Page 49 of Blindside Me (Cessna U Hockey #3)

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Jade

Warmth fades slowly from the sheets beside me, telling me Drew hasn’t been gone long.

The indent of his body remains, a ghost impression I trace with my fingers as morning light slices through his blinds in thin golden bars.

My body aches in the most delicious ways, reminders etched into muscle memory of how his hands gripped my hips, how his body covered mine, how we finally found our way back to each other after weeks of silence and hurt.

I stretch, wincing slightly at the pleasant soreness between my thighs.

A hint of mint lingers on the sheets, leaving behind faint reminders of him.

I press my face into his pillow, inhaling deeply, shamelessly.

God, I’m such a cliché. One night back in his bed and I’m huffing his pillow like it’s laced with something addictive.

Maybe it is.

The house stands quiet around me. No shower running, no clattering dishes downstairs.

Just the soft hum of the heating system and distant birdsong filtering through the window.

I glance at my phone on the nightstand. Seven thirty-eight A.M. Early for most college students on a Sunday, but not for Drew Klaas, human alarm clock.

I sit up, letting the sheet pool around my waist as I examine the faint bruises blooming on my hips.

Five marks on each side, the exact shape and size of his fingertips.

Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to remember.

My thumb traces over one, and I smile at the flash of memory, Drew above me, eyes locked on mine, and hands gripping my hips as he whispers, “I’ve got you. ”

The truth of those words hits differently now. He does have me. All of me. After the fight, the silence, and the confession through a hockey arena PA system we found our way back.

Last night replays in vivid fragments. The game.

The announcement that made three thousand people turn to stare at me.

Meeting him in the tunnel, his face so vulnerable and open it made my chest ache.

The drive back to his place, fingers intertwined on the center console.

And then here, in this bed, where words became secondary to touch, to reconnection, to proving we still fit together perfectly.

I shake my head, smiling at my own thoughts. Who knew Jade Howell, champion of emotional walls and expert in keeping people at arm’s length, would end up here? Naked in a hockey player’s bed, grinning like an idiot while tracing bruises he left during sex that meant something.

My mother would call me an idiot. My roommate would high-five me. My uncle—oh God, my uncle. Coach Howell’s face when that announcement played will be seared in my memory forever, a shade of red previously undiscovered by science.

I pull the sheet up to my shoulders, suddenly self-conscious despite being alone, and take in Drew’s room properly for the first time. Last night I was too distracted by his hands, his mouth, his words to really look.

Everything about this space is Drew. It’s neat, ordered, and purposeful.

No clutter. No excess. His hockey sticks lean in the corner, organized by length.

Textbooks stacked on his desk by size, not a single paper out of place.

A small trophy sits on his shelf, but it’s turned so the nameplate faces the wall.

Typical Drew, accomplishment without showcasing it.

His hoodie drapes over his desk chair, the only thing not perfectly placed, probably discarded in our rush to touch skin. This small evidence that even Drew Klaas can be messy when properly motivated makes me smile.

I drop my gaze to the nightstand, and my breath catches.

Carefully placed on top is my sketch, the one of his backside on the ice.

It’s not hidden in a drawer or tucked away in a book.

It’s right there, where he’d see it first thing every morning and last thing before sleep.

The intimacy of that strikes harder than any words could.

His skates rest on a mat beneath the window, neatly aligned. Not the destroyed ones I found in the trash. No, these are the newer ones, barely broken in. His compromise, I guess. The old couldn’t be salvaged, but he couldn’t let go of having skates nearby, even in his bedroom.

Movement catches my eye and pulls me to the steam rising from a mug on his dresser. I hadn’t noticed it before. Coffee, still hot enough to send tendrils of vapor into the morning air. Next to it, a bright yellow sticky note.

I slide out of bed, wrapping the sheet around me like a makeshift toga, and pad across the cold hardwood to investigate. The coffee is exactly how I like it. The sticky note makes something flutter behind my ribs: Be right back. Don’t move.

Five words in his tight, precise handwriting. An instruction, because Drew communicates in expectations and plans, but also a request. Stay. Wait for me. I’m coming back.

The simplicity of it makes my chest tighten. Not poetic declarations or elaborate promises. Just Drew, saying exactly what he means. Making sure I know he’s not running. Making coffee exactly how I like it before I even open my eyes.

I lift the mug to my lips, the warmth spreading through me as I take a sip. Perfect temperature. Not scalding, not lukewarm. Because of course Drew Klaas would factor in the exact time it would take me to wake up, notice the coffee, and reach for it.

I turn back toward the bed, mug cradled between my palms, and smile into my coffee. Drew Klaas might still be learning how to love out loud, but damn if he isn’t already fluent in showing up when it counts.

A folded piece of paper peeks out from beneath a book on the nightstand.

I hesitate. Drew is meticulous about his space, everything in its place and nothing accidental.

He left this here deliberately, though he hadn’t expected me to come here last night.

The temptation to look wars with respect for his privacy, but curiosity wins.

I carefully extract the paper, unfolding it while balancing my coffee in my other hand.

The paper is standard college-ruled, torn neatly from a notebook.

At the top, in Drew’s precise handwriting: “How to Show Up (and Stay)—For Jade.” My breath catches.

This isn’t a random note or homework assignment.

It’s a list. A fucking list. Because of course Drew Klaas would make a checklist for how to love someone.

I can’t decide if I should laugh or cry.

The sheet is meticulously organized, naturally. Items numbered, spaced evenly, each with a small empty box beside it. Several boxes contain check marks, precise and dark, like they were drawn with a ruler. I can almost picture him sitting at his desk, measuring each line, ensuring perfect symmetry.

My eyes scan the checked items:

Talk to Coach Howell (even if he kills me)

Tell her the truth about everything: Dad, Jake, fears

Take her skating at Ridgeview (no pressure, just us)

Make her laugh (real laugh, not a polite one)

Tell her I love her (where people can hear it – no hiding)

Show up even when it’s hard (or terrifying)

Learn her coffee order (2 sugars, not 1)

I sink onto the edge of his bed, sheet still wrapped around me, as each checked item connects to a memory.

Drew appearing at my dorm door, vulnerability raw on his face as he told me everything about his father, his brother, and his fears.

Drew at Ridgeview, holding my hand as we skated lazy circles on empty ice.

Drew’s voice through the arena speakers, declaring feelings in front of scouts, teammates, and my uncle.

All moments when he pushed past his tightly maintained control to reach for something messier, something real. Moments when he chose to show up instead of run.

My thumb traces over the check marks, feeling the indentation in the paper. These aren’t casual scratches; they’re deliberate. Achievements he’s proud of. Tasks completed on the journey to ... what? To me? To us? To being someone who stays?

Below the checked items are two without marks:

? Let her paint/draw me (properly, not just sketches)

? Fix my skates (or learn to embrace the new ones)

The skates. I think of the broken ones I found, the physical manifestation of his self-destruction. Of course fixing them would be on his list. They represent everything he thought was broken in himself.

And painting him? We’d talked about it once, late at night, my head on his chest. “I want to really capture you,” I’d said.

“Not just quick sketches. A real portrait.” He’d tensed, muttered something about being too busy with training.

I didn’t push. Now I understand what that request represented to him.

He would be vulnerable, while being seen completely, and letting someone else control the narrative.

The most surprising part comes at the bottom, written smaller, almost like an afterthought or a secret:

Bonus: Let her love me. Fully. No finish line. Just forward. (In progress.)

My vision blurs, tears welling before I can stop them.

This isn’t the Drew who carefully monitors his protein intake and schedules his life in fifteen-minute increments.

This is stripped bare, honest Drew. The one who trembled the first time he told me he loved me, who kissed me like I might break even as his hands held me like I was the only solid thing in his world.

A tear splashes onto the page before I can stop it, smudging the ink of the unchecked boxes.

I swipe at my eyes quickly, not wanting to damage his meticulous work.

This list is so perfectly, painfully Drew.

Who else would approach emotions with the same discipline as approaching hockey?

Creating tangible steps toward intangible goals.

Breaking down the terrifying expanse of love into manageable tasks.