Page 5 of Pucked Up

He had dark hair plastered to his forehead where his helmet had ridden up. There was blood crusted on his cheek—not his, a trophy from an earlier hit. His mouth opened wide in something between a roar and a confession.

His eyes. Christ, his eyes.

Like blue sapphires, focused so completely on me, I could have been a buck in the sights of a rifle. He wasn't targeting the puck. The play either. It was me.

Most frightening was that in that one terrifying, electric second, hesawme. He recognized something in me that I'd spent years burying. I sensed that he'd found precisely what he was looking for.

Then, black.

"Your vitals are good." The nurse's voice dragged me back to the present. "Doctor thinks you might be ready for discharge tomorrow."

I nodded, unable to explain that control of the physical pain didn't mean I'd healed.

What haunted me most was the silence from the predator after I woke up on the rink. Micah skated away after they stretchered me off, disappearing down the tunnel while the crowd thundered with mixed horror and bloodlust.

The league suspended him the next day. It would last for almost an entire season. No hearing. No appeal. Just gone.

It was a response from the suits that telegraphed what happened didn't matter.

Or it may have mattered too much.

When I was alone again in the hospital bed, I reached for my phone. I pulled up the replay for what had to be the thirtieth time. The NHL Network had turned it into a cautionary tale, their analysts clutching invisible pearls as they debated whether the sport had become too violent.

I didn't care about their opinions. I wanted to see his face again.

I slowed the footage and crept through it frame by frame. I froze the replay at the moment before impact.

His eyes. The clench in his jaw. The barely perceptible hesitation—a rejected opportunity to change course.

It wasn't mindless violence. Nobody seemed to understand that. It wasn't some enforcer losing control.

It was deliberate. Personal. Almost an intimate act.

I wondered whether Micah was like that with everyone who crossed his path. Did he focus on every opponent with that burning intensity? The kind that made them feel like they were the only person in a crowded arena.

Something twisted low in my stomach. Heat bloomed across my skin. What would it feel like to provoke him again?

Chills raced through my body. It was a dark sensation that made me touch my bruises when no one was looking.

"Mr. Langley, we strongly recommend at least three more days of observation."

The doc didn't look up from her clipboard as she delivered the news. I stared at the purple ink stains at the tips of her fingers and wondered whether she'd been writing notes all day or if the stains came from a love of drawing with colored pens.

"I have someone taking care of me," I lied. "Family."

"Your scans show—"

"I'll sign whatever you need me to sign."

She pushed her glasses down her nose and looked into my eyes. "We're not only concerned about your physical recovery. Traumatic injuries often come with psychological—"

"I'm fine."

Four hours later, I packed the few belongings my agent had dropped off. Hospital-issue sweatpants hung loose on my hips where I'd already lost weight. My t-shirt draped awkwardly over my new, bulky shoulder brace.

I left the cards untouched on the table along with the wilting flowers some PR intern had probably ordered. I deleted the team group chat thread about my encounter without reading the messages and blocked the team manager's number for good measure.

No one would look for me. Not in any way that mattered.

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