Page 128 of Off-Limits as Puck

“Yeah?”

“I don’t need your forgiveness as much as you need to stop seeking my approval, still trying to earn my respect. You’ve already had it all this time. You’re a grown woman who knows her own mind.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

“Growing up isn’t about feeling certain. It’s about making choices anyway.”

After we hang up, I sit in the growing darkness of my apartment, processing words I never expected to hear from Chris Clark. An apology. Acknowledgment. Permission to stop performing for an audience that was never as critical as I imagined.

My phone buzzes. Text from Frank next door.

Frank:Saw the moving truck reservation. So it’s really happening?

Me:It’s really happening.

Frank:Good for you. Life’s too short to play it safe.

Me:Easy for you to say. You’re not the one jumping off cliffs.

Frank:Kid, I’ve been jumping off cliffs for seventy-two years. Want to know the secret?

Me:What’s the secret?

Frank:The cliff is usually smaller than it looks from the top.

I look around at my boxes, so happy that I made this decision. For once in my life, this choice seems like the right one, and I cannot wait.

47

Keeping secrets from someone who reads people for a living requires the kind of acting skills they don’t teach in media training.

“The paperwork’s finalized,” Jerry says through my phone, sounding like he’s aged five years in the past month. “Seattle announced the trade this morning. You’re officially a Icehawks.”

I’m standing in my empty Boston apartment, surrounded by boxes and the ghost of a life I’m leaving behind. The walls look strange bare—no photos, no personality, just the sterile bones of corporate housing that never felt like home anyway.

“Good. Did you coordinate with their media team about the announcement timeline?”

“All handled. Press conference is scheduled for next week, after you’ve had time to settle in.” He pauses. “You sure about this, Nic? Boston was willing to match Seattle’s offer. Hell, they were willing to exceed it.”

“This isn’t about money.”

“I know. That’s what worries me.”

“Jerry—”

“I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m saying it’s the kind of decision that either works out perfectly or destroys everything. No middle ground.”

He’s right. But Chelsea and I have never done middle ground well. We’re either crashing into each other or running away—might as well crash toward something instead of away from it. Moving across the country for a woman may not be a good call from a third person perspective, but it feels like every kind of right to me.

After I hang up, I finish packing the last of my things into the rental truck. My life reduced to boxes that fit in a sixteen-footer. Hockey gear, clothes, the few pieces of furniture worth keeping. Evidence of a life lived mostly in transit, always ready to move when the next trade or opportunity demands it.

But this move feels different. Intentional instead of obligatory. Like I’m moving toward something instead of just away from something else.

The drive from Boston to Seattle takes four days, three stops, and approximately seventeen panic attacks disguised as coffee breaks. By the time I reach the city limits, I’m exhausted, caffeinated beyond human limits, and absolutely certain I’ve made either the best or worst decision of my life.

Seattle in December is exactly what you’d expect. It’s gray, drizzly, the kind of weather that makes you understand why everyone here drinks coffee like it’s a survival mechanism. I navigate through neighborhoods I don’t know yet, following GPS directions to an apartment I’ve never seen in a city I’ve never lived in.

My temporary housing is downtown, walking distance from the practice facility. Furnished corporate housing that looks exactly like the place I just left in Boston. Same beige walls, same generic art, same feeling of existing in a space designed for transition rather than living.

---