Page 32

Story: Off-Limits as Puck

Legal documents arrive at seven AM like hangover cure—unwanted but effective at forcing you back to reality.

I’m still in yesterday’s clothes, surrounded by empty wine glasses and the debris of my pathetic life, when the courier buzzes my apartment. The envelope bears the logo of Chicago’s most expensive law firm, the kind that charges more per hour than most people make in a month.

CEASE AND DESIST ORDER

The letterhead alone makes my hands shake. Eighteen pages of legal jargon that boil down to one simple message: shut up or we’ll destroy what’s left of you.

...engaging in conduct detrimental to the Chicago Outlaws organization...

...breach of confidentiality agreements...

...any further communication with media outlets, social media platforms, or Mr. Reed Hendrix will result in immediate legal action...

They’re not just firing me. They’re erasing me. Making sure I disappear so completely that it’s like I never existed in their world at all. The NDA I haven’t signed yet has apparently been upgraded to a legal muzzle.

My phone buzzes. Another unknown number, probably another reporter fishing for quotes I’m now legally forbidden to give. I let it go to voicemail, add it to the growing list of calls I can’t return.

The apartment feels smaller with each passing hour. Like the walls are closing in, cutting off my air supply. I need to get out, need to move, need to do something other than sit here drowning in paperwork and self-pity.

Which is how I find myself at the United Center at eleven PM, using my security badge that hasn’t been deactivated yet to access the building one last time.

The facility at night is a different creature entirely. Empty hallways echo with the ghosts of better days. Emergency lighting casts everything in sickly yellow, making shadows dance like accusations. My footsteps sound too loud, too final.

My office is exactly as I left it—boxes packed, diplomas wrapped, the debris of a career that lasted less than six months. I should grab my things and go. Should disappear like the lawyers want, fade into whatever comes after professional suicide.

But first, I need to see it empty. Need to stand in the space where I thought I was building something meaningful and admit it was all an illusion.

The boxes are heavier than expected. Eighteen months of my life reduced to cardboard containers that fit in my trunk. As I load the last one, sound drifts from deeper in the building—the unmistakable scrape of skates on ice.

Someone’s using the practice rink. At eleven-thirty on a Thursday night.

I know who it is before I see him. Know it in my bones, the way you recognize the sound of your own heartbeat. But I follow the sound anyway, drawn like a moth to the flame that’s already burned me beyond recognition.

The rink is mostly dark, lit only by emergency floods that turn the ice into a silver mirror.

Reed moves across it like he owns it, alone with his thoughts and the rhythm of blade against ice.

No gear, just jeans and a practice jersey, working through whatever demons drove him here in the middle of the night.

He sees me before I can retreat. Skates to a stop at center ice, chest heaving from exertion or emotion or both.

“Building’s closed,” he calls, voice echoing in the empty space.

“So I heard.” I don’t move from the tunnel entrance. “Didn’t stop you.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

The honesty in that admission cracks something in my chest. We stare at each other across the expanse of ice—him in the middle, me at the edge, the distance between us feeling infinite and nonexistent simultaneously.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say finally.

“Neither should you.”

“I was getting my things. Cleaning out. Making it like I never existed.”

He skates closer, stopping just short of the boards that separate us. Up close, I can see the damage—split lip, bruised knuckles, the hollow look of someone who’s been fighting losing battles.

“Saw the video,” I admit. “You beating up that guy in the bar.”

“He deserved it.”

“Did he? Or was he just another punching bag?”

“He called you a puck bunny with daddy issues.”

“And you thought hitting him would help?”

“I thought he should keep your name out of his fucking mouth.” Reed’s hands grip his stick harder. “Same way I think everyone should.”

“Noble. Stupid, but noble.”

“Yeah, well. Stupid’s kind of my specialty.”

We’re doing it again—this careful dance around what we actually want to say. Circling each other like fighters looking for an opening, both of us too proud or too scared to throw the first real punch.

“They sent lawyers,” I tell him. “Cease and desist. I’m not allowed to talk to you anymore.”

“Since when do you follow rules you don’t like?”

“Since breaking them destroyed my life.”

“I destroyed your life.” He skates closer to the boards, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if the barrier wasn’t there. “Let’s be clear about that.”

“No, I destroyed my life. I made the choices. I knew the risks.”

“Did you? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you got blindsided by consequences you never saw coming.”

“I saw them coming. I just...” I trail off, not sure how to finish that sentence.

“Just what?”

“Just thought maybe they’d be worth it.”

The admission hangs between us like smoke. Reed’s eyes darken, and I see him processing the implications—that I chose him knowing it would cost me everything. That I’d make the same choice again.

“Are they?” he asks quietly. “Worth it?”

“I don’t know. Ask me when the lawyers are done with me.”

“I’m asking now.”

“Now I’m unemployed, legally muzzled, and probably unemployable in professional sports. So no, objectively, it wasn’t worth it.”

“Objectively.”

“Objectively.”

“What about subjectively?”

I meet his gaze through the glass, see myself reflected in his dark eyes. See the woman who threw away everything for fifteen minutes in an equipment shed and the possibility of something real.

“Subjectively, I’m fucked either way.”

He laughs, sharp and bitter. “At least you’re honest about it.”

“Honesty’s all I have left. Might as well use it.”

We stand there in silence, him on ice, me on solid ground, both of us drowning in the space between what we want and what we can have. The rink feels bigger somehow, emptier, like it’s swallowing our words before they can reach each other.

“I’m leaving,” he says finally. “Chicago. The team. All of it.”

“Where?”

“Europe, maybe. Jerry’s working some contacts. Fresh start where nobody knows about us.”

“Us.” I taste the word like poison. “There is no us. There’s just a series of bad decisions that happen to involve the same two people.”

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” He’s skating in small circles now, agitation making him restless. “This isn’t just bad decisions. This is—”

“This is what? Love? Destiny? Some romantic bullshit that makes the destruction worth it?”

“This is real. The realest thing either of us has ever had.”

“Real doesn’t pay my bills, Reed. Real doesn’t rebuild my reputation. Real doesn’t fix what we’ve broken.”

“No, but it’s something. It’s more than the scheduled, sanitized life you were living before.”

“That scheduled, sanitized life was mine. It was good. It was safe.”

“It was killing you.”

My stomach drops like I’m on a damn rollercoaster. Because he’s right, isn’t he? I was dying in that life, suffocating under expectations and schedules and the constant need to be perfect.

“Maybe,” I admit. “But at least I was dying professionally.”

“Jesus, Chelsea. Listen to yourself.”

“Dr. Clark,” I correct automatically, then laugh at my own stupidity. “Sorry, force of habit. Though I guess it doesn’t matter anymore since I’m neither.”

“You’re still Chelsea.”

“Am I? Because I don’t recognize this person. This woman who throws away careers for sex in equipment sheds. Who lies to her father, destroys teams, gets cease and desist orders delivered to her apartment.”

“This woman who finally did something for herself instead of everyone else.”

“This woman who destroyed everything.”

“This woman who chose something real over something safe.”

We’re shouting now, our voices echoing off empty seats and rafters. All the careful control we’ve maintained for months finally cracking, spilling truth and rage and desperate want across the ice between us.

“And look how that worked out!” I gesture at the empty arena, at the ruins of our respective careers. “Look what choosing real got us!”

“It got us honest. For once in our fucking lives, we were honest.”

“Honest about what?” I mock.

“About wanting each other more than we wanted to be good. About needing something that scared us. About being willing to burn it all down for fifteen minutes of feeling alive.”

“Fifteen minutes that cost us everything.”

“Fifteen minutes that were worth everything.”

He skates off the ice then, stepping through the gate that separates his world from mine. Suddenly we’re on the same level, same surface, nothing between us but air and poor judgment. But he’s tall. Much, much taller wearing those skates.

“Don’t,” I warn, backing up. I have to crank my neck to look at him.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Like you want to—”

“What? Touch you? Kiss you? Remind you what it felt like when we stopped pretending?”

He’s closer now, close enough that I can smell ice and sweat and him . Close enough to see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, the scar on his chin from a puck to the face three seasons ago.

“We can’t.”

“Why not? What’s left to lose?”

“Our dignity. What little self-respect we have left.”

“Fuck dignity.” His hand finds my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone like he’s memorizing the shape of it. “Fuck self-respect. I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you.”

“Reed—”

“I’m tired of fighting this thing between us like it’s the enemy instead of the only good thing either of us has done in years.”

“It’s not good. It’s destructive.”

“Sometimes destruction is necessary. Sometimes you have to burn something down to build something better.”

“And sometimes you just burn.”

“Then let’s burn together.”

He kisses me before I can protest further. Hard, desperate, tasting like anger and want and of suppressed desire finally breaking free. I should push him away, should remember the lawyers and the cease and desist and all the reasons this is impossible.

Instead, I kiss him back.

We stumble backward, knocking into equipment lockers and benches, tearing at clothes with hands that shake from more than cold. His practice jersey hits the concrete floor. My sweater follows. Every barrier between us feels like an insult we’re desperate to correct.

“Not here,” I gasp against his mouth.

“Yes here.”

“Someone could—”

“Building’s empty. Security’s in the lobby. It’s just us.”

Just us. Like it was in Vegas. Like it was in the equipment shed. Like it should have been all along if we’d been brave enough to fight for it.

He lifts me onto the equipment bench, stepping between my thighs with familiar possession. This isn’t tender. This isn’t sweet. This is two people saying goodbye the only way they know how—with skin and need and the desperate attempt to mark each other before everything ends.

His mouth finds my neck, teeth scraping skin.

It’s fast, frantic, necessary. Him inside me is like coming home and leaving simultaneously. We move together, trying to fit this want into whatever time we have left.

“Look at me,” he demands, hands framing my face. “Don’t close your eyes. Don’t disappear.”

So I look at him. See myself reflected in his gaze—wild, wanting, completely undone. See the man who’s destroying himself for me, who’d rather burn than let me go.

When I orgasm, it feels like my heart’s ripping out of my chest. He comes inside of me, and there’s a sadness in our kisses. Our longing for each other, knowing that this is goodbye.

Afterward, we stay pressed together, breathing hard, both of us knowing this is the last time. The final punctuation mark on whatever we were or could have been.

I pull away first, reaching for my clothes with hands that shake. Professional distance reasserting itself like muscle memory, even now.

“Chelsea—”

“Don’t.” I button my jeans with unnecessary focus. “Just... don’t.”

“This doesn’t have to be—”

“It does.” I find my sweater, pull it over my head. “We both know it does.”

He’s watching me rebuild my walls with desperate eyes. “We could try—”

“Try what? Long distance while you’re in Europe? Rebuilding our careers separately? Pretending this was all worth it?”

“Yes. All of that.”

“I can’t.” The words come out broken. “I can’t keep choosing you over everything else. I can’t keep destroying myself for fifteen minutes of feeling alive.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want to go back to before. Before Vegas, before you, before I knew what it felt like to want something more than I wanted to breathe.”

I head for the exit, but his voice stops me at the tunnel entrance.

“Chelsea.”

I don’t turn around.

“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I’m fighting for you. I want this.”

“It’s too late, Reed.”

He stands in shock, staring after me.

I leave him standing there, still shirtless, still beautiful, still the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. The walk to my car feels infinite, like crossing a desert with no water and no hope of rescue.

In my rearview mirror, the United Center grows smaller until it’s just lights in the darkness. Behind me, everything we were. Ahead of me, everything we’ll never be.

My phone buzzes as I pull into traffic. A text from an unknown number.

Unknown: Time’s up, Dr. Clark. Press conference tomorrow at 3 PM. Be there or the photos go wide.

I should be terrified. Should be planning damage control, calling lawyers, figuring out how to survive whatever’s about to drop. But I don’t care anymore. The damage is already done.

Instead, I think about Reed’s words: I’m fighting for you.

Maybe it’s time I did the same.

Maybe it’s time to stop running from the fire and see what’s left when the ashes settle.

Maybe destruction really is necessary sometimes.

Even if you’re the one holding the match.