Page 21 of Pucked Mountain Man
“Finish my EP?” I try to laugh. It comes out wrong. “Play coffee shops?”
He looks away. “This is the smart move.”
“For your knee,” I say.
“For everything.” He sets his mug down very gently, like louder would shatter us. “We can’t—” He stops. Shakes his head. “It’s better if?—”
I fold my arms so I don’t touch him, because I won’t beg. “Okay,” I say, tilting. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Stevie—”
“No.” If he says my name like that, I’ll agree to anything. “You’re right. It’s smarter. I’ll get my stuff.”
In the bedroom I fold with surgical precision: socks paired, charger coiled, journal on top as if I’d write any of this down. It’s ridiculous that it hurts this much after days. Ridiculous and real. In the mirror, the tiny notes under my ribs—a first breath of “Landslide,” a reminder to begin—look like bravado pretending to be bravery.
Back in the great room, he stands by the door with keys and duffel and that neutral mouth. He looks like he didn’t sleep—like he tried to hold up the house with his shoulders and failed. I still love him a little for trying, even as he won’t let me help.
“Ready?” he asks.
No.“Yes.”
Outside, the morning is so bright it feels rude. Trees glitter with new ice; the road is a thin gray promise. He limps carefully, face set in the mask I’ve seen a thousand postgames.
I repeat the thing I’ve always told myself:Be enough for you, Stevie.If he can’t see it, be enough anyway.
It doesn’t stop the ache. It doesn’t stop the bruised question bubbling up: Maybe it isn’t that he can’t have me.
Maybe I’m not what he wants.
EIGHT
GRADY
Seattle doesn’t feel like home anymore.
It’s glossy, too bright, too high above the city in a penthouse that looks like it was designed to be photographed, not lived in. The floor-to-ceiling windows give me a view of the skyline and the Sound, but all I see is her—freckles in firelight, hair tumbling loose, the little notes tattooed under her ribs where I kissed them like a fool who thought he had the right.
It’s been three days since I dropped her at her place and drove away. Three days since I told myself it was the smart move, the responsible move, the only move.
I haven’t texted. Haven’t called. Not because I don’t want to. Because I want to too damn much.
Instead I sit here, knee elevated on a pillow, an ice pack sweating through the towel, the TV on mute with some endless highlights reel. My face flashes across the screen in clips from better years, better legs. The crawl at the bottom speculates about my future like it’s a commodity on the stock exchange. Out indefinitely. Contract in question. Possible retirement.
Who the hell am I without hockey?
I know the answer. Nobody.
The door slams.
I jolt upright as Thatcher storms in, a linebacker in street clothes, eyes blazing. “You son of a bitch.”
I don’t ask how he got past security. He’s Thatcher—he gets past anything when he’s pissed.
“What the hell—” I start, but he’s already in my face, shoving my shoulder.
“You think you can hide out here while my sister cries herself dry?” His voice booms off the glass. “You think you can use her like some—some cabin fling and then ghost her?”
I grit my teeth, guilt flaring hotter than my knee. “It wasn’t like that.”
