Page 15

Three days without her and I’m coming apart at the seams like cheap gear after a playoff run.

The puck comes at me during morning drills, and instead of receiving it clean, I fire it into the boards hard enough to leave a mark. Weston gives me a look that says, ‘what the fuck,’ but I’m already skating away, trying to burn off whatever’s crawling under my skin.

It’s been like this since our session. Since she kicked me out. Since I played the best game of my season fueled by frustration and want. Every drill feels too slow, every play too soft. My teammates are skating through practice while I’m fighting a war they can’t see.

“Hendrix!” Coach barks. “You’re with Lawrence on defense drills.”

Lawrence. The rookie who’s been gunning for my spot since I got suspended. He grins at me like Christmas came early, all young ego and untested confidence.

“Try to keep up, old man,” he chirps as we line up.

Old man. I’m twenty-eight, not forty, but in hockey years with my penalty record? Maybe he’s got a point.

The drill starts simple—one-on-one battles for puck possession. I’m supposed to be teaching him, showing him how to use his body to create space. Instead, all I see is another obstacle between me and burning off this itch under my skin.

He comes at me hard, trying to prove something. I pivot, using his momentum against him, and then the hit is legal but brutal. Lawrence goes into the boards with a sound that echoes through the rink. He stays down a second too long, and I know I’ve fucked up before Coach even blows the whistle.

“HENDRIX!”

The rink goes silent. Twenty-eight other players stop what they’re doing to watch Coach Clark storm across the ice, face purple with rage.

“What the hell was that?”

“Hockey,” I say, but even I know it’s bullshit. That wasn’t hockey. That was me taking out my Chelsea-shaped frustrations on a kid who didn’t deserve it.

“Locker room. Now.”

“Coach—”

“NOW!”

I skate off, ignoring the mix of sympathy and disgust from my teammates. Lawrence is getting up, shaking his head clear. He’ll be fine. Bruised ego more than body. But that’s not the point.

The point is I’m losing control again. All the anger management sessions, all the breathing exercises and coping strategies—none of it matters when she’s in my head, making me crazy with want and impossibility.

I’m stripping off my gear when Coach finds me, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the lockers.

“Two games,” he says without preamble. “You’ve been back two games, and you’re already pulling this shit?”

“It was a clean hit.”

“It was unnecessary. Lawrence is your teammate, not your enemy.”

“He was talking shit.”

“So? You think I care about your hurt feelings?” He steps closer, and I see something beyond anger in his eyes. Disappointment. “I went to bat for you, Hendrix. Told management you were worth the risk. That you’d learned control.”

“I have—”

“Bullshit. You’re wound tighter than you were before suspension. Playing angry, practicing angry, probably sleeping angry.” He pauses. “Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, fix it. Because if you can’t separate your personal shit from this team, you’re done. Not benched. Done.”

The threat lands like a slap shot to the chest. “Coach—”

“Get your head straight or get out. Your choice.”

He leaves me alone with my half-removed gear and the echoing silence of an empty locker room. I punch the wall, adding bruised knuckles to my list of stupid decisions.

My phone buzzes. Weston.

Weston: You good?

Me: Peachy

Weston: That was some bullshit

Me: Which part? The hit or the benching?

Weston: Both. You need to talk?

I need to do a lot of things. Talk isn’t one of them. What I need is to pin Chelsea against her office wall and kiss her until she admits this thing between us isn’t going away. What I need is to skate until my legs give out and my brain stops replaying Vegas on loop. What I need is impossible.

Me: I’m good.

He doesn’t respond, which means he doesn’t believe me. Smart captain.

I finish changing into street clothes, taking my time. The arena will be mostly empty now. The team finishing practice, staff in meetings. Perfect for avoiding everyone while I figure out how to fix my head without fixing the actual problem.

I’m heading for the exit when I see her.

Chelsea’s coming down the hallway, heels clicking that familiar rhythm, looking at her phone instead of where she’s going. She’s wearing gray today. A pencil skirt, silk blouse, all buttoned up and professional. Her hair is in another complicated twist that makes me want to mess it up.

She looks up at the last second, sees me, and freezes.

For a moment, we just stare at each other across ten feet of empty hallway. Her lips part like she might say something, but no words come. I wait, hands fisted in my pockets, for her to acknowledge me. To acknowledge us. To acknowledge anything beyond this painful professional distance.

Instead, she squares her shoulders and brushes past me without a word.

The scent of her is the same. The same shampoo smell that’s been haunting me for two years. She’s close enough that I could reach out, catch her arm, make her stop running.

But I don’t.

I watch her walk away, those heels tapping out retreat, her spine rigid with tension. She turns the corner without looking back, and I’m left standing in an empty hallway with bruised knuckles and nowhere to put all this want.

“Too late, sweetheart,” I mutter to the empty space she left behind. “You already broke me.”

The words echo off the concrete walls, too honest for comfort. Because that’s the truth Coach doesn’t understand that anger management can’t fix. Chelsea Clark broke something in me two years ago in Vegas, and she’s breaking it worse now with every professional smile and clinical question.

My phone buzzes again. This time it’s Jerry, my agent.

Jerry: Heard about practice. We need to talk.

Me: Pass

Jerry: Not a request. My office, one hour.

Great. Now I get to explain to my agent why I’m self-destructing over a woman I can’t have. Why I’m risking everything for someone who won’t even look at me in hallways.

I head for the parking garage, needing space and speed and anything that doesn’t remind me of her. But even in my car, I can smell phantom traces of her perfume. Feel the ghost of her walking past, so close and completely unreachable.

Coach thinks I need to get my head straight. The problem is, my head hasn’t been straight since a firecracker in a black dress asked me to dance in Vegas. And now she’s here, in my world but not in my life, breaking me a little more every day with her absence.

I drive toward Jerry’s office, already knowing what he’ll say. That I need to focus. That I can’t afford another scandal. That whatever’s distracting me needs to be eliminated.

He’s right. Chelsea Clark is a distraction I can’t afford.

Too bad I’m already paying the price.