Page 48 of The Fall
He knows what he’s doing, knows how to really knead out the stiffness. I close my eyes and lean into him.
Blair tries, but he can’t fully hide his flinch. I pull back and catch his grimace, watch him rotate his shoulder and try to ease out a cramp. In the stillness, his shoulder makes a crunching, gravel-on-gravel sound. Hockey aging. It sneaks up on us all.
“Here,” I say, shifting. “Let me.” I want to kiss his aches away, soothe the pain and make him whole again.
“I’m fine?—”
“Seriously. You’re not. Let me take care of you for once.”
He hesitates. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, surprise or…
“You do take care of me. All the time.”
“Well then—” I motion for him to twist, give me a better angle to reach his shoulder.
I dig my thumbs into the dense muscle over his shoulder. It’s a landscape of knots and tension, and when I find one particularly brutal spot, he sucks in a sharp breath.
“Right there?”
He nods, eyes closed, and exhales slowly. He settles his hand on my thigh.
After a long moment, he takes my hand from his shoulder, lifts it to his mouth, and presses his lips to my palm. “Thank you,” he breathes. He slides his fingers between mine, callus against callus.
I rest my head on his shoulder again. He touches his lips to my hair, lets them settle there before laying his cheek against the top of my head.
“I do want to make this work,” I whisper.
He tightens his grip on my hand, as if no one has said yes when it mattered. Outside the window, the world is a black ocean of stars, and we are suspended in the swells, caught between where we were and where we are going.
If this is dreaming, I don’t want to wake up.
If this is real, I don’t know if I deserve it, but I’m not letting it go.
I crash over the boards, Blair right behind me. The ice is slick under my skates, the air choked with sweat and adrenaline. My focus snaps into place, centered on the puck and Blair.
Buffalo’s captain, a bruiser with a reputation for cheap shots, is coming hard and fast. The look on his face says he wants to hurt me.
Mine says he’ll have to try harder. I spin away from the open-ice check, and he eats air and ice shavings when he goes down hard to the ice. The puck pops free, and Blair’s there, collecting it in one smooth motion.
I lock eyes with Blair. No one can touch us.
Buffalo gets organized fast after that. They win the puck and pass crisply and quickly around the perimeter, looking for seams in our defense. One of their forwards takes aim from the blue line, an easy shot if he can get it off cleanly, but I’m there first, lunging across the slot.
The puck ricochets off my shoulder pads and clatters back into the fray. Another Buffalo player scoops it up and fires again from point-blank range while I’m still on one knee trying to shake off the stinger.
But the puck never makes it to the net. Blair appears, leveling the Buffalo player with a hit that echoes through the arena, and I want to kiss him. Right here, right now, in front of everyone.
After that, Buffalo wants blood, and they aren’t hiding it.
The puck drops. I win it and sling it to Hayes. He clears, but Buffalo surges forward. The clock ticks down. Buffalo’s desperation radiates off them.
I steal the puck on their next entry and chip it out. Buffalo storms back in. Sweat stings my eyes. Blair appears at my side, blocking a pass. We lock eyes for a split second.
Thirty seconds left. My legs burn with every stride.
Blair has the puck. He slides it right to my stick. I push forward, weaving through blue jerseys.
Fifteen seconds.
