Page 6 of Pucked Up

They could replace an AWOL rookie. We were interchangeable puzzle pieces they traded when convenient. I'd learned that lesson when teammates vanished overnight, their lockers emptied without ceremony.

I signed the hospital forms and nodded through the discharge instructions. Asked the nurse to call me a cab instead of the car service the team would have sent.

"Where to?" the driver asked when I slid into the back seat, wincing as my body protested.

I gave him an address—a storage facility where I kept a second car. With the advice of a veteran, I'd bought it in case I ever needed anonymity.

For the next several months, all the way through summer, I lived a blissful life in a small Wisconsin town along the Lake Michigan shore, broken only by my visions of Micah and a deep longing in my gut—for what? I didn't want to analyze it too closely.

My rookie salary supported me while the injuries healed, and I avoided the sports establishment. Without a regular training regimen, my body softened slightly, and I lost weight.

When I skipped out on the beginning of a new season, I stared at Micah's cabin location on my phone. I'd filed it away weeks ago after some reporter mentioned it in a hit piece about his "wilderness exile."

In the endless forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Remote. It was an off-season retreat turned into a full-time hideout.

It would take me a total of around eight hours to drive there, stopping only for gas.

As I set out on my journey, my phone buzzed. My agent. I silenced it, then turned the phone off entirely.

My fingertips tingled as I crossed the Wisconsin border. About three more hours to go to Micah's hideaway on the edge of a private lake.

It was only October, but snow started to fall. It was Michigan's welcome, fat flakes drifting downward until they shattered against the windshield. The highway was nearly empty, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the occasional semi rumbling in the opposite direction.

I rolled down the window, letting the cold air slice into my lungs. It brought bracing moments of clarity. I needed to feel everything and remember why I was on a journey into unknown territory.

At a gas station near the Michigan border, I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pale. Hollowed out. I looked like a ghost chasing after its own killer.

Maybe that's what I was.

The final stretch of road was unpaved. The GPS lost signal twice before I found the turnoff—barely visible through the pines. There were no other houses around. Only wilderness.

I let the car idle a hundred yards from where a cabin sat on the edge of a small lake. Smoke curled from the chimney. It was the only sign of life.

He was there.

I shut off the engine, listening to it tick as it cooled. The silence that followed was absolute. No city noise. No distant highways. Only my breath and the slow build-up of snow on the car.

My hand drifted to my shoulder, fingers pressing against a spot that was still tender months later. It was a souvenir from Micah that might never go away.

"He left a mark on me," I whispered to the empty car.

And not only on the outside.

***

When the cabin door swung open, the first thing that hit me was heat. After hours in a freezing car, it was like walking into a furnace—infused with woodsmoke and something earthy, like resin or sweat. Micah stood aside, his jaw clenched so tight I watched a muscle twitch beneath his stubble.

He hadn't invited me inside. He resigned himself to my refusal to leave.

"Don't touch anything," he growled, shutting the door against the wind.

I set my duffel down, taking in the space he'd carved for himself away from the world. It wasn't what I expected. No empty bottles or scattered clothes. I saw no evidence of a man falling apart.

The cabin was sparsely furnished. A worn leather couch faced a stone fireplace where flames licked at blackened logs. A handmade bookshelf sagged under the weight of paperbacks with broken spines. The kitchen area—if you could call thecorner with a two-burner stove and mini-fridge that—was spotless. A single mug sat upturned on a dish rack.

"Nice place," I announced.

Micah stood with his back against the door, arms crossed, as if ready to physically remove me if necessary. His hair was longer than I remembered, falling across his forehead in dark waves. His eyes tracked my every movement—those same sapphire eyes that locked onto mine before everything went black on the ice.

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