Page 54 of The Assist
He exhales through his nose, like he wants to believe me but doesn’t know how.
I nudge his knee with mine. “Also, if you let that head noise ruin your game, I’ll personally chase your dad down and slap him with a frozen skate.”
That pulls a laugh out of him. A real one. Low and rough and surprised. “Jesus, Clarke.”
“What? I’m small but scrappy.”
He turns his head slowly, looking at me with that unreadable expression again. “I don’t know what this is,” he says softly. “You and me. But I know it’s the only thing that shuts the rest of the noise off.”
My chest tightens. I want to say something. I want to tell him he does that for me, too. That in the middle of all the chaos with my dad, the job, the lines I keep drawing and redrawing, he’s the one thing I want to hold onto.
But the team’s being called to warm up.
He stands, offering me a hand without thinking, and I take it. Just for a second. Just long enough for the heat to surge between us again.
“I’ll see you after,” he says, voice lower now, steadier.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“No promises.”
He smirks again, but this time, it’s tempered by something rawer underneath. A vulnerability I don’t think he shows anyone else. I watch him skate onto the ice, and as the gate shuts behind him, I press my fingers to my lips.
We’re not okay.
But for once, maybe we don’t have to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DYLAN
The post-game buzz is a familiar hum of low voices, mixed with the hiss of steam from the showers, along with the scrape of skates being unbuckled and tossed aside. But it barely cuts through the noise in my head.
We won. I should feel something. Relief, maybe. The crowd was loud, the boys were fired up, and we ground out a result that took grit and effort. The kind of win we’re proud of.
But it’s all white noise.
I sit at my stall, tape dangling from one hand, half-peeled off my wrist. My fingers are still curled around it like I’ve forgotten what I was doing.
I can feel Jonno watching me from across the room. Mia’s nowhere to be seen, she was talking to one of the rookies when I came off the ice, her hands were on his shoulder, probably checking range of motion or whatever. I didn’t hear what she was saying. Just the sound of her voice.
She hasn’t been mine at all. Not even close.
And that’s the problem.
I scrub a hand over my face, dragging my palm down until it rests on my mouth. My lips still remember the feel ofher skin under them. That almost-kiss on the massage table. That breathless moment outside the hotel. The electricity of her hand brushing mine. It’s like her fingerprints are burned into my fucking bloodstream. I don’t know how to turn it off. But I also don’t know how to be what she needs.
“You still breathing, Winters?”
Murphy drops down onto the bench beside me, towel slung over his shoulder, hair wet. He bumps my knee with his.
“Unfortunately,” I mutter.
“You play like that every time you’re in a bad mood, I’ll start pissing you off on purpose. Jesus. You were brutal tonight.”
I shrug. “Just focused.”
“Yeah, okay,” he scoffs. “Focused. That why you nearly broke that guy’s ribs with that hit? Or because your face went blank when Clarke touched your arm during the second period?”
