Page 70 of Make the Play

I run a hand down my face and scrub at the back of my neck hoping that’ll ease the ache building behind my ribs. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath since she kissed me at that damnwedding. Since I felt the exact moment it turned real when I slid inside her, mapped her skin with my hands and my teeth and my mouth.

I should go to bed. Sleep it off. Chalk it up to adrenaline and whiskey and wishful thinking. But I already know what’s waiting for me in the dark—memories, silence, that damn lake.

I used to chase the noise. The bars, afterparties, girls I’d never call again. Anything to keep from sitting in the stillness too long. Drown the static in noise and neon and cheap tequila.

But I’m dating Zoe now, even if it’s fake. And that means something. It meanseverything. Enough to keep me grounded when every instinct wants me to run. Enough to make sure I don’t reach for cheap distractions I haven’t even wanted since the night she crawled into my lap and undid me with one kiss.

And if I’m being honest, I haven’tlookedat another woman since our one-night stand. Not really. There’ve been opportunities. Invitations. But all I see is her.

The sharp tilt of her smile. The way her voice drops when she’s about to say something she shouldn’t. The chaos and clarity she leaves in her wake.

So instead, I head for my home gym because I need to move. I need to sweat it out, burn through the tension coiled beneath my skin like a live wire. Because if I stay still too long, my mind drifts.

Better to fight my own body than my own head.

It’s a stupidly nice and fully stocked gym, because what else am I gonna do at two a.m. when I can’t sleep? Hockey keeps me moving, the team keeps me moving.

Zoe keeps me moving.

That’s why I was drawn to her in the first place. Because she never let me get away with anything. Because she’s so fuckingbright, I don’t have to think about anything else when I’m near her. I can let my brain shut the hell up for once and just breathein the effervescence she doesn’t even notice she’s casting around her.

I’d toss out something cocky her way, and she’d roast me without even blinking. It was perfect. She kept me busy, kept me laughing. Kept me from drowning in it.

For years, it’s been enough. That push-pull, the tension, the banter so sharp it could draw blood. It was exactly the kind of connection we both thrived on.

Until we decided toget it out of our systems,and in the process, she ended up so deep in my system, I’ve got no shot of getting her out. And the worst part is, I don’t even want to.

I drop into a push-up, grinding my palms into the mat like I can burn the thought out of my body. Then another. And another. My arms shake, sweat stings my eyes, and my breath saws in and out of my lungs. But even now, straining and trembling with muscles on fire, I can still taste her on my mouth.

I tell myself it was just one kiss. One night, one headline. But the second I stop moving, I know it’s a lie. I could lose every game, take every hit this season, and none of it would wreck me like the thought of losing her.

Which is fucked, because she’s never been mine. Not really, not like that. And yet I’d take her any way I can get her. As a friend. A colleague. Her favorite target. Anything that gives me a reason to orbit her world a little longer.

I drop into another set, grinding it out as my arms burn and my chest aches in ways that have nothing to do with muscle. It’s not the pain that gets me, it’s the quiet. The way it unfurls after the noise fades, curling around my ribs. Nothing left but me and a brain that won’t shut the fuck up.

That’s when it creeps in.

The lake. The snap of ice beneath my feet. The scream Jordan let out when I slipped through the surface.

He didn’t hesitate. Just jumped in with strong arms, fast reflexes. He lifted me up first, but he couldn’t get himself up.

I ran for help barefoot. Half-frozen, blood dripping from my heel, lungs ripped raw and screaming for someone todo something.

They got him out eventually, but I hadn’t run fast enough.

Hypothermia. Frostbite. A couple of toes gone. And with them, every hockey dream he’d ever had.

He was fifteen. I was ten.

And even though no one ever said the words out loud, I’ve spent every year since knowing the truth. It should’ve been me. I was the one who fell through, he was the one who paid for it.

My mistake, his cost.

That’s why I never answer their calls. Why I didn’t tell them about the sex tape. Why I can’t look my mom in the eye when she video calls on my birthday.

Because no matter how many games I win, how many goals I score, how many headlines I make, I’m still just the kid who ruined everything for his big brother.

And Zoe’s the only thing that’s ever made the noise stop.

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