Page 37 of Player Misconduct
I used to think it meant I belonged to someone–proof I mattered when half the time my mother was too high to remember she had a daughter, let alone my full name. After the divorce I learned he called the cheerleader R. The Instagram model was L. Initials are easier than names when you're juggling lies.
I've been here before. The love-bombing. The promises. The absolute certainty that this time is different, until it isn't. Until I'm the one left trying to explain to the mortgage company that he got the house in the divorce and that they should be contacting him regarding foreclosure proceedings. Only, neitherhim, nor his lawyer completed the paperwork so both of our names were still on the hook.
Even if Aleksi seems different, and he does, how can I trust my own judgment? My track record with men is a highlight reel of catastrophically bad calls. All players, who knew how to play the game.
And it’s not just my heart at stake this time.
Our careers are on the line. The medical board’s fraternization rules are clear, and the NHL will act. If anyone finds out what happened in this room, I could lose my license. Aleksi could be suspended, traded—derailed right when he’s finally living the dream. The Hawkeyes could lose their shot at the Cup and not be allowed to take part in the next draft.
The playoffs are happening. His team needs him.
I need to protect him. Even if he doesn’t like how I do it.
Even if it means putting space between us now, clearly and quickly, so there’s no confusion about what last night was… and wasn’t.
I extract myself from under his arm, moving like a ghost. He mumbles something in Finnish, rolls onto his back, but doesn’t wake.
I dress in yesterday’s clothes. Pack my toiletries. Zip my bag.
Every small sound feels like theft.
My hand finds the door handle, then pauses.
One more look. Just one.
He’s sprawled across the bed, gloriously naked, the sheet tangled at his hips. One arm is stretched into the space where I’d been sleeping, like his body is still reaching for me. His face is unguarded in sleep, that perpetual grin softened into something young and raw.
The space under his arm is still warm where I fit.
My chest squeezes.
This is what life keeps asking me to give up: the quiet after. The safe place. The feeling of being wanted for exactly who I am.
But wanting isn’t enough. It never has been.
I grab a hotel notepad from the nightstand and write,“I promise this is the right thing to do. See you in Seattle. —K.”I slide the note under his phone, where he’ll see it first.
I lean down, careful, and press my lips to the corner of his mouth—the same spot I kissed a dozen times last night.
“I’m sorry I’m not braver,” I whisper, pushing a few strands of his blond hair out of his face. “Please don’t hate me.”
I straighten, grip my luggage handle until the plastic creaks and then my eyes catch on the ring. The athletic tape circled around my finger with Aleksi’s pen folk art engraving. I glance at his left hand on the bed, still wearing his too. I know I should pull it off, leave it with him, distance myself from everything that happened yesterday, but I’m too selfish to let go of this. I just need to be able to keep one thing. Something to remember that happened… we happened.
One last look at the six-foot-three giant sleeping like a fallen statue.
I don’t want to leave, but I have to. It would be too easy for him to convince me to stay.
So I slip out the door as quietly as I can. Like a coward who doesn’t have the strength to fight him face to face. He has to know, I’m doing this for his career too.
The click of it closing behind me sounds final.
The desert morning is pink and cold, the sky painted in thin strokes of apricot and lavender over the courtyard of CDC agents, none of whom are in hazmat suits anymore, meaning that whatever tests they got back means we’re cleared. I square my shoulders, turn toward the nurses’ station at the end of the hall, and start walking—away from the warm, impossible room, and toward whatever it takes to keep both of our careers safe.
And maybe my heart too.
Chapter Seven
Aleksi
