Because I didn’t want Odin Clark. I wanted my coach, who’d rejected me five days ago and was never going to see me as anything other than a player to train. I wanted the impossible thing instead of the available thing, which seemed to be a pattern I was determined to repeat until it killed me.
“That’s really nice of you to offer,” I said carefully. “But I’m pretty focused on hockey right now. Playoffs, recovery, getting back on the ice. I don’t have a lot of bandwidth for social stuff.”
Something flickered across his face—disappointment, maybe. It was gone too fast for me to read. “Of course. I understand. The offer stands, though, if you change your mind.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“And if you ever need anything, I’m right across the hall. Tools, advice, whatever you need—I’m happy to help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He smiled again, that easy warmth that probably worked on most people, and stepped back into his apartment. “Have a good night, Dante. See you around.”
“Yeah. You too.”
I made it into my apartment and closed the door before letting out the breath I’d been holding. Leaned against it for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to process what had just happened.
Odin Clark was living across the hall from me. Odin Clark had just asked me out. Odin Clark was going to be a permanent fixture in my building, in my space, probably running into me in the hallway on a regular basis.
And I’d turned him down because I was still hung up on a man who’d made it crystal clear that nothing was going to happen between us.
I pushed off the door and headed for the bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I went. The shower was hot enough to hurt, and I stood under it longer than necessary, letting the water beat against my shoulders and trying not to think about tomorrow morning.
Seven AM. One-on-one training with Kincaid. Just the two of us on the ice, working on my shot, my confidence, all the things that had gotten broken over the last year. It was professional. It was what I needed to get back to playing at the level I was capable of. It was absolutely not going to be complicated by the fact that I’d tried to kiss him and he’d rejected me.
I was going to be normal about this. Professional. I was going to show up, work hard, take his coaching, and not make it weird. That was the plan.
I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, catching sight of myself in the mirror. The bruise on my face wasn’t fading fast enough. The one on my ribs was still dark purple, sprawling across my left side like someone had taken a paintbrush to my skin. I looked like I’d been in a fight.
I had been in a fight. Multiple fights, actually. And I’d survived all of them.
I’d been twelve, maybe thirteen. Still in middle school, before hockey had become the thing that defined me. There was this kid, Braxton something, who’d decided I was an easy target because I was Italian and from Bridgeport and my last name was Russo.
He’d started with the usual shit. Calling me Tony Soprano in the hallways. Making jokes about the mafia. I’d ignored it, mostly, because my ma had taught me that people who needed to put others down weren’t worth my time.
But then he’d said something about my mom. Something crude, something that implied she spread her legs for a mafia boss. And I’d stopped ignoring it.
I remembered the way my vision had gone red. The way my hands had curled into fists before I’d consciously decided to do anything. Rage that came from someone insulting the person who mattered most in the world to you.
I’d hit him. Right there in the hallway between third and fourth period, in front of everyone. Caught him across the jaw with enough force that he’d stumbled backward into a locker.
He’d been bigger than me. Older by a year, heavier by thirty pounds. But I’d been faster, and I’d been angrier, and I hadn’t stopped until two teachers had pulled me off him.
I’d gotten suspended for three days. My ma had picked me up from school with that expression on her face that meant she was disappointed but also secretly proud. We’d sat in the car for ten minutes while she’d tried to figure out what to say.
I’d sat there in the passenger seat, my knuckles raw and swelling, feeling a mixture of righteousness and shame that came from knowing you’d done something your mother disapproved of but couldn’t quite regret.
“You’re so like your dad,” she’d said finally, and there was something almost amused in her voice. “He got in three fights in high school defending me from boys who thought Italian girls were easy. Broke someone’s nose. Got suspended twice.” She’d reached over and taken my hand, careful of my knuckles. “But remember your hockey. One day you’ll be a star player, and that boy will still be in the gutter. And when I got home my mother had ignored my dad and my brothers being not so secretly pleased.
But Braxton wasn’t in the gutter. He was dead. He’d pissed off the wrong person at seventeen, and it hadn’t been answered with fists, it had been answered with a knife.
I could survive training with Kincaid. I could survive living across the hall from a man who was interested in me when I wasn’t interested back. I could survive whatever the playoffs threw at us next.
I just had to keep my head down, do my job, and stop wanting things I couldn’t have.
The problem was, I’d never been particularly good at that last part.
I woke up at five the next morning, thirty minutes before my alarm, because apparently my brain had decided sleep was optional when I had anxiety to process. I lay there in the dark for fifteen minutes, trying to convince myself to go back to sleep, before giving up and rolling out of bed.
