Page 20 of Falling for the Hockey Superstar

Like he sees through every wall I’ve built.

I press my lips together, trying to push away the memories of Beck’s smile when I laughed at Spotty slip-sliding across the ice or the brush of his hand against mine when he steadied me after I nearly fell.

I shouldn’t be feeling this way.

Not after everything I’ve been through.

You can’t risk your heart again, Abby.

But no matter how much I try to convince myself… it’s not working.

I close my eyes, but instead of calming the chaos in my mind, it dredges up a memory I haven’t allowed myself to think about in a long time.

Ethan, my lost husband.

Ethan’s laugh echoes in my ears, warm and familiar. “Come on, Abs. You’re overthinking it,” he’d said one night when we were painting Jake’s nursery. I was agonizing over shades of blue, and Ethan—ever the optimist—just grabbed the brush and started painting.

“It’s just paint. If we hate it, we’ll redo it,” he’d said with that easy smile of his.

Simple. Confident. Sure.

Ethan had a way of making life feel… steady. Like nothing could ever go wrong as long as we faced it together.

But life didn’t play by those rules.

I lost him. Lost him to a drunk driver. Lost him for no other reason than he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And when he died, that steadiness—the foundation I built my life on—shattered.

And I’ve been walking on that broken glass ever since.

Beck isn’t like Ethan.

Where Ethan was steady, Beck is a force of nature. His energy pulls me in, shakes up everything I thought I knew, and leaves me breathless.

And that scares me.

Because if I give in… if I let Beck in and everything falls apart again…

I don’t think I’ll survive it.

***

After driving myself half mad with these thoughts playing over and over in my head, I figure I need some distraction.

I don’t even think about it this time. I grab my phone and press Quinn’s name before I can change my mind.

“Hey, Abs!” Quinn’s cheerful voice fills the line, a little burst of sunshine in my otherwise stormy thoughts.

“Hey,” I say softly, curling up on the couch with Spotty by my side.

The silence that follows stretches just a little too long, and I know Quinn’s radar is already up.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice immediately laced with concern.

“Why do you always assume something’s wrong?” I try to keep my tone light, but I don’t quite pull it off.

“Because I know you,” she replies gently. “And that’s your ‘I’m trying to pretend everything’s fine’ voice.”

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