She stills and looks at me over her shoulder.
“Stay,” I say again, quieter. “Please.”
Something shifts in her expression. Something warm and dangerous. “Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll stay.”
She settles back against me, and I let myselfhave this. Just for tonight. Just for a few hours. I curl my arm around her waist, my palm flat against her stomach. I let my nose brush her hair, breathing in that citrus scent. I let myself pretend this is real—that she’s mine, that this is my life, that I’m the kind of man who gets to hold a woman like this and keep her.
The conversation flows around us: laughter, stories, and the clink of glasses. I contribute nothing, but for once, I don’t feel like an outsider. I feel like part of something. Part of a team. Part of a couple.
Part of her.
Winnie’s hand finds mine again under the table. She interlaces our fingers and squeezes.
I squeeze back.
And for one perfect, dangerous moment, I let myself believe it could be real.
Chapter Fourteen
New Territory
Banks
The apartment is quiet when I get home.
It’s always quiet. That’s the point. I chose this place specifically for its silence—top floor, corner unit, no shared walls. The kind of space where you can go days without hearing another human voice.
Usually, I like the quiet. Tonight, it feels oppressive.
I toss my keys on the counter and stand in the middle of my living room, unsure of what to do with myself. The TV is off, the lights are dim, and everything is exactly where I left it this morning because no one else has been here. No one else is ever here.
My lip throbs. I press my tongue against the split, tasting copper and the faint chemical tang of the butterfly bandages. It’ll heal in a few days. It always does. My knuckles ache beneath the tape, but that will fade too.
Physical pain I know how to handle. It’s simple. Predictable. You get hit, it hurts, it stops hurting.Cause and effect.
What I don’t know how to handle is the ghost of her fingers on my jaw, rubbing over my stubble like she enjoyed the scratchy feel of it against her palm.
I sink onto the couch, tip my head back against the cushion and close my eyes.
She touched me.
Not the incidental contact of bodies colliding on the ice. She reached up—deliberately, gently—and pressed her fingertips to my face like I was something fragile. Something worth being careful with.
Does it hurt?
Her voice echoes in my head. Soft. Concerned. Like she actually cared about the answer.
Not anymore.
I lied. It did hurt before she touched me. After, it ached in a completely different way.
I can’t remember the last time someone touched me like that. Hockey is all impact—hits, checks, fights, the occasional bone-crushing hug after a goal. There’s nothing gentle about it. Nothing soft. You learn to brace for contact, to absorb it, to give as good as you get.
But her fingers on my jaw were none of those things. They were careful. Tentative. Like she was afraid of hurting me, even though I’m twice her size and built to take punishment.
Like I was something worth being careful with.
When’s the last time anyone thought that about me?
