn’t know it could be like this.

“I’m good,” I say, probably too chipper. “I’m—it was amazing.”

He smirks, a little bit of arrogance pushing through. “That’s not what I meant. But good for my ego. I haven’t—” His brow furrows, mouth freezing open for a moment. “Did you really never look me up?”

“I told you I wouldn’t. Though, now that you know my secrets, do I get to know yours?” I say it mostly in jest.

“Actually, yes.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “Rhys—”

“I want you to know everything, Sadie.”

He tackles me to the mattress with kisses that are cut too short when he stands. I watch him move, mouthwatering at the taunt shape of his ass—even more at his half-hard cock hanging between his legs when he starts back towards me. I’m distracted enough that I don’t notice that he’s got his laptop in hand.

He opens it, sitting back next to me and types a few things before he finds what he’s looking for. Then, he spins the computer towards me and steps away.

“I’m gonna shower. Just—look at the video.”

The screen is paused, but the title reads Rhys Koteskiy Stretchered Off by Kane Hit (Graphic) and that is enough for me to feel my stomach fall out of my ass.

For a moment, I just stare, hovering over the play button until I can force myself to click it.

The game starts up, it’s the middle of the period and Rhys looks to be on fire. His face is happy and open, but there’s an underlying intensity and focus. The puck drops and they’re off—speeding towards the other end after Rhys won the face off. He’s fast, beautiful and powerful as his legs push him towards the goal. Another player passes it back to him and they’re closing in on the boards so fast. But the other team has someone right on top of him, who goes for the hit just as Rhys passes it backwards.

The hit is hard, like I’ve seen in hockey many times, but it isn’t the hit that does him in—it’s his bent posture, hitting the boards full speed, head first.

He bounces off, slamming into the knees of the defenseman face first and then falling flat on the ice on his stomach.

There’s a large crack, and then silence.

But only for a moment, before the entire team starts attacking the player who hit him: Kane, I see in big bold yellow letters on the back of his jersey.

Toren Kane, I realize.

As in, the guy at my practice.

Oh my god.

I open another tab and search his name and, just like he said, there’s a wealth of knowledge there. Headline after headline—kicked out of Boston College, released from Michigan for unknown circumstances, banned from playing in Harvard’s arena. And, most recently, a surprise move to Waterfell University.

Page after page of attempted, and denied, interviews about his hit on Rhys.

I shake my head, feeling my fingers go numb as I click back to the main video and search the suggested for more angles.

I find one dual view, where I can see him, sprawled on the ice on his stomach, out cold. A medic comes, trying not to move him, but there’s blood on the ice and they can’t see where it’s coming from.

Then, he starts shaking on the ice, little tremors through his heavily padded body. A massive goalie decked in blue and gray, who I know easily to be Bennett Reiner is next to him now, helmet off and face pinched in concern as he starts looking around the crowd for someone, all the while kneeling and holding Rhys’ leg.

I see him start to turn over, which is good—it means he’s awake. But as soon as he pushes up, he flops backwards as if his neck is broken. His helmet is off, blood pouring down his face from a pressure cut.

Terror claws at my throat, tears welling as if he’s not in the next room. As if he’s not okay. I suddenly, desperately, need to put my eyes on him to assure myself he’s still okay.

The camera cuts to the boards where both teams are standing, the coach of the opposing team furious, his hand gripping Toren Kane by the neck of his jersey, which is already ripped from the fight. The refs come over and there’s a lot of silence before a stretcher is wheeled out, several people walking with it across the ice—one of them a tall, well-dressed man crying out for him.

And then, the video ends.

I shut the screen just as Rhys comes back, towel wrapped around his taunt, trim waist. His hair is damp, and he shoves it back behind his ears, a few loose tendrils stubbornly dancing in front of his eyes. He tries to grin, but stops when he takes in my face.

“Hey,” he coos, rushing towards me and holding my face in his big hands. “You’re okay?”

“Are you?” I ask, a tremble working down my spine. “God, Rhys—”

“I didn’t show you that for you to pity me,” he gruffly, shrugging off where my hands have absentmindedly reached for his cheek. “I just wanted you to know.”

I nod. “I know. But, be real—you can’t show me that and expect me to shrug it off.”

“It was just a hit. Happens all the time. Hockey is a contact sport.”

Doesn’t matter, I want to say—clearly this video, the hit itself is the smallest part of this problem.

I remember, for a moment, the look of him that first day, slumped against the boards on the ice, the fear and panic blowing his pupils wide. His shaking hands, the tremble of his muscles beneath my hands.

“If it was just a hit,” I start. “Then what happened after?”