Page 98 of The Beautiful Collision
I nod, unable to trust my voice.
She did. And in her quiet, fierce, unflinching way, she was holding me up when I didn’t even realize I was falling. She saw through every performance, every joke, every deflection, and instead of running from the mess underneath, she sat down beside it, beside me, and told me she needed me.
And I repaid that gift by being exactly the lying asshole she always feared I was.
“You love her,” Rook says.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, I do.”
“Then fix it,” Schmidt says, practical as always. “Whatever it takes.”
I want to laugh, but it would definitely come out as a sob. Fix it. Like it’s that simple. Like I can just walk up to Maya and say“sorry I made a bet about making you fall in love with me while I was actually falling in love with you” and she’ll just… what?
Forgive me?
Take me back?
Look at me with something apart from the cold disgust I deserve?
“I don’t think it can be fixed,” I admit.
Then the room shifts.
It’s subtle at first—just Rook pushing himself to his feet. Then Mike. Then Cooper, Schmidt, Kellerman, and Martinez. The others. One by one, they close in around me, and before I can process what’s happening, I’m being pulled into the center of twenty-something sweaty hockey players.
It’s a team hug.
A fuckingteam hug.
Arms wrap around me from every direction.
It’s a giant wall of brotherhood that’s somehow decided I’m worth protecting.
My throat closes up completely, because this is what I’ve been denying myself. This is what I thought I didn’t deserve. And when they finally pull back, Mike’s hand stays on my shoulder, his grip firm and grounding. He looks as tough as fucking nails and as soft as a marshmallow all at once.
“You’re back on the ice tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll talk to Coach.”
“Mike, I?—“
“No arguments.” His voice is captain-firm. “Maya might be a lost cause right now, but you’ve still got hockey. You’ve still got us, and we need you.” He looks around at the team, then back at me. “And this team takes care of its own. Always has. Always will. It looked after me. And now it’s your turn.”
And for the first time in my life, I let them.
thirty-six
MAYA
The apartment echoeswith Maine’s absence.
It’s not just the physical space he used to occupy—the couch where he’d sprawl after practice, the kitchen counter where he’d leave his keys in a different spot every damn day just to drive me crazy. It’s also the negative space, a void where his presence should be.
I’ve been sitting here for an hour, maybe two, scrolling through my phone without actually seeing anything. My thumb moves on autopilot while my brain runs the same exhausting loop it’s been stuck in for days, since Sophie visited and stirred up all my thoughts and feelings all over again.
Was that man a liar?
The question won’t leave me alone. It follows me from room to room, sits with me during meals I can barely taste, and whispers at me when I try to sleep in sheets I shared with him. But no matter how much I try, I can’t make the two versions of Maine fit together.
They’re like pieces from different puzzles that someone’s trying to force into the same frame.
