Page 38 of Pucked Up

We didn't speak again.

Not while he poured the cocoa. Not when he handed me a mug.

We sat across from each other at the table, steam curling from our cups. Outside, the snow had picked up again, soft and slow, burying the remnants of our footprints. Covering. Erasing.

I took a sip. It burned, but I didn't pull back.

Across the table, Noah cradled his mug in both hands. His eyes met mine. I held the gaze longer than I meant to.

Eventually, he broke it, setting his mug down with a quiet clink. He stood first, stretching slowly, then crossed to the woodstove to add another log. The flames crackled back to life, casting flickers across the floorboards and the wolf's wooden snout.

I stayed at the table. My bones ached in a familiar way.

He didn't ask if I was coming to bed. He didn't need to.

When I finally moved, I didn't bother to turn off the lights. I followed him down the hallway, the soft creak of floorboards counting each step behind him.

The storm outside had swallowed the world.

But inside, the heat held.

And for tonight, that was enough.

Chapter twelve

Noah

The dinner plates sat empty between us, the remnants of a meal neither of us had tasted. Micah had cooked—some pasta with jarred sauce that he'd doctored with herbs from a dusty cabinet. I'd watched his hands work, those same hands that had touched me with desperate hunger two nights in a row. Now, they meticulously chopped dried basil like it required all his concentration.

Now, he wouldn't look at me. The tension had moved back into his shoulders. It was a protective hunch that kept the world at a calculated distance. Somehow, the physical intimacy we shared triggered his retreat, as if giving in to desire had only reminded him why he usually denied it.

I couldn't bear the silence. It felt too much like erasure—of what we'd shared and what we might still become.

I rose to carry my plate to the sink. "What if you'd hit someone else that night?"

Micah raised his head, and his fork clattered against his plate.

"What?"

"On the ice. What If it had been Anderson or Miller on the boards instead of me? Would you have hit them the same way?"

He looked away, focusing on his water glass as if it held answers. "I've hit a lot of guys. It was my job."

"That's not what I asked." I refused to let him dodge the question, "Would you have looked at them like you looked at me? Would you have hit them the same way?"

Micah's knuckles whitened around his glass. "I might've gotten suspended, but I wouldn't have cared."

It was a powerful confirmation. Hearing him admit that I was different sent a current through me that felt almost like vertigo.

I spoke softly. "So it was me, something about me, specifically."

"You saw something you weren't supposed to."

I challenged him. "In you or myself?"

Micah didn't answer, but his breathing changed—faster and shallower.

I finally broke the silence. "I saw you, too. That's why I'm here instead of somewhere—anywhere—else."

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