Page 42 of Puck to the Heart
I bristled but said nothing.Little lady, my plump ass.If I was wrong and didn’t have a solid two inches on this guy, I’d buy a round for the whole bar.
The longer I stayed, the louder the bar grew. But I forced myself to stay; I deserved to be miserable after leaving Ash with no explanation. So, I sank into misery, letting it grow with every mediocre chicken wing and sip of tepid beer as I watched Ash on screen.
Until a fight broke out. He’d laughed when I hadn’t noticed a fight the night we met, but this one unfolded in slow-moving horror.
I tracked the players until I found the name Wilder emblazoned on the back of a white and teal jersey, identical to the one I wore.
There he was, right in the middle of the action. Of course. A frisson of worry crawled down my spine. And he was Asher the Basher, bashing into the thick of it, throwing a punch to connect solidly with the jaw of—was that his teammate?
“That Basher guy has a wicked left hook,” Brad’s twin said, leaning closer to look at the screen. “You a fan?”
“Clearly.” I plucked at the jersey in emphasis.
“Oh, yeah? When was the last time they won the Stanley Cup?”
Guys like this were the worst. Having to jump through hoops in any male-dominated space would exhaust anyone, and then even when I proved myself, I still didn’t meet the expectations of a ‘real fan’ simply because I was born with tits. It was infuriating.
“Actually,” I pitched my voice higher, breathier. “I think you can buy those at Target!” The guy stared, my joke going over his head. “But I’m kind of new to this whole hockey thing; I just think the one player is hot.” He gave me a patronizing smile, so I patronized him right back, feeding him all the stupid misogynistic stereotypes I could muster. “Can you, like, explain it to me?” I even batted my lashes. Give him some reason to drone on for half an hour so I could drown him out or escape.
He did exactly what I expected, and I ignored all of it, smiling randomly, and tilting my head at intervals to pretend to be interested. You’d think he’d notice my disinterest and take the hint; instead, he bought another beer I didn’t want and edged his barstool too close to mine. Telling him to fuck off had a fifty-fifty chance of ending poorly for me, given that I was alone in a bar, so I let him natter on without listening or encouraging him. Once the Knights lost the game, I slid off the stool when he went to the bathroom, not wanting to deal with whatever expectations he might have formed from the purchase of the untouched beer. What was it with men like this ignoring personal space and the word no?
My arrival back at the hotel coincided with the Knights’ bus arriving. Hot sauce and beer churned in my stomach when I caught sight of Ash’s broad back in a sea of similarly built men. He stood out, somehow. Maybe it was the height, or that unruly dark hair.
Maybe I’d committed the way he moved to memory, like my favorite song.
But I was too slow to catch him, unable to push through the crowd milling around the foyer and I slumped as the elevator hid him from view.
* * *
The next morning,my suitcase waited amongst the others, and I hovered on the fringes of the team, unwilling to break into their space when they were all so gloomy after the loss. On the shuttle to the airport, I boarded last after Coach Olsen, who gave me a blithe smile.
Compared to the flight to Raleigh, the flight home was morose. Most of the team wore headphones, same as before, but the mood soured. When I caught sight of Ash, I headed toward him, but without looking, he tugged the hood of his sweatshirt up and leaned back in the oversized seat. The hood hid most of his face, though a greenish, purple bruise stained the visible part of his cheekbone. Tension pulled his shoulders up to his ears, and I longed to card my fingers through his hair to ease it.
I took the coward’s way out and sent a text, asking if we could talk. Then I panicked and put my phone on airplane mode. From my vantage point a few rows back, I knew he’d barely moved since takeoff. Maybe he was asleep and didn’t see it.
Or maybe he saw it and he doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m the one who ran out.
My insides tied themselves into knots as I sat in painful silence, trying to look anywhere but the back of his head.
Out of nowhere, the plane swooped, taking my stomach with it, and the pilot made an announcement. “We’re going through a bit of turbulence,” she said, “but for your safety, stay in your seats for the next half-hour. We hit a pocket of cold air.”
The large, comfortable seats did nothing to keep me from feeling every bump and wobble of the plane. Each dip had me squeezing the armrests until my knuckles threatened to snap.Breathe. But my breaths came shallow and shaking, not enough to fill my lungs. Ahead, Ash shifted in his seat, maybe adjusting his seatbelt before returning to his slouch. But I remembered how he’d helped calm me each time I lost control in front of him. He’d kind of… compressed. I wrapped my arms around myself, and while it was no replacement for the strength of Ash’s arms, it helped enough to get my breathing under control.
Something in my whirling, terrified mind solidified. Some awful, scared part of me wondered if my attraction to Ash stemmed from some sort of savior/damsel thing, with how well he’d been able to help me.
But I got myselfoutwell enough to breathe through it without going catatonic.
Pushing myself through the mounting anxiety somehow led to a handful of realizations. First, Iwantedto tell Ash about all of it. Alex and our relationship, and the way it’d left me a shell of myself. Second, I wanted to help him work through his shit, too. Whatever caused the fight last night and had him skulking around like a forlorn teenager with his headphones and hoodie. And finally, I realized howrealthis all was for me, and how terrifying. Finding a space for both of us to get everything out in the open became my new priority.
A churning ball formed in my gut, deeper than the nausea from the turbulence.
I needed to tell him how wrong I’d been to push him away. Sifting through our short-lived friendship and subsequent… whatever this was… there was no way the kind, thoughtful Ash Wilder I’d come to know would’ve shut me out.
He’d stepped up to the plate for me more than once, and I needed to do the same for him. Maybe we could work through our issues together. If I gave us the chance, maybe we could be so much more.
I wanted to give that to him; to be the person he needed me to be after he’d come through for me.
Riding out the turbulence left my entire body aching and tense, but I survived without losing myself to terror again, and pride warmed the tips of my fingers as I unfolded from where I curled into myself.
