Page 16

Story: Off-Limits as Puck

In the cabins for team comradery sounds like a joke. Honestly. It’s like my father wants to celebrate my first week here and decided on a last-minute getaway for the team and staff.

I drag my suitcase down the narrow hallway, past doors marked with team staff nameplates.

The Outlaws have taken over the entire lodge for this “team building and mental performance retreat”—my father’s idea, naturally.

Three days of mandatory bonding activities designed to fix our dysfunction through trust falls and group therapy.

I’m hanging up my last blazer when I hear a door closing in the room next door. Male voices, muffled but familiar. My stomach drops as I recognize the laugh.

Of course. Of fucking course he’s next door.

I text Maddy immediately.

Me: Room situation is a disaster. Guess who’s my neighbor.

Maddy: Please tell me it’s not him

Me: 215. Thin walls. I can hear him breathing.

Maddy: That’s not creepy at all. Want me to see about switching you?

Me: That wouldn’t be suspicious at all.

Maddy: Girl, you need to be careful. These retreats are pressure cookers.

She’s right. I know she’s right. But knowing doesn’t help when I can hear Reed moving around next door, probably unpacking his own bag, existing in proximity that feels both too close and not close enough.

The first official activity is a “therapeutic hike” that I’m supposedly leading. Twenty-eight players, coaching staff, and me trudging up a mountain while I spout wisdom about mindfulness and team cohesion.

I’m checking my trail map when a shadow falls over me.

“Need a hiking buddy, Doc?”

I don’t look up. “I’m sure you can find someone else to annoy, Mr. Hendrix.”

“But annoying you is so much more fun.” He leans against the lodge’s exterior wall, too close for comfort. “Nice room assignment, by the way. We should coordinate shower schedules.”

“We should coordinate you staying fifty feet away at all times.”

“Restraining order distance? Bit extreme for neighbors.”

“Reed—” His name slips out before I can stop it.

“Chelsea.” He matches my tone exactly, and I finally look at him. Mistake. He’s in hiking gear that shows off every muscle I’m trying to forget, looking unfairly good in morning sunlight.

“Dr. Clark,” I correct, but it’s weak and we both know it.

“Right. My bad.” He pushes off the wall. “See you on the trail, Dr. Clark. Try to keep up.”

The hike is torture. Not the physical part—I’m in decent shape despite my academic lifestyle. It’s Reed, who seems determined to stay exactly three feet behind me the entire time. Close enough that I can feel his presence like a physical weight. Far enough that it’s not technically inappropriate.

“You’re supposed to be with your defensive line,” I mutter during a water break.

“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,” he replies, voice low enough that only I can hear.

“Which is?”

“Making sure you don’t get lost.”

“I have a map.”

“Hendrix!” Weston calls from up ahead. “Stop harassing the doc and get up here!”

Reed gives me a look that promises this isn’t over before jogging ahead. I use the reprieve to catch my breath and my sanity, both of which are in short supply.

“He’s got it bad,” Maddy observes, appearing at my elbow like a guardian angel in Lululemon.

“He’s got nothing. We’re nothing.”

“Honey, that man has been staring at your ass for the last mile.”

“Maddy!”

“What? I’m paid to notice things. And what I’m noticing is sexual tension thick enough to cut with a skate.”

That night’s bonfire is mandatory fun at its finest. The team gathers around a massive fire pit, beers flowing freely, inhibitions lowering with each degree the temperature drops. I position myself strategically between Patricia and my father, using them as human shields.

It works for exactly twenty minutes.

“Doc looks cold,” someone suggests. “Hendrix, give her your jacket.”

“She’s fine,” my father says curtly.

But Reed’s already moving, dropping onto the bench beside me with practiced casualness. “Can’t have our therapist freezing to death. Bad for morale.”

He drapes his team jacket over my shoulders before I can protest. It smells like him—ice and cedar and trouble. The weight of it feels like being held, and I hate how much I don’t hate it.

“I’m fine,” I say, but I don’t take it off.

His thigh presses against mine, solid and warm through our jeans. Such a small point of contact, but my body lights up like a goal lamp. He shifts slightly, increasing the pressure, and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.

“You okay?” he asks innocently. “You seem tense.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed.”

“Your pulse says otherwise.” His eyes flick to my throat where I know my heartbeat is visible. “Therapeutic hiking not therapeutic enough?”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

I stare at him, my eyes accidentally dropping to his lips.

“Chelsea?” My father’s voice cuts through my inappropriate reverie. “We’re discussing tomorrow’s trust exercises.”

I force myself to focus on the conversation, to contribute intelligently about vulnerability and team bonds while Reed’s thigh burns against mine. He doesn’t move. Neither do I. We sit there like teenagers, pretending this point of contact doesn’t matter while very obviously obsessing over it.

By the time the fire dies down, I’m vibrating with suppressed want. I escape to my room, leaving his jacket on the bench like the coward I am. A cold shower helps marginally. The thin walls that let me hear him getting ready for bed do not.

I’m heading to the laundry room with my hiking clothes when footsteps follow me down the empty hallway. I know who it is before I turn around. My body recognizes his presence like sonar.

“Following me?”

“Getting towels,” he says, but his hands are empty, and his eyes are dark. “Complete coincidence.”

“Right.” I push into the laundry room, hoping he’ll take the hint.

He doesn’t.

The door closes behind us with a click that sounds like fate sealing. The room is small, industrial, smelling of detergent and possibility. A washing machine rumbles in the corner, vibrating the floor beneath our feet.

“You can’t keep doing this,” I say, but I’m backing up instead of leaving.

“Doing what?” He advances slowly, giving me every chance to run.

“Following me. Sitting too close. Making me—” I stop before finishing that sentence.

“Making you what?” Another step. “Making you remember? Making you feel? Making you want something you think you can’t have?”

My back hits the washer. “Reed—”

“I can’t sleep,” he says suddenly, raw honesty replacing his usual cockiness. “Can’t think. Can’t focus on anything but how badly I fucked up letting you leave that morning.”

“You didn’t let me leave. I chose to go.”

“Why?” He’s close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Tell me why, Chelsea. Make me understand why you ran from the best night of my life.”

“It wasn’t—”

“Don’t.” His hands find the washer on either side of me, caging me in without touching. “Don’t lie. Not here. Not now.”

“What do you want me to say? That it scared me? That you scared me? That I felt things I wasn’t ready for with someone I didn’t even know?”

“Yes.” The word comes out rough. “Say that. Say anything true.”

“Fine. You terrify me.” The admission rips from my throat. “You make me want things that don’t fit in my scheduled life. You make me feel reckless and hungry and—”

He kisses me.

It’s nothing like Vegas. That was exploration, discovery. This is desperation. Two years of want crashing together. His mouth claims mine with bruising intensity, and I give as good as I get, caressing my hands on his face to pull him closer.

He lifts me onto the washer without breaking the kiss, stepping between my thighs like he belongs there. The machine vibrates beneath me, adding sensation that makes me gasp into his mouth. He takes advantage, deepening the kiss until I can’t remember why this is a bad idea.

His hands are in my hair, messing up my careful control. Mine are under his shirt, relearning the geography of his abs. We’re kissing like the world is ending, like we can make up for two years in two minutes, like—

A knock on the door sends us flying apart.

“Anyone in there?” Weston’s voice, casual but curious.

Reed steps back, chest heaving, looking as wrecked as I feel. His lips are swollen, hair destroyed by my hands. Evidence of my complete professional failure.

“Yeah, just grabbing towels,” he calls, voice impressively steady.

“Cool. You seen Doc? Patricia’s looking for her.”

I slide off the washer on shaking legs, frantically smoothing my hair. Reed watches with dark eyes as I put myself back together, and I know he’s memorizing this version of me—undone, wanting, his.

“Haven’t seen her,” he lies smoothly. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

Weston’s footsteps retreat. We stare at each other across three feet that might as well be an ocean.

“This can’t happen again,” I whisper.

“You’re right.” He moves to the door, pauses with his hand on the knob. “But it will.”

He leaves me there, clutching the edge of the washer for support, tasting him on my lips and hating myself for wanting more.

My phone buzzes. Patricia.

Patricia: Final schedule review in my room in 10?

I type back confirmation with shaking fingers, then catch my reflection in the industrial mirror above the sink. Kiss-swollen lips. Flushed cheeks. Eyes wild with want and regret.

Ten minutes to rebuild Dr. Clark from the ruins of Chelsea.

Ten minutes to pretend that washing machine kiss didn’t just destroy my carefully maintained distance with him.

Ten minutes to lie to everyone, including myself, about what happens next.

But Reed’s right about one thing—this will happen again because now that he’s kissed me, there’s no going back.