Page 105 of The Pucking Arrangement

“I’ll meet you at the restaurant! Fifteen minutes!” I shout, already heading for the bathroom. I need a very cold shower before I can face anyone.

“Coach says the salmon waits for no man!” Adam chimes in.

“Tell your daddy to fuck off!”

Their laughter fades down the hallway.

I lean against the bathroom counter, staring at my reflection. My pupils are blown wide, my chest still heaving slightly.

I swear I’ll ruin her when I get home.

Chapter21

Deep End

Erin

My phone buzzes for the fifth time this morning. Dmitri.

[Dmitri]: Back from morning skate. Package coming today.

[Me]: What package ?

[Dmitri]: Surprise, solnyshko. Call you after the game.

I grin at my phone like a lovesick idiot. Five nights in his bed, and I’m still feeling the aftershocks. We barely slept—too busy burning up the sheets—but somehow, I’d never felt more alive. Like he was pure adrenaline, keeping me wired, making me insatiable.

And then last night’s FaceTime.

The memory alone sends heat licking up my spine.

But now I’m crashing.

Three cups of coffee in, and I’m running on fumes—buzzed, jittery, vibrating with something restless. But I don’t care. Because every time I close my eyes, I swear I can still feel him on my skin.

[Me]: Score for me tonight?

[Dmitri]: I’d rather score with you tonight

[Dmitri]: Planning on ruining you thoroughly when I’m back

Heat unfurls in my chest, slow and insidious. It’s hard to be without him. The way he’s been looking at me this past week, like he’s trying to memorize every detail, like he’s bracing for something inevitable. Like he knows exactly where this is headed, even if I’m too much of a coward to admit it.

Every time I try to haveThe Talk—the dreaded, hive-inducing,what are weconversation—he derails me. Sometimes with kisses that melt my bones. Sometimes with that slow, lazy smirk that should require a license to wield.

“Not now,solnyshko,” he’ll murmur against my skin, his voice a dark promise. “Just be here. With me.”

And when I push—because apparently, I like suffering—he goes full poetic on me. Quotes Pushkin, like some devastating, brooding philosopher trapped in a hockey player’s body.

“We understand time differently when happiness slips through our fingers like water—what seems like forever to one is but a moment to another…”

Then he kisses me stupid. Until I forget why I was worried. Until the only thing that exists is his hands, his mouth, the way he makes me feel like I belong to him.

Hedonistic much?

But every time he looks at me like I’m something rare—like he’s afraid to blink and find me gone—I wonder if maybe he’s right. Maybe we don’t need labels or timelines or carefully drawn boundaries.

Maybe sometimes things just are what they are.

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