Page 50 of Pucked Up

"Now, I'm not sure what I feel."

"Looks like freedom to me," I observed quietly. "No coaches, crowds, or expectations."

"No future either," he added. It was a direct statement without any hints of bitterness.

"Maybe that's the point. It's our moment with only the ice."

He considered my comment, head tilting slightly. He rubbed his right shoulder.

"Is that bothering you?" I finally asked about what I'd seen all morning.

"Always does. Worse in the cold."

I sat up fully, brushing snow from my hair. Our faces were level, close enough that I saw the varied shades of blue in his irises.

"Thank you for bringing me here."

He glanced away, uncomfortable with my gratitude. "I needed to move and was tired of being cooped up."

We both knew it was more than that. The frozen lake was a sanctuary—perhaps the only place where Micah still connected with uncomplicated joy. He'd chosen to share it with me.

I made no move to stand, and neither did he. We forgot about the game. What remained was the unexpected peace of sitting together on a frozen lake, watching snowflakes dance around us like nature's confetti.

"Fall again," Micah said suddenly.

"What?"

"You said you forgot how fun it was. Fall again… for me."

Understanding dawned on me, and I smiled. Without hesitation, I flung myself backward, arms spread wide, executing a dramatic snow angel across the ice. The cold bit through my jacket, but I embraced it, laughing as I swept my limbs back and forth.

From my prone position, I watched something remarkable happen—Micah's face transformed. The perpetual guardedness melted away, replaced by an expression I'd never seen before. It was nearly a broad smile.

After a moment's consideration, he lowered himself beside me. His larger frame made a deeper impression in the thin layer of snow covering the ice.

We lay there side by side, not touching but aligned, parallel lines against the vast whiteness. It was trust in its purest form. I had fallen, and Micah hadn't broken me. Instead, he'd made me laugh. And now, in his own way, he was falling, too.

Looking up at the endless expanse of winter sky, I realized that perhaps this was what healing looked like. It wasn't dramatic declarations or grand gestures. It was small, brave moments of letting go—two bodies making angels in the snow and finding freedom in the fall.

I spoke softly. "We should do this more often."

Micah's answer was barely audible. "Yeah. We should."

But, as we lay there, I couldn't shake the feeling that we might be building something on unstable ice. The league hearings were still coming. My team was still waiting. And whatever peace we'd found here was temporary—a beautiful, fragile thing that the real world would eventually shatter.

Chapter fifteen

Micah

Noah laughed like the cold had knocked something loose inside him. We stomped our way inside the cabin, covered in snowmelt, our boots kicking slush onto the mat.

I watched Noah shrug out of his coat, shoulders flexing beneath the borrowed flannel. His hair was damp at the ends, sticking up in chaotic tufts like he'd just been in a fight, and his cheeks were red from the wind. He looked alive in a way that made my pulse race.

He laughed again, quieter this time, half to himself. The sound burrowed its way under my ribs, sharp and unexpected.

"Fuck, that lake." Noah dragged fingers through his hair. "You really don't remember how much your ankles hate you until you're ten minutes in."

I nodded, throat dry. I couldn't speak yet.

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