Page 152 of Check & Chase
“I need to talk to her. Before she makes any decisions.”
Tyler catches my arm as I start to rise. “Be careful, man. She’s still raw about the breakup. If you push too hard, you might just drive her further away.”
“I have to try. I can’t just let her leave.”
I make it halfway to the door before the coach’s voice stops me. “Chase! Where do you think you’re going? We have film review in five minutes.”
Reality crashes back in—my obligations to the team, the playoffs looming, my career hanging in the balance. The weight of responsibility settles on my shoulders like a lead blanket.
“Personal emergency,” I call back, without slowing my pace.
But as I reach for my car keys, my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. A photo appears—Emma and Jackson, standing outside the Wolves’ facility, both smiling as they shake hands with a man I recognize as the Wolves’ head coach.
The caption simply says: “Too late. She’s already gone.”
Carina. It has to be Carina. One final twist of the knife.
I call Emma immediately, heart pounding as the phone rings once, twice, three times before going to voicemail. I try again with the same result, her recorded voice torturing me.
For a moment, I stand frozen in the parking lot, Chase Mitchell, star forward for the Bears, completely paralyzed by the fear of losing the one person who matters most.
My phone buzzes again.
Coach:Get your ass back in here NOW. Or don’t bother showing up for the game tomorrow night.
With leaden feet, I turn back toward the facility. But as I walk, something shifts inside me.
I’m hopelessly in love with Emma Anderson. Not just the idea of her, but her. Stubborn, passionate, resilient Emma. The woman who faced her greatest fear on the ice because she believed in us, who pushed me to be better than I thought possible. The woman I hurt deeply in my misguided attempt to protect her.
And if I love her, truly love her, then I need to fight for her. Not by giving her space or making decisions for her “own good,” but by showing her exactly what she means to me.
Because some people are worth it. Worth the effort, the risk.
And Emma Anderson is at the top of that list.
Emma
Chapter Thirty-Four
“You still want to watch the game?” Maya asks when she gets home from work, eyeing the packed boxes stacked by the door like accusations of my imminent betrayal.
“Yes,” I say, surprising myself with how much I mean it. “One last Bears game before I become the enemy.”
She grins, already heading for the fridge. “I’ll get the beer; you order the pizza.”
By the time the game starts, we’re settled on the couch with our familiar ritual spread before us—pizza growing cold, beer warming in my untouched bottle, and the nervous energy that always accompanies playoff hockey.
I tell myself I’m watching to support the team, to see my former colleagues compete for the championship they’ve worked toward all season. But as the cameras pan across the players during the anthem, lingering on Chase’s solemn face, I know the real reason: I need to see him one last time, even if it’s just through a screen.
“He looks like crap,” Maya observes bluntly.
She’s not wrong. Even through the television’s unforgiving lens, I can see the shadows carved beneath his eyes, the hollowness in his cheeks,the way his usually vibrant presence seems dimmed somehow. He’s lost weight, his jersey hanging looser than I remember.
The rational part of my brain knows I was cruel when he suggested the break. I was drowning—my career crumbling, my reputation in tatters, everything I’d built since my accident falling apart like a house of cards. When he suggested we separate, it felt like the final betrayal, like even the person who claimed to love me was abandoning ship.
Maybe I should have recognized his misguided attempt to protect me for what it was—love, not rejection. But I was so tired of fighting, so exhausted by the weight of keeping everything together while the world tried to tear me down.
The game begins with intensity straight away, both teams skating hard, hitting harder. Chase plays cautiously at first, his usual creativity muted by something I recognize too well—the careful movements of someone playing through pain.
