Page 42 of Gravity
I press my lips to his temple and wait.
“I don't want to be acélébrité. I don't want headlines about me. Being a superstar pulls you away from everyone. I want to be a part of the team again. Lonely hockey is for the river—for when I am playing against what is inside of me. The game is for playing with other people, my friends, and I miss that.”
I don't know what to say. I don't know these guys well enough to give Bryce assurances about the team and his friends. They've kept me at arm's length, and I can't blame them for that. Their tension toward me is palpable, but equally so is their love for Bryce.
“I want to give them great games. I want Etienne to beat his goal record from last season. I want MacKenzie to get his first hat trick. I want Valery to have more shutouts. I want Slava and Janne to be happy with their ice time.” Bryce sets his glass on the counter and then turns and wraps his arms around my waist. “And I want every time you and I take the ice to be like the river, or like in Vegas, when everything wasmagique.”
“It will be.” I kiss him sweetly on the lips. “And you will be magical out there, too. You are already.”
His blue eyes are tumbling with storm clouds. Fear cords his muscles like rope. “Calisse, I have been so lost. I've let so many people down—”
“You're not lost anymore.”
“Non, I am not.” Finally, he smiles. It's a real smile, and the storm in his gaze begins to break. We lose time as we fall into each other, as our foreheads meet and then our lips, and we sway together in the kitchen in each other's arm.
It happens unconsciously—our breaths align, inhales and exhales matching in pace and tempo. His heart rate slows and steadies until our pulses are nearly identical.
“Yesterday,” he says, “I said you were my weakness. But that's not the truth. My fear is my weakness, and for weeks,non, maybe months, my fears have been set on fire inside me. My fears and my pain have been in control of me.” He lays his hand on my bare chest. His blue eyes are burning, catching the light and holding on to it until he's lit from within. “The truth is, Hunter,mon coeur… you are my strength.”
ChapterFifteen
Bryce
Heads swivel toward Hunter and me when we step into the dressing room.
Before our collapse, the Étoiles dressing room crackled with energy, so alive and pulsating you could hear the team's laughter and the roar of their voices well before you neared our tunnel. Today, when we entered the arena, Hunter and I walked into a tomb, so silent it seemed no one was here. Has the team quit? Are we alone in the belly of the rink?
Non, here they all are. Staring at us.
Valery straightens. He's half dressed in his shorts, suspenders, socks, and compression shirt, but no bulky chest or leg pads. He throws a look at MacKenzie, who eyes the minimal inches between Hunter and me.
“You two came together?” MacKenzie asks. He finishes tugging his undershirt over his head.
The rest of the team is frozen behind MacKenzie. Their gazes move from me to Hunter to MacKenzie and then to each other.
“Oui.” I drop my gear at my spot—thecapitane'sspot—on the bench. Hunter continues to the far corner.Deep breath,calisse.
MacKenzie switches to French. “Comment ça va?”
“Ça va très bien.” I watch Hunter setting up his gear. Memories of the morning float through me. Waking up in Hunter's arms. Leaning up for a kiss. Making love, again. “Très bien.”
“Oui?”
One word, but layers of emotions. I can't parse everything MacKenzie is trying to ask me, but I can feel his wariness, his unease, his disquiet. There's something else, too. Something almost like optimism. Or at least the faintest hint of it.
“Oui.” I switch to English. Our team is known as the Flying Frenchmen, sure, but we are a mix of French, English, Nordic, and Russian players. MacKenzie, even with his name, may be from upriver Quebec, but the others are not. “I feel good,” I say. “It is going to be a good game tonight.”
We have been stumbling for too long.Non, I have been lost, and I have fallen, and I have dragged everyone down with me. But that ends now.
“It feels like a breakaway night,” I say. “One on one. Maybe two on one.”
Hunter has tugged his t-shirt off to swap it out for the Étoiles compression shirt. I lose myself in the flex of his shoulders and the ripples of his muscles running down his spine.
MacKenzie has been wound as tight as braided steel since Hunter and I walked into the dressing room. He's breathing hard, studying me like I'm a specimen under a microscope. Valery is still a statue in the corner. Their eyes snap toward each other and hold. The team is waiting. Watching. Their wide eyes bounce between MacKenzie and me.
“Your breakaways,” MacKenzie finally says, “always end up in rebounds for me.”
Always is a stretch, but MacKenzie sets himself in the right place at the right time to seize on any loose pucks bouncing off the other team's goalie. I throw MacKenzie a rakish wink. “You can have my leftovers, Mac. I don't mind.”
