Page 55 of The Fall

Blair shoots Hayes a glare on his way down, then exhales slowly on the way up. The bar knuckles over his chest. “You actually talking to me from under that baby stack?”

“Bet you ask your dumbbells if they love you back.”

“You planning on working out today, Ems?” I ask, gripping my bar tighter.

“This is my workout,” Hayes says, gesturing around the room. “And I’m wounded. I bring life and light to this room, but it seems like everyone only wants me for my quads.”

I snort.

“It’s the ankles,” Blair says, and the corner of his mouth lifts. His deadpan delivery breaks through my concentration. I huff out a laugh mid-rep.

My arms tremble. I lock in my grip, then catch Blair’s scent, Key lime and salt, as he steps behind my bench.

“Brace through your lats.”

I inhale and push. My form breaks halfway; the bar wobbles.

“Elbows in.” His fingertips brush under my arms, steadying my position. That touch spirals through me, scattering my focus into sparks. I grind out another rep. Blair’s hands float close enough that I can nearly feel their heat. “Good,” he says.

I rack the bar. My shoulders release; my breath comes back in pieces. “Thanks. I needed the push.” I’ve been going further every workout, pushing myself for more, more.

“You’ve put on good weight,” Blair says. His eyes track over my shoulders, my arms, my core. It’s purely professional. There’s no linger in his look.

“I’ve been working on it.”

“It’s paying off. You’re harder to knock off the puck.”

“Still not as solid as you.” He’s heavier on the puck than anyone I’ve ever skated with.

“Few are.” He grins.

I want more than this; I want his laugh between shifts and his shirt on my bedroom floor, but he keeps the line sharp. I’m a teammate.

Hollow belts out part of a truly awful country-pop chorus while Hayes keeps up his lazy leg press and high-energy shit-talk. Divot is pumping out pull-ups; he isn’t stopping anytime in the next hour.

Blair is still by my side. “You doing sled pushes today?”

“I’m supposed to be.” I grimace. Sweat drips from my forehead to the floor.

“Let’s rotate sets.”

“Sure.”

He takes the sled like it weighs nothing. I track the angle of his back with each stride and watch how his shoulders ripple, how the bands of his calves tighten on every plant and push.

He finishes and circles back, chest heaving, and wipes his forehead with the hem of his shirt. The flash of skin hits me like a sucker-punch, his abs flexing, that strip of tanned muscle above his waistband. I force my eyes away, anywhere but on the sweat tracking down his stomach.

“Your turn,” he says.

I peel off my sweat-drenched shirt and toss it to the side. His gaze cuts toward me, then away. I step up to the sled, gripping the handles until my knuckles go white.

“Remember what I said about the lean.” His voice is right behind me. “You’re still too upright.”

I adjust my stance, drop my hips lower. The first push sends fire through my quads, but I dig in, driving forward.

“Better,” Blair calls out. “Keep that angle.”

The sled scrapes against the turf, metal on rubber creating this awful grinding sound that matches the protest in my legs. Halfway through, my form starts to break. My back rounds, shoulders climbing toward my ears.

“Stay tight through your core. Don’t let it collapse.”

I grit my teeth and lock everything down, pushing through the last ten feet. When I finally stop, my legs are rubber. I lean on the sled handles, gulping air.

Blair hands me his water bottle without me asking. “You trying to make me look lazy?”

I laugh right in his face, then take a long drink to hide how hard I’m breathing.

“Your turn again,” I say, tossing the bottle back. “Unless you need a break?”

We win three more games, then we lose to Nashville in overtime. I play like shit again, enough to take the team to the brink of a loss, before Hollow comes up with the clutch goal to sweat out a win.

The flight back to Tampa is quiet. I sink into my seat and stare out the window at nothing but darkness and the occasional blink of wing lights. My knee throbs in time with the engine hum. The ache spreads up through my thigh, a reminder of every bad pivot, every missed step tonight.

Blair drops into the seat across the aisle from me.

Hayes snores three rows back. Hollow’s got his headphones on, eyes closed. The rest of the guys are scattered throughout the cabin, some sleeping.

I shift in my seat and my knee protests. Blair’s eyes flick to me. In the dim cabin light, his eyes are darker than usual, storm clouds gathering. “You want to do this now?”

“Do what?”

“Beat yourself up for the next three hours?”

I turn back to the window. My reflection stares back. “I’m fine.”

He unbuckles and slides into the empty seat next to me. His shoulder brushes mine as he settles in, bringing that scent again—Key lime and salt, warm coconut, sunshine. “Talk to me,” he says.

How do I tell him that every mistake feels like proof that I don’t belong here? That I’m waiting for Coach to realize he made an error putting me on this line? That I wake up some mornings convinced this is all temporary, a fluke that’ll end the second everyone sees through me?

“Kicks.”

“You should’ve pulled me,” I say. “After the second. Or at least bumped the line.”

“That what you think I should’ve done?”

“I kept whiffing my coverage. You saw it.”

“You lock it down every game.”

“I didn’t tonight.”

He waits, his gaze steady, for me to share the rest.

“What if—” I stop, jaw tight.

“What if what?” he asks.

“What if… All I had was one hot month? What if I’m not really any better than I was?” I finally drag my eyes up to meet his. “Everyone has streaks. Maybe this was mine.”

Blair studies me. “No. You’re not a streak. I’ve played with guys riding lucky streaks. They talk big, party harder, and act like they invented the sport. That’s not you.”

Blair’s knee presses against mine. I don’t move away. Neither does he. I want to believe him so badly it hurts.

“You got in your own head tonight. Bad games happen to everyone. You ended up chasing. Reaching. I’ve been there.”

He leans closer, his voice soft as worn velvet. “We cleaned it up; that’s the point of a line. We work together. You were off tonight, but I still want you next to me when the puck drops for tomorrow’s game.”

The cabin feels smaller with him this close. Someone’s phone buzzes a few rows back. Hayes shifts in his sleep, mumbles something about pancakes.

“I used to do the same thing,” Blair says after a moment. “After bad games. Tear myself apart for hours. Replay every mistake until I couldn’t see straight.”

I want to lean into him. Want to rest my head on his shoulder and let his certainty seep into me.

“You’re harder on yourself than any coach would ever be. Trust your instincts,” he says. “Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” I say.

“Then trust me when I tell you this: you belong here. On this team. On my line.”

I turn my head, and suddenly we’re too close, close enough that I could count his eyelashes if the light were better, close enough to see the exact shade where sea meets the sky in his eyes.

“You could have anyone centering you.”

In the half-dark, Blair’s face is all shadows and certainty. “I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

I sketch him later, huddled in his jersey in my bed as I replay the game. My pencil moves across the page, and I pause it on a frame where Blair’s reaching for the puck, extending his stick. My turnover. His recovery.

“Stupid,” I mutter, watching myself chase the play instead of reading it. The mistake is so obvious now.

We cleaned it up; that’s the point of a line.

I sketch his hands next, strong hands that know exactly what they’re doing. My drawing doesn’t do him justice, but it helps me think.

My page fills with fragments of him. His profile when he turned to me on the plane. The set of his shoulders during sled pushes. The exact angle of his lips when he said I want you.

On my line, he meant. On his line.

I close the sketchbook and dig my palms into my eyes. You belong here.

He meant on the ice. It’s only about the ice. But the pressure behind my eyes does nothing to block out the memory of his knee against mine or the low vibrations of his voice.

I pull the collar of his jersey up to my nose and breathe in. It’s not really his; he’s never worn it. But I still pretend. The fabric is worn from too many nights like this one; his name sits heavy between my shoulder blades.

I shouldn’t be curled up in his jersey like some lovesick teenager, replaying every word he said on the plane until they blur together into more than what they were. But here I am anyway, pathetic and wanting and unable to stop myself.

The sketchbook lies open beside me, Blair’s hands frozen mid-motion on the page. I wanted to capture them wrapped around the sled handles and ghosting under my arms during my bench press. Two fingertips, barely there, but enough to rewire my nervous system.

I close my eyes and sink deeper into the jersey.

The numbers stack up in my head like tallies on a scoreboard, but they’re mine, scratched into the walls of my chest where no one else can read them. Thirteen goals together, him to me, me to him, the puck finding its mark. Twenty-five assists, our chemistry bleeding out to lift the whole team.

Five times his shoulder found mine—in the tunnel, on the bench, in the gym, and tonight when he slid into the seat beside me.

Four smiles that weren’t for the room or the cameras or the game. Four times his face broke open for me.

Fifty-one days sober.

Fifty-one days of choosing this over that, of proving to myself that I can be the person Blair sees when he looks at me.

My fingers find the captain’s C stitched on the chest of his fake jersey, and I trace the letter in the dark, following each curve and angle.

Tomorrow we play again. Tomorrow I’ll lace up and step onto the ice and try not to let him down. Tomorrow I’ll swallow every word that wants to spill out when he looks at me across the face-off circle.

But tonight, wrapped in his jersey, I imagine, only for these hours.