Page 51 of Blindside Me (Cessna U Hockey #3)
Jade
SUMMER AFTER GRADUATION
Sunlight pours in through our tiny apartment windows and lands on the kitchen table where my laptop sits open, mocking me.
It’s been, what? Twenty minutes since I’ve been staring at the same paragraph.
Editing, deleting, typing, and deleting again.
Nothing I write sounds good. How do you even put something as messy as falling for Drew Klaas into words that don’t sound like a bad romance movie?
The coffee in my “Kiss the Player, Not the Game” mug is cold, but I drink it anyway. Caffeine over comfort. Always.
The email draft in front of me glows on the screen.
“Blindside Me: A Love Story That Was Never Meant To Be (Until It Was).” That’s the subject line.
It stares at me, daring me to hit send. Six months ago, I would’ve laughed at the idea of submitting something this personal to an agent.
Now I’m hovering over the send button, as if it’s a grenade.
From the kitchen, Drew’s humming. Something low, probably a pump-up song from his junior league practices.
He’s shirtless at the counter, back muscles flexing as he grabs his protein shake.
Fresh from morning practice with his new team, hair still damp, skin shining in places he missed with the towel.
Even after all this time, seeing him like this—an ambitious college athlete turned amateur league, totally unguarded—makes my chest squeeze tight.
Pride, and something softer. He’s on track to achieve his professional league goals.
Our space. Still feels weird to call it that, even though we’ve lived together for three months. My sketch of his busted skates hangs above the dining table. His idea, not mine. “Reminder of rock bottom,” he said, holding up the frame. “And who pulled me out?”
I scroll through my draft. I’ve rewritten this part seven times:
Love wasn’t supposed to be my thing. Not after watching my mom chase it into oblivion. Not after my uncle chose distance over difficulty. And certainly not after being cheated on by a manipulator.
I built walls to code, reinforced with steel beams of self-protection and a security system that went off at the slightest touch.
Then this perfectionist hockey player threw a punch that shattered more than just some asshole’s nose.
It cracked everything I thought I understood about myself, him, and us.
Too dramatic? Not dramatic enough? My agent wants “raw authenticity,” but where’s the line between honest and oversharing? I delete three words, add five, and delete them again.
“You’re making that face,” Drew says, suddenly right behind me. His voice rumbles from somewhere above my head.
I don’t look up. “What face?”
“The one where your eyebrows get all scrunchy and you bite the inside of your cheek. The ‘I hate everything I’ve ever written’ face.”
I glance up. He’s leaning in the doorway, protein shake in hand, smirking at me with that half-smile that still makes my stomach flip. The scar on his eyebrow, a souvenir from a high stick during the championship game, catches the light when he raises it.
“I do not have a face for that,” I say, but my fingers go straight to my cheek. Busted.
Drew pushes off the doorframe and comes over, bare feet silent on the wood. He bends to read over my shoulder, and I want to slam the laptop shut. Six months of sharing a bed, three months of sharing an address, and I still feel naked when he reads my writing.
“‘Hockey’s poster boy with a bloody knuckle complex,’” he reads, grinning. “That’s me?”
“If the broken skate fits,” I say, trying to sound casual, even though my neck is burning where his breath hits it.
His thumb traces my shoulder blade through my T-shirt. “Poster boy, huh? Generous.”
“Would you prefer ‘emotionally constipated perfectionist with anger management issues’? Because that was draft one.”
He laughs, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my back. “Not wrong.”
I scroll further down, to the part I’m not sure about:
There’s something sickeningly poetic about falling for someone who makes lists to ensure he loves you properly.
Who checks off ‘emotional vulnerability’ between ‘leg day’ and ‘protein intake.’ Who measures his progress in tangible evidence: fixed skates, paint-stained fingers, the way he stopped flinching when I say, ‘I need you’ instead of ‘I want you.’
Drew’s hand goes still on my shoulder. I’ve hit a nerve. His list—that neat, earnest list of how to be better—is still in my desk drawer, creased from too much reading.
“Too much?” I ask, quietly.
He shakes his head, lips brushing my temple for a split second. “Just weird. Seeing myself through your eyes.”
“Get used to it, Klaas. You’re my best material.”
“You just like the size of my dick.”
“Mmm. I do.” It still gets me dick drunk. “I will never apologize for that.”
He laughs as he heads back to the kitchen and resumes his freakishly organized meal-prep routine.
I watch him for a second, kind of stunned by how much this Drew isn’t the Drew I met at the start.
Still disciplined, still laser-focused, but the edges have gone soft.
He hums again, off-key, not even caring.
A total one-eighty from the guy who used to overthink everything.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. Something’s missing from the ending.
Something that nails not just how we crashed into each other, but how we decided to stay in the wreckage and build something new.
How he still makes lists. Except now they say, “gallery openings” and “weekend trips to New York” right next to combine drills and protein goals.
And I still push boundaries. Except now I actually say what I need instead of running away when I don’t get it.
The screen blurs a little as I squint at it, searching for the words that’ll tie it all together. I take another sip of coffee, grimace at the cold. Without even looking up, Drew slides a fresh mug next to my laptop, steam curling up. Two sugars, just like always.
That’s it. That’s what I need to capture. Not the big speeches or the public drama, but the quiet ways he shows up, every single day. The coffee made exactly right. The space he clears on his perfect bookshelf for my chaos-pile of novels. The way he learned to listen instead of fix.
I flex my fingers and start typing again, glancing up at Drew as he moves through our kitchen, totally at ease, back to me, focused, not even realizing how much he’s rewritten the story I thought I was stuck in.
Now the words come easy, pouring out, like they’ve just been waiting for me to see what was right in front of me.
“Heading to practice.”
I barely acknowledge him. His chuckle says it all. He knows nothing distracts me once I’m in the zone.
Hours later, I’m typing “The End,” finger hovering over the send button.
One click. “Blindside Me” vanishes from my drafts, officially submitted to my editor, who thinks it could be my ticket to the New York Times bestseller list.
“It’s done!” I let out a slow breath, feeling weirdly light, like I just let go of something I didn’t know I was carrying.
The agent’s email from last week is still pinned to my corkboard, right next to the fear that this story, our story, might not be enough.
But if I can get even half of what Drew and I have onto the page, maybe it’ll hit someone, somewhere, enough to make my dream real.
I lean back, expecting Drew’s arms to wrap around me like always after practice, but the kitchen’s dead quiet. Too quiet. No humming, no clatter, nothing. I glance at the clock. Twenty minutes past when he should’ve been home from the rink.
I check my phone. No text. No call. My stomach knots up, that old ache creeping in.
He’s fine, I tell myself. Probably stuck with his new coach.
But my brain spins anyway, recalling Mom’s taillights fading down the street, and Uncle Rick’s “I’ll visit” promises that never happened.
I’ve forgiven them, but the worry lingers.
What if Drew’s pulling away? What if he read my draft and decided it’s too much, that I’m too much?
My fingers clamp around the mug, coffee sloshing, breath catching. I’m not that girl anymore, the one who bolts at the first sign of doubt, but the fear claws at me anyway, whispering I’m not enough to stay for.
The door clicks open. Drew steps in, hair damp, gym bag slung over his shoulder. “Sorry,” he says, voice casual but with that guilty edge. “Coach kept us late to review tape for the next game. Phone died.” He drops his bag, sees my face. “You okay?”
I try to smile, but it’s shaky. “Thought you bailed on me for a second.”
His face softens, and he crosses to me, kneeling so we’re eye to eye. “Never. You know that.” His hand finds mine, steadying the tremble I didn’t realize was there. “Just bad timing. Should’ve borrowed someone’s phone.”
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “It’s stupid. I just … got in my head.”
“Not stupid.” His thumb strokes my knuckles. “I’ll set a reminder to charge my phone. Or, hell, get a carrier pigeon.” He grins, and I laugh. The tension fades but is not gone. The fear’s still there, but his hand in mine feels like an anchor.
Drew’s arms wrap around me from behind, his chin on my head as he reads the sent confirmation on the screen. “So what’s the next chapter?” he asks, voice rumbling through my back.