Page 7 of Wrap Around (Forbidden Goals #7)

SILAS

We're two weeks into the season and I don't think I've been this tired since finals my senior year, when Adaline was a colicky newborn and Lily and I were surviving on caffeine and prayer.

Even then, at least I wasn't trying to figure out whether my former best friend was going to pass me the puck or beat me to death with it.

We pulled off a couple of wins by the skin of our teeth last week.

Barely, and they felt like flukes. Sure enough, we dropped two in a row after that.

We're on a losing streak, and I can't help but blame it on mine and Gideon’s on-ice chemistry, or lack of it.

I've been busting my ass to make up for his bullshit, but my energy is waning.

For one short moment, I thought maybe we were getting our rhythm back, but something shifted again.

I don't know what I did this time, or what's caused him to pull back even more, but I've been struggling to make up for it.

Now we're back in Abbotsford, getting ready for another game.

I'm praying that Gideon will pull his head out of his ass before the puck drops.

Because if we can't figure out how to play together, we're not going to last the season.

The whole team knows it, too. I see the pitying way they look at me, and they don't even know everything I went through to get here.

Off the ice, I'm doing everything I can to stay grounded.

I've been helping Lily unpack the new house between games, practices, and workouts.

I've been living out of a suitcase or in tiny apartments and billet housing for so long, I’d forgotten what it's like to have my own place.

This house is huge compared to what we're used to.

And a big house means a lot of furniture and building a thousand damn shelves.

Not that I'm mad about it. This place feels way too nice for a couple of kids who have been living in a single-wide behind their parent’s house until now, but it's ours.

There's a fenced-in backyard, a whole room for laundry, and a kitchen island that made Lily squeal so loudly I worried the glass light fixtures might shatter.

Even that reaction couldn't compare to her own suite with a private bathroom and enough shelves for her own personal library, which I set up early to surprise her with.

Building all those IKEA shelves was worth it to see her smile.

Lily is excited to finally decorate, and I see a lot of painting in my future, starting with purple for Addy's room.

We picked it out yesterday, right before we took our baby girl to the playground that's only a block away from our house.

It was an almost perfect moment, watching Adaline run straight for the sandbox, messy curls bouncing, knowing this is our real life right now. We made it.

It'd be better if Gideon wasn't ignoring Lily's calls. She gets sent to voicemail, texts left on read. He's not even responding to her emails like he usually does. If I wasn't seeing his grouchy ass nearly every day at practice, I'd worry he'd fallen off the earth.

Lily doesn't understand why Gideon is acting the way he is, and it hurts me that I can't tell her.

She asked me, point blank, what happened between us to make it this bad, but all I could do was shrug and shake my head.

Something's got to give or I'm going to break.

Either from the exhaustion of chasing him, or the frustration of holding all of these secrets inside. And I'm almost at my limit.

When I hit the ice for warmups, my legs feel like they’re made of concrete. Every stride drags like I’m pulling bricks. I haven’t been able to shake this fatigue all week. It’s been bad enough that the trainers were worried I might be getting sick, but I know that’s not it.

Coach keeps throwing me out there with Gideon, and every time, I want to scream at him for being so goddamn stubborn. Both of them—Coach and Gideon.

It’s not that we don’t have chemistry. That’s never been the issue. It isn’t now, either.

It’s the silence between plays. The way Gideon won’t look at me, not even when he’s passing. Somehow, we’re still hanging on in this game, but just barely.

When the clock hits zero and we’re tied 3–3 at the end of regulation, I’m ready to cry. I’m bent over on the bench, elbows on my knees, sucking in air like I’ve just run a marathon. My whole body is screaming to stop, but I can’t. Not yet.

Coach calls our line for overtime.

Gideon skates out ahead of me, all muscle and purpose, and I follow like a shadow. We take the faceoff in the neutral zone. I win it clean and tap the puck to Casey Ives, who moves it fast to Gideon on the wing.

He’s either too tired to keep ignoring me or finally realizes we need to end this now, because he actually passes it back. Then he takes off down the left side like he’s being chased by demons.

I smack the puck forward, watching the defense collapse around him a second too late. He doesn’t force the shot. Doesn’t play the hero .

He just draws the attention and flicks the puck back to me, quick and clean.

I don't hesitate. In one breath, I snap it high, glove side. The goalie doesn't even move, his attention still on Gideon.

The puck hits the net. The horn blares like a war cry. And just like always, Fall Out Boy’s “Light ’Em Up” explodes through the arena.

My teammates explode into their own war cries, celebrating a much-needed win. But I don't move. I'm as frozen as the ice under my skates, staring across the rink, where Gideon is staring right back at me.

And for half a second, maybe less, he smiles. It's barely a twitch at the corner of his mouth. But I know him, and I know that look. I know what he looks like when he's proud of a play we just made.

It's gone as quickly as it came. His eyes shutter and he skates towards the rest of our teammates lining up for handshakes like the moment didn't happen. Like it didn't mean anything.

But I felt it. Felt him .

And that tiny, flickering thing in my chest that's a little too similar to hope for comfort? It sparks to life again.

Back at the hotel, my weary body sinks into the mattress.

"You look exhausted," Lily says with a sympathetic pout. "You should probably take a day off before we do any more projects around here, yeah?"

"Meh," I say, too tired to consider anything past finding a t-shirt before Gideon's done in the shower.

I'm flopped across the bed in my boxers, laughing as Lily recounts their day.

She's sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in hand, a fuzzy blanket over her knees, and her hair twisted into a messy bun on top of her head.

She looks cute as hell, and it makes me smile.

She's telling me about how Addy tried to flush a banana down the toilet today, followed by a stuffed monkey, before she was able to redirect all that toddler energy into a finger painting.

Which turned into a food finger painting, on the front of our brand-new stainless-steel fridge.

Lily sends me a picture of the work of art in question, and I tell her about the hilarious blog I saw where some parents started putting little frames around all the various ‘artwork’ their kids left on the walls around their house.

It feels good to laugh, even if I'm half delirious.

"Your bedtime video worked perfectly, by the way," she says. "She didn't even cry tonight. Just waved to you in the video and said 'night-night, Dada'. It was precious."

My throat clenches. We were worried that moving so far from the home she’s always known would impact her negatively, but she’s doing great. It’s not as if either of us mind giving her whatever extra cuddles and attention she needs.

"Who would have thought she'd be the best thing to ever happen to us?"

"Yeah," Lily says softly. "She's something special, isn't she?"

I hear the shower shut off, and a few minutes later, Gideon walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel.

He doesn't look at me or acknowledge me in any way, just grabs some sleep clothes from his open suitcase and sits on the bottom of his bed.

I do everything in my power not to look at him or imagine myself licking the drops of water that trickle down his abs.

"I gotta go," I tell Lily, my voice a little tight.

She nods. "See you tomorrow. Love you. "

"Love you," I say with a little wave before ending the call.

Tossing my phone on the bed, I head into the bathroom before Gideon looks over and sees my reaction to him. The steam still lingers in the air, curling around my senses, fogging more than the mirror. The scent of his spicy body wash is heavy. I close my eyes and breathe it in like a drug.

It shouldn't hit me this hard. It's just soap. It's just steam. It's just a memory of another life that I'll never get back.

But damn, it hits me.

It hits me hard, making the semi I sprouted in the bedroom fill to full mast.

I wonder if he ever thinks about me the way I think about him. If he ever aches like I do. If he remembers that day at the lake and feels like he's burning from the inside out to get back there.

In the shower, I use his body wash by accident, lathering my body with his scent and wishing it was his sweat instead.

I'm barely aware of my hand wrapping around my cock until I'm biting back a groan.

Just like always, I close my eyes and imagine what he was doing just minutes ago, when he stood in this very spot and washed himself.

Did he jerk off with me in the other room?

What does he think about when he touches himself, and what does he do if he thinks about me?

Does it make him excited? Does he imagine me touching him the way I did that day?

Or does he pinch himself the way they taught us to when we were young, to redirect our thoughts back to purity?