The red creeping up his neck is one of my favorite things.
“Stop. Making everything weird and sexual.”
“I’m not making anything—, you’re the one that brought me into a bedroom. If anything you’re giving me mixed signals.”
“I needed somewhere quiet—”
“No role playing though, right? Just to set expectations. I’m more of a—”
“Oh my god.” He turns away from me, shoulders tight, and I can hear him actively choosing not to say something he’d regret. I wish he would. I like ragey Jamie more than composed Captain Jamie. Feels like something more tangible, like I actually get a glimpse of the real him for one moment. When he turns back his expression has been forced into something controlled and neutral. Barely.
“Are you done?”
“As you were,” I say graciously, with a small bow.
He stares at me for a long moment. Something in his eyes that isn’t quite anger — something more complicated than that, something I don’t have a name for yet. Something he saves just for me.
“Fine,” he says finally. “Tomorrow. Six AM. Don’t be late. I mean it. Coach asked for us to work together. We should both give it a real try. For the team.”
He moves toward the door and I stand up, stepping into his path enough that he has to angle past me. His shoulder almost grazes mine as he moves past. Warmth radiates off him and I feel it before any actual contact. His arm brushes mine — sleeve against sleeve, barely anything — and I catch the hitch in his breath. The slight break in his stride.
He doesn't quite look at me. But his pulse. Right there at his wrist where it passes close to my hand. Quick and hard and completely at odds with the measured way he's holding the rest of himself together. I smile at him again, cruelly this time.He’s just too easy of a mark.
“Listen. I’m flattered. But I’m really just not interested in you like that.”
He yanks the door open, flooding the room with noise again. I follow him out into the party, spread my arms wide, and let the night swallow me back up.
“Let’s go boys!”
The cheer that answers me is immediate and loud and exactly what I needed.
Chapter 7
Rhys
I’m only six minutes late, which honestly feels like a personal record considering how shitfaced I got last night. Somehow managed to drag myself back home and not throw up. But I have a tremendous hangover and feel like it’s about to get a whole lot worse. I come down the tunnel still pulling my gloves on, expecting to find Jamie pacing at the boards with a stopwatch and a disappointed, pained expression. I’m already bracing for him to spend an hour bitching at me about form and teamwork and blah blah blah.
Instead, I stop walking entirely.
He’s alone at center ice, not looking at me, not even looking at the tunnel. He’s not doing anything dramatic — just moving through what looks like a simple puck handling drill, slow and methodical, like he’s been here long enough to already be somewhere else in his head. The rink is almost silent except for the scrape of his blades, the crack of the puck, and the sound of my breathing as I track him across the ice. Soft, steady, completely focused on Jamie.
I’ve seen Jamie on the ice a hundred times by now. In practice, in games, in the middle of shouting matches where we’re close enough to share air but have never felt more far apart. I know exactly how he moves out here.
I’ve never seen him like this, though.
There’s nobody to perform for. No team watching, no coach taking notes. It’s just him and the ice and I’m starting tounderstand that this really is the thing he loves more than anything else in the world. The thing he carries all the time — the constant wound up quality of him, like every muscle is stiff, waiting for something to go wrong — he puts it down here. His shoulders sit lower. His stride covers more ice. The way he handles the puck is unhurried. Almost gentle. Like being out here alone — outside the game, outside the pressure — he can finally breathe.
The fluorescent lights reflect back in the green of his eyes and catch the shine of his blond hair whenever he turns. I watch him from the boards for far longer than I should.
“You just gonna stand there watching me?”
He still doesn’t look at me. Just redirects the puck smoothly off his backhand. I step onto the ice. The cold hits the back of my throat and I skate towards him and try to think of something to say that doesn’t reveal I was doing exactly that.
“I’m six minutes late,” I say. “That’s basically early for me, you should be proud.”
“It’s not early and you stood there for an extra ten.” He skates over finally, and his expression is the usual — composed, controlled, giving nothing away. Captain face. I’m starting to be able to tell the difference between that and whatever else lives underneath it. His eyes do a quick check over my entire body, focused on my gear—fast and assessing.
“Shoulder warm?”
