Page 18 of Icing the Cougar (Hockey USA Collection #7)

Jasper

I’m not even all the way in the apartment before the dread hits.

The place is a black box, hollow and wrong.

The fridge hums, the heater clicks, and I stand in the dark, keys still biting my palm, waiting to feel something besides the cold climbing up my legs.

If I had any balls left, I’d turn on every light and break the silence with my own fucking voice.

Instead, I just stare at the city outside the window, hands fisted and useless.

There’s hockey gear dumped right in the entryway, two empty protein shake bottles on the counter, a tape roll that’s slowly unraveling on the kitchen island.

Trinity’s yoga mat is still by the TV, rolled up loose with a bright hair tie keeping it shut.

There’s a single hair on the mat, red-brown and long.

I see it from twenty feet away. It taunts me.

I kick my skates out of the way, miss, and they clatter against the wall, taking a chip of paint with them. The sound echoes like a gunshot. The neighbors probably hate me, but no one is going to say shit to my face.

I pace the room, hands digging into my hair so hard it feels like I could rip it out.

My phone buzzes again and rumbles across the glass tabletop.

I don’t need to look. I know it’s Riley or one of the other assholes, probably trying to check in or get the real story.

Maybe it’s Coach G, thinking he can fix me with a locker room speech.

I let the phone vibrate until it slides off the table and drops on the rug.

The apartment is a mess, but I can see every single place Trinity left a mark.

Not just the mat, or the hair tie, or the way her favorite mug—peach ceramic, chipped at the lip—still sits by the sink because I never remembered to load the dishwasher.

There’s a piece of her everywhere. A single earring abandoned by the shower drain, her scent in the hoodie she always stole, a spiral notebook with half the pages dog-eared where she doodled or wrote notes or left hearts in the margins of her old grocery lists.

I want to throw all of it away. I want to leave it exactly where it is and pretend she’s coming back for it. I want to punch a hole through the plaster just to see if it hurts more than thinking about her walking out.

I do the next best thing. I stalk over to the wall next to the window, draw back my right hand, and drive my fist into the drywall as hard as I can.

The pain is bright and real, instantly blooming across my knuckles.

It doesn’t break the skin, but it leaves a crater, a powdery ring and a faint red outline of my hand.

I lean my head against the cold glass and let the air burn my lungs.

The phone rings again. I ignore it. Let it go straight to voicemail, where there’s probably a half-dozen garbled messages already, each more useless than the last.

My face in the window is a stranger. Dark rings under my eyes, jaw clenched so tight I can hear my own teeth grind. There’s still blood on my cheek from tonight. I swipe at it with the back of my hand, smearing it further.

I grab the mug off the counter, and for a split second I think about smashing it in the sink, but I can’t do it. I hold it in both hands and close my eyes, breathing in the faint ghost of her chamomile and lemon tea, and it makes me want to scream.

I set it back down, careful, like it’s the last thing holding the world together.

My hands shake. I tell myself it’s the adrenaline, but I know better. I can feel the heat behind my eyes, the pressure building. I don’t cry. I’ve never cried, not since I was a kid and my dad told me men who cry deserve every bad thing that happens to them.

This feels different. This feels like losing a tooth, or getting punched in the stomach, or crashing so hard you can’t get up again.

I go to the window, forehead against the glass, and stare at the city.

The lights look fake, too bright and far away to mean anything.

I think about texting Trinity, just to say one last thing, but the words stick in my throat.

There’s nothing I can say that would make any of it better.

I’m exactly what she thought I was. Less, even.

The phone rings again, and I pick it up on instinct. There’s a rash of missed calls and texts on the lock screen. I swipe them all away and turn the phone face down.

I stand there for a long time, watching my breath fog up the glass, counting the seconds until I feel steady again.

It doesn’t happen.

Instead, I walk to the yoga mat, kneel down, and unravel it just a little.

The hair is still there, coiled and weightless.

I pick it up, wrap it around my pinky, and close my fist around it.

I press my knuckles into the mat, leave a fresh blood smear where I cracked them on the wall.

I don’t know if I’m trying to mark it or wipe myself out of the picture.

Either way, I stay like that until my legs go numb, my back aches, and the city outside starts to lose its light.

I tell myself I’m going to be fine. That I’ve survived worse.

I don’t believe it.

Not for a fucking second.

Every muscle in my body wants to move, fight, break something.

It’s not even midnight, but the walls are closing in, and I have to get out.

So, I stalk to the second bedroom that’s the so-called “gym” I set up when the team first moved me to Chicago and turn on every single light. The harsh fluorescents flicker to life.

The gym is a joke. One bench, a squat rack, a couple kettlebells, and a treadmill that I only use for sprints when I’m feeling extra masochistic. The air smells like rubber and old socks.

I rip off my t-shirt, shoving it into the corner, and load up the bench with way too much weight.

The steel clangs, echoing up to the ceiling.

I lay back, grab the bar, and start pressing.

The first set burns, but not enough. I add more plates.

Do another set. Each time, my arms shake harder.

My wrists pop, then my shoulder. I welcome it.

I’m not here to get better. I’m here to hurt.

The phone starts up again, vibrating on the hardwood.

I can hear it even over the clang of the bar.

I squeeze out two more reps, then rack the weight and sit up, dizzy.

The phone is face down. I don’t even check who it is.

I just pick it up and whip it across the room, hard.

It hits the wall, bounces once, and lands next to the door.

Not broken, not even a scratch. Figures.

I go back to the weights. Bench. Then squats. Then deadlifts, stacking the bar until my knees feel like they might buckle. Each time I pick it up, I try to imagine the pain will finally shut off my brain. That it’ll fill the gap she left.

By the time I move to the kettlebells, my hands are shaking, and sweat is rolling down my spine. I go for swings, one arm, then the other, switching at the top, faster and faster until I lose count. The lights blur, and I actually think I might pass out.

I drop the bell on the mat, fall to my knees, and suck air like I’m drowning. My chest is on fire. My legs quiver. This is what I wanted. This is the only way I know how to stop myself from thinking about Trinity’s face as she walked away, the way her eyes never even blinked.

My phone starts up again, but it sounds far away. I stay on my knees, knuckles pressed to the floor, and let my breath slow down. Sweat pools under me. I wipe it off with the back of my hand and immediately regret it—the scrape of skin on skin, the raw heat. I deserve it.

When I finally roll onto my back, the ceiling spins. I stare up at any imperfection on the drywall. It’s quiet. Nothing but the thump of my heartbeat and the far-off wail of a siren somewhere in the city. I close my eyes, just to see if I can keep the world at bay.

However, my head is still full of her. Not even tonight’s version that was so cold and angry. It’s the one from the first time I tried yoga at her place, when I nearly ripped my own hamstring in half trying to hold Warrior Two.

She laughed so hard she snorted. The sound was so light, so bright, it made my whole-body ache in a way I’d never felt. I remember the way she reached out, steadying my arms, her hands cool and sure against my skin. “You’re all power, no control,” she told me, eyes shining with mischief.

I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to see me as strong, even when I was flailing.

Now I can’t remember the last time anyone laughed with me, instead of at me.

The sweat runs into my eyes, stings, but I don’t move to wipe it away. I let it pool and drip, soak the mat. My lungs still burn. My arms are lead.

Somewhere in the apartment, the phone rings one last time, then stops.

The silence is absolute.

I close my eyes and try to hear her laugh again, but it’s already fading.

I don’t know how much time passes before I finally stand up.

My legs are rubber, my mouth tastes like pennies, and I know I’m not going to sleep, not for a while, maybe not ever.

As I limp to the kitchen, I notice that the early morning sun is shining through the window, and need coffee, because even in the shittiest morning of my life, habits die hard.

I find her mug—the one I almost smashed last night—still sitting by the sink.

I rinse it, careful of the chip on the rim, and set it under the machine.

I press the button for black coffee, bitter as hell, exactly how she drank it when she was trying to power through a brutal day.

While the machine whirs, I drift to the windows, the kind that run from floor to ceiling and make you feel like you could step right off the edge and into the city.

The glass is cold, and I press my forehead against it, watching the world wake up below.

Cabs, trash trucks, people already out and running, like nothing ever changes.

My reflection looks older. Worn out. There’s a purpling ring under my right eye, a crusted scrape on my chin, and dried blood in the cracks of my knuckles.

My hair sticks up at a dozen wild angles.

I look like a man who got run over by a Zamboni and then rolled around in the tire tracks for fun. I almost don’t recognize myself.

The coffee finishes, and I take it back to the window. The taste is harsh, but I swallow it anyway, burn and all. The warmth grounds me.

That’s when the memories start. Not the bad ones—the fights, the locker room shit, the way I ruin everything I touch.

It’s the other ones. The ones where Trinity holds my face in her hands after a bad game, fingers soft, eyes softer.

The night I came home dripping blood and rage, and she patched me up, not with lectures but with silence and steady hands and a kiss to the split above my eye.

The way she could make me feel like I belonged, even when I was nothing but trouble.

I think about the morning after that night.

How she let me sleep in, then woke me with a cup of coffee and a crooked smile.

She said, “You look like the world’s angriest puppy,” and I grumbled but smiled, because she was right and she knew it.

I think about her hands, small and sure, picking tape off my fingers, tracing the bruises, never asking me to be less than what I am.

I look at my hands now. They’re shaking, but not from rage. From something closer to loss. I clench them, force them to go still, but the feeling lingers.

The city gets brighter. The light creeps across my face, throwing long shadows on the floor. I can see myself clearly now: the jaw, the scar, the worry lines. There’s nothing left to hide. I lift the mug to my lips, and now the bitterness doesn’t taste like punishment. It just tastes like coffee.

I touch the glass with one hand, palm flat. The city below keeps moving, indifferent to my mess. Somewhere out there, Trinity is probably already up, rolling out her mat, making a mental note of everything she has to do today, pretending she isn’t thinking about me.

I want to text her. I want to say something that’ll fix it, but I know there isn’t a word in the world for this kind of fuckup.

I pick up my phone anyway, thumb hovering over her name in my contacts.

Then I click the side button on my phone to close the screen.

This needs to be right. This needs to be more than a string of sorrys.

I think about what she said—that she’s not my rehab project, not my secret rebellion. She’s right. She always is. I don’t want to prove anything to anyone but her. I don’t want to be the guy who keeps losing.

The sun finally breaks over the rooftops, filling the room with gold. It catches the edges of the yoga mat by the TV, the hair tie on the coffee table, the battered old notebook on the counter. All the proof that she was here, that she changed everything just by existing in my space.

I stare at my reflection one last time. I don’t like what I see, but I don’t look away.

I drain the mug, feeling the heat run down into my chest. My heart doesn’t race, not this time. It just beats, steady and real, like maybe it finally wants to keep going.

I set the mug down, stand up straight, and start making a plan.

I’m going to get her back.

Even if it means burning the rest of myself to the ground and building something better from the ashes.