It’s all so familiar that there’s almost a comfort to it. There’s nothing Garrett hates more than feeling out of his skin, so everyday that happens like clockwork drives relief down his spine. What grates on him is the constant reminder of competition; they’re all there hoping to get picked for the season, and sometimes it shows in the way players are obviously more concerned about showing off than doing well as a team. 

The upside is Logan training alongside him; sometimes when the going gets tough, he’d turn his head midskate to where Logan is on the ice, and he’d feel like he’s back at their Briar rink again, skating just because it’s fun, just because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. Maybe that’s why it hits him harder than he lets himself show, when he gets picked to play for the Bruins straight after training and Logan gets thrown in the AHL. 

“G, I was passed over three times in the draft,” Logan had told him when the news broke out, somehow being the one to comfort him in a strange role reversal. “I knew my first season was basically done for, anyway.”

Garrett remembers huffing, then, the youthful stubbornness that got him through college still clinging on his freshly-graduated bones. “Yeah, but–”

“Just watch out for next season,” Logan interrupted him with a pat on his shoulder. “Then it’s me and you taking over the NHL. Yeah?”

He let out a small smile, just because he felt like Logan needed to see it more than hear his complaints. “You better play your ass off for the Baby B’s.”

It had worked, because Logan gives a breathy chuckle and pats his shoulder again, firmer this time. “You bet I will.”

And, to be very honest, Garrett’s rookie year is nothing short of amazing. Aside from a few mistakes his first couple games that can be chalked up to beginner’s nerves and him having an adjustment period, he probably plays the best he’s ever played. The energy is different when it’s the pros. Palpable. Almost like he can swat through it with his hockey stick. And it’s not lost on him that every move he makes on the ice, every goal, every tackle, every skid gets compared to his father. And so he plays even better. If they’re going to compare them either way, he might as well surpass the son of a bitch. 

They’re mid-season, about fifty games in, when Garrett meets her. 

It’s an away game against the Rangers, of all teams, so Garrett’s muscles are tense even before their plane lands in JFK. The whole journey from the airport to their hotel is blurry and robotic. He gets handed his keys in the lobby, which he receives with a nod, and then he’s in his hotel room, crashing on the bed, eyes trained up the ceiling. He hates feeling like this. Like his dad still has one hand gripping his wrist. Like the bruises all over his torso are still a credit to him. Especially now, when Garrett is probably the freest he’s ever been; he’s making his own money, building his own legacy on the ice. 

He hasn’t spoken to his dad in months, probably close to a year. But Garrett knows with cold certainty that Phil Graham will be on the stands tomorrow night, arms crossed over his chest, watching his every move like a predator stalking its prey. He might not approach Garrett. They might not see each other at all. But the effect will be the same; commentators noting his presence, sports analysts contributing how he’s going to play tomorrow to him being there. More comparisons. More shots of Phil’s reactions during plays. More post-game ambush interviews about making him proud. Garrett fucking hates it, and he hates that he can’t do anything about it even more. 

It’s 10 PM by the time he feels his stomach protesting loudly, and he remembers that he hasn’t eaten since the little plane snack he was given during the flight over. He knows the others are out somewhere on a team dinner, one he had opted out of with the excuse of sleeping the plane ride off. Part of him regrets the decision now, alone in his room with his stomach grumbling something angry. 

Garrett gets his phone out and squints at the screen. A few notifications greet him; a text from Logan, another one from Tucker to their group chat named ‘Dean’s Bitches’ of a pic of a meal he had prepared, some notifications from his private Instagram account. He shoots a quick reply to Logan and hearts Tuck’s picture before going on google to look up the nearest places he can grab a bite. 

Within minutes, Garrett finds himself in the streets of Manhattan, hugging a thick jacket to his body in an attempt to shield himself from the harsh February cold. The diner is easy enough to spot, tucked in between an ice cream shop and a laundromat. There’s only a few people inside, so he luckily gets a booth to himself. He orders a steak, medium rare, their signature fries, a decaf coffee. He hesitates, then adds a chocolate chip pancake for good measure, making the waitress give him a motherly smile that makes his insides feel instantly warmer. 

Garrett’s in the middle of helping himself to a dinner roll when the bell by the entrance rings, accompanying with it a cool gust of wind that he feels even from where he’s sitting. 

He looks up and almost drops his bread. 

Her hair is long, almost to her waist, light and wavy and windswept, as if she’s constantly running her fingers through them. She has a black trench coat on, tied tightly at the waist. She’s beautiful in a way that makes Garrett’s stomach drop. 

He watches her scan the place almost absentmindedly, and then their eyes meet, gray to a color he doesn’t know yet. His breath hitches. It only gets worse when a small smile pulls at her lips and she begins walking to his table. 

“You play for the Bruins,” she says, eyes gleaming and smile still in place. 

She is even prettier up close, but her words bring up a safe enough topic that gets him back his bearings. Hockey, he can talk about. He nods with a smile, all false bravado. “Foreward center. Are you a fan or something?”

“Or something,” she says, before gesturing to the seat in front of him. “Can I?”

“Please,” he nods, trying to make his heart settle in his chest. 

She unties her belt with steady hands. Garrett finds himself looking at her fingers for some reason; lithe and long like a pianist, nails with a neat manicure he can’t describe for the life of him. She shrugs off her coat, folds it, then places it on the seat nearest the wall. She’s wearing a cozy cream knit sweater underneath and the tip of her nose is red from the cold. No wedding ring, but a lot of ear piercings. All of this he notices from the five seconds it takes her to sit down in front of him. 

“That final goal you made at your last game was pretty sick,” she tells him, eyes already scanning the menu a waitress handed her the minute she got settled in her seat. “I’ll have your classic pancakes, please. Thank you.”

Garrett rubs a hand over his right jaw. He doesn’t know how to place her. She’s not acting like a puck bunny, or even a regular fan. She says the words straightforwardly, like she’s just stating a fact. She doesn’t seem intimidated by him, or nervous, or even particularly affected by his presence, even if she did ask to sit with him. So instead he just says, “Thank you,” his voice going gruff by the end.

“Tomorrow’s going to be tough, though,” she continues, eyes now running over his figure as if she’s contemplating the Bruins’ odds at tomorrow’s game. “It’s got history. The Rangers won’t go down without a fight.”

He leans back at this. He knows what she’s insinuating; his dad’s legacy, his dad’s home rink. Like he gives a fuck. “We know that. We’re ready.”

“Good,” she grins at him, and for a moment Garrett forgets about the pressure that’s been weighing him down since the flight to New York, since he saw the tweets about the game and his dad and the eyes on him tomorrow. The only thing in his mind right then is how gorgeous she looks, flushed from the weather and talking about his game like she’ll personally be affronted if he loses. 

“Who are you?” He can’t help but ask by the time their food has arrived and she’s midway through talking his ear off about all the mistakes the Penguins made on their last match. She raises an eyebrow at that, immediately making the tips of his ears red. “I mean–you just. You seem to know so much about hockey.”

It’s her time to blush at that, a pretty pink color that sends very ungentleman-like images straight to Garrett’s brain. “I kind of grew up with it. My dad also used to play.”

“Wait, really?” That stuns him for a moment, makes him look her over with brand new eyes. Nothing in her appearance reminds him of any older player he knows in particular, but then again, there are hundreds of retired NHL athletes. “Who? Do I know him?”

She lets out a little laugh, stabbing a piece of pancake with her fork. “Trust me, you know him.”

“What team?”

She gives him a knowing look, deliberately dragging her eyes up and down his frame.

“The Bruins?” Garrett asks, mind already going over the potential prospects. “Shit. I’m stomped. I have no idea.”

Another look falls on her face, more amused and a little bit exasperated. Garrett narrows his eyes and looks at her properly again. Light hair. Full lips. Strong jaw. And–

Green. Her eyes are green. Familiarly so.

“No way,” he says, a disbelieving laugh already coming out of his mouth. She grins back at him with a shrug, making him huff once more in disbelief. “Shit. You’re Andrew Sinclair’s daughter.”

“Guilty.”

Garrett wracks his brain for a name. He’s sure he’s read about her somewhere, or Andrew’s mentioned her during team dinners with former Bruins players. Something short. Maybe starting with an ‘A.’ Anna? Ara? No. He says the name he’s thinking of out loud.

He knows by the way her breath hitches that he gets it right.

“And you’re Garrett Graham,” she says, leaning forwards on the table a little. 

He tries not to be too smug. “You know who I am?”

“The same way you know I am,” she grins back brightly. 

It’s then that Garrett remembers something incredibly important–more important than her being a legacy kid like him, or her being so gorgeous under the fluorescent diner lights that it’s almost unfair. She's Andrew Sinclair’s daughter. Andrew Sinclair, former captain of the Boston Bruins and Phil Graham’s number one rival. 

“Oh,” he says dumbly, which seems to make her more amused. 

“Right,” she chuckles before echoing, “oh.”

He looks down at his plate; the half-eaten steak, the untouched stack of chocolate chip pancakes right next to it. Of all the people in the city he could meet tonight, right when he’s close to spiralling about playing against his dad’s home team, it happens to be the daughter of his rival. It’s like the universe is telling him something, or sending a big ‘fuck you’ to his dad. Either way, Garrett’s not one to look at a gift horse in the mouth. 

“It’s a good thing I play for your dad’s team, then,” he finds himself saying, elbows resting on the laminate table and head leaning down so he can speak more quietly. 

The edge of her mouth twitches, but something in her eyes tells him that there’s interest there, too. “Really?”

“Yeah, well,” he feigns a shrug. “Wouldn’t want your dad thinking you’re sneaking around with the enemy.”

This time, she’s helpless at the way her face betrays her amusement, eyes crinkling and mouth parting with a silent laugh. “Who says anything about sneaking around?”

“Let me see,” Garrett begins, tapping his fingers on the table. “It’s eleven pm at night in Manhattan, we’re here having dinner just the two of us, you look pretty enough to be on a date…Think of the optics.”

She raises her eyebrows and chances a glance under the table. “You’re literally wearing sweatpants.”

“Irrelevant,” Garrett shoots back with a wave of his hand. 

She doesn’t bother holding back her laughter now, throwing her head back against the booth and exposing the soft line of her throat. “I like the confidence.”

“Thank you.”

“Unfortunately,” she drags out, widening her eyes at him mockingly. “We can’t be on a date.”

It’s his turn to raise his eyebrows. “No?”

“No,” she shakes her head at him, faux solemn. “We can’t be on a date because I have a boyfriend.”

Garrett feels his stomach drop to the floor. Disappointment, mostly, though there is also a hint of something more dangerous. Stubbornness. Boyish and annoying and unfortunately very on brand for him. He scrambles for his next words, seeing her watch him closely, her eyes twinkling and her lips pulled to a small smile. She’s enjoying this. 

“That’s funny,” Garrett finally says, and he hates that his voice comes out more scratchy, letting her know that she caught him off guard. He glances around. “I don’t see him.”

She cuts up another piece of pancake, taking her sweet time letting him wallow in the charged silence. She picks one up with a fork and only pauses when it’s hovering near her perfect lips. “You will.”

The Bruins lose. Badly. 2-5, with Garrett only scoring one of two. In hindsight, he knows he did his best; the pressure was on; they were on the Rangers home rink; fucking Phil was in the stands looking at him with a small smile that he itches to punch off his face. But the loss feels like a loss, anyway. And Garret’s never been one to lose elegantly. The one good thing about not being captain, though, was that he gets to fuck off and forgo post-game interviews in favor of wallowing in the shower. 

He gets a few pats in the back and shoulders as he walks past the tunnel. From behind him near the rink, he hears the voice of their captain, Luke, beginning his rounds of questions, his voice clipped back but polite, a bit out of breath but still composed. Garrett doesn’t know how he does it, but he supposes Luke is a veteran at this point, having played for the Bruins for over a decade and being captain for five years. 

“You win some, you lose some,” someone says from the side of the room, and Garrett looks over to see Andrew Sinclair, his arms crossed in front of his chest, lips turned into a frown. That’s not what Garrett’s eye focuses on, though, because beside him, clad in the same black trench coat she was wearing the night before, stands her, hair just as windswept, face carefully blank. 

Her eyes suddenly avert towards him, and he finds himself halting in his steps. She raises an eyebrow, as if saying, ‘I thought you said you were ready?’ which doesn’t make his mood any better, so he huffs out a breath and continues towards the locker room. 

He takes a long shower, letting the hot water melt away the agitation sitting on top of his skin like dirt. He hears his teammates coming and going. His phone is probably blowing up. Some pitying messages from his friends. Tucker had organized a watch party at the hockey house. Logan and Dean definitely watched from their own places. They probably knew from the moment Garrett stepped foot on the ice that something was off. They’d played together enough times for them not to. He doesn’t even want to start with the internet and what they’re saying about him. Reddit’s probably tearing them to shreds. Twitter’s probably full of puck bunnies defending them. It’s exactly what he doesn’t need. 

The hot water runs out, and Garrett is forced to step out of the cubicle, dripping to his toes. He snatches his towel and begins to dry himself off in quick, calculated movements, already envisioning the bed in his hotel room and the flight back. He can’t wait to get away. 

The door to the locker room swings open, and Luke walks in, half his gear already falling off his body. He starts at the sight of him. “Graham. You’re still here?”

“Long shower,” he answers, shoving his legs into the gray sweats he brought. He dresses methodically. Deodorant. White t-shirt. His beloved Briar hoodie. A few sprays of cologne. 

“You okay?”

Garrett hates the careful tone. Like he’s a ticking time bomb. Like he’s a kid about to throw a temper tantrum. Nothing in the way he plays or has behaved since he went pro indicated that he’s the type of person to do that. He worked fucking hard throughout college to cure himself of that innate anger. But that doesn’t matter to anyone outside his inner circle, because to them, he’ll always be Phil Graham’s son. “I’m fine, man. Not the first game we lost; it certainly won’t be the last.”

He shoulders his duffel bag and walks away. 

She is right outside when he steps out of the locker room, back pressed to the cold wall, legs crossed over the other, one hand busy with her phone while the other is tucked into her coat pocket. 

“Hey,” Garrett blinks in surprise, adjusting the bag on his shoulder. 

“Hey, yourself.” She gives him a smile. Garrett notes that she still looks annoyingly beautiful, like she waited in the hallway just to haunt him. “So…”

“Don’t,” he shakes his head, already knowing where she’s going with this. 

She looks at him, mustering an innocent expression that’s betrayed by the light in her eyes. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to,” Garrett says with a sigh. 

She tilts her head, eyes narrowed at him like she’s examining him for something. He hates that he feels her gaze straight to his stomach. “You don’t know me.”

“I know that you wanted us to win tonight,” Garrett shrugs. “And we ate shit. We both know it.”

She considers him for a second, and then she shrugs, a real smile tugging her lips upwards. “Okay. That goal was clean, though, I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks,” he deadpans. “That makes me feel so much better.”

“I aim to please.”

“Yeah?” Garrett raises an eyebrow. He feels another pang in his stomach at seeing how that makes her falter, her cheeks turning darker with heat. 

She bites her lip, like she’s choosing her next words carefully. “You should stop flirting with me.”

Garrett walks closer, until he’s only a few steps away from her. “Why?”

Up close like this, he can see each heave her chest makes, going up and down in time with her breaths. He can see her fingers twitch, like she’s aching to touch him just as much. She wants him. Garrett is almost confident about that. She’s just holding herself back. And Garrett’s never been one to back down from a challenge. 

“I told you,” she says, voice low in a register that makes him swallow harshly. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Right,” he nods, pursing his lips. “And I still don’t see him.”

Before she could speak, the locker room door opens again, and Luke steps out, hair unbrushed and dripping wet like he didn’t have the time to towel it dry. Garrett steps back from her instinctively, but he frowns when he sees the way she tenses up, arms coming to wrap around herself. 

“Babe,” Luke greets, and Garrett watches in silent horror as his captain crosses the space between them and presses a chaste but tender kiss to her temple. “I’ve got a quick meeting with our coaches. I’ll meet you at the hotel?”

She nods, smiling up at him. But it looks different. Mellower, maybe. Whatever it is, it’s a far cry from how she smiled at Garrett earlier, and definitely leagues away from how she smiled last night. Garrett feels his feet stuck in place, like his shoes have suddenly been glued to the concrete floor. He watches the entirety of their ten second interaction mutely, lips slightly parted in shock, brain going about a thousand miles per minute trying to compute what he’s seeing. 

“See you, Graham,” Luke says to him, as if finally registering his presence. 

Garrett doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing. “Yeah, bud.”

His throat feels dry. He knows he’s frowning, looking at her with unhidden confusion. She refuses to meet his gaze, which only serves to deepen his frown. 

He waits until Luke is out of sight before clearing his throat, because not doing so will definitely result in his voice sounding pathetic. “Him?” Garrett wishes he could unsee the way she jumps at the words, even if his voice remains low. “Luke’s your boyfriend?”

She glares at the floor for a second before averting it on him. She juts her chin out defiantly. “Yes. And?”

“I–” Garrett struggles to find the appropriate words, so in the end he just goes for the truth, which more often than not gets him going straight for the jugular. “He’s old.”

“He’s not old.”

“He’s like forty.”

She glares even harder. “He’s thirty-eight.”

“You can’t be older than twenty-five,” Garrett continues, his mind still trying to process what he witnessed. The term of endearment. The casual touch and kiss. It makes his skin crawl. 

“I’m twenty-three. I’m an adult.” She shakes her head, but she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than him. 

Garret clenches his jaw. He didn’t even know Luke had a girlfriend. And Andrew Sinclair’s daughter, of all people? How can her dad approve? How is this not a big news somewhere? Is he so offline that he wasn’t aware of the two of them?

“I can literally hear you thinking, you know,” She tells him, her tone more forcibly relaxed now, as if she’s decided that whatever is on his mind isn’t worth the fight. Because who is Garrett, anyway? He’s just a stranger who plays for her father’s former team whom she had dinner with one night. And not even a date-dinner, either. Just dinner. An unplanned one. At a diner. They had pancakes, for god’s sake. “Just say it.”

Garrett swallows harshly. Where she was within reach just a few seconds ago, now she feels lightyears away, barricaded by invisible forces and a glaring neon sign saying ‘CAPTAIN’S GIRLFRIEND. DO NOT KISS.’ His brain is still catching up on trying to uphold the suddenly very sacred rule that’s been laid out in front of him. 

“I think,” he starts to say, trying to ignore how his body responds to the way she looks, the way she’s looking at him like she’s waiting for him to drop the other shoe, how much he hated it when Luke got too close to her. “I think I need a drink.”

She pauses for a second, before a slow grin takes up her entire face. “Perfect. Lead the way.”

The next time Garrett sees her is months later, at the NHL Awards held in Las Vegas where he’s up for the Calder Memorial Trophy award as Rookie of the Year. It’s something Garrett never even considered within the realm of possibility; something even his dad hadn’t achieved in his career. And so Garrett spends the whole week leading up to it buzzing under his skin. He takes Logan as his plus one, because Tucker is busy with college and letting Dean loose in a room full of important people is a recipe for disaster. He doesn’t see her on the red carpet when he walks it–he doesn’t think of her at all, actually, which is a rarity in itself. The Rangers game had been the last one she attended for the season so far; something about being busy in grad school studying sports journalism that he only knows about because they’ve become Instagram mutuals who occasionally like and reply to each others’ stories. 

Just because he hasn’t seen her in a while doesn’t mean Garrett forgets about her, though. The second night they spent together at his Manhattan hotel bar bonding over hard liquor, fruity cocktails, and Hockey stays engraved in Garrett’s mind. The way she looked that night, flushed from the alcohol and temples damp with sweat. How freely she laughed at all his quips, even when he wasn’t trying to be funny. How she avoided the topic of her controversially older boyfriend (who happens to be Garrett’s captain) expertly, dodging his subtle questions and launching into a different topic that will carry him away. If he had thought she was beautiful in the diner when they first met, it was nothing compared to how she looked with her walls halfway down, lips turning blue from her drink and her voice scratchy from overuse. 

He had walked her up to her room, partly because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, and also partly because he didn’t want their night to end. The need to touch her itched at his bones. He knew it couldn’t happen. It simply couldn’t. And yet he wished for it anyway the whole elevator ride, the silence between them thick with tension and unspoken want. The worst part is Garrett can see how much she wished for it too. For him. She had looked at him through the corners of her eyes the whole ride up with her lower lip bitten, as if that made things easier. When they reached her room, she had pressed up against the door, eyes dark, looking up at him through her lashes. “We should probably stay clear of each other from now on. Just to be safe.”

Garrett remembered biting back a smirk. It’s the closest she’ll ever admit to feeling the thing that is beating alive and pressing in between them, so he nodded his head, not wanting her to take the subtle admission back. “Okay.”

“Just to be safe,” she repeated, catching his eyes meaningfully.

“If you don’t go inside soon, I’m going to kiss you,” Garrett had told her, making her gasp slightly and back up even more into the door. 

Her eyes had dropped to his lips afterwards. Garrett remembers this clearly, because his own had followed her gaze down, and it had taken all of his self-control not to follow his words through. 

“I’m going,” she whispered, reaching out an index finger to push lightly at his chest. The contact had burned through his shirt. “Goodbye, Garrett.”

She gave him one more look, and then she got inside.

He spent five minutes standing there in the hallway, head tilted to the ceiling and cursing everything that led him to that moment.

So no. Garrett couldn’t exactly forget her after that. He tries, though. 

He still hooks up with other women. He goes through his games with a single-minded focus to win, because he knows wherever she is, she’s keeping tabs on their matches. He tries not to be awkward around Luke, even when he finds himself flinching whenever he mentions her offhandedly, or whenever Garrett finds him being a little too friendly with the puck bunnies tailing after them at their away games. Garrett tries not to think about her so much that he begins dreaming about her; sometimes it’s just recollections of their time together, other times his brain tries to supply what could have happened if he’d had enough balls and kissed her in that hotel hallway anyway, even with the knowledge that she’s somebody else’s. It’s a relief, really, that his Calder nomination took his mind off her even for a moment. Garrett’s never been good at not getting what he wants. And he wants her. Badly. Almost desperately. 

The problem with wanting someone you can’t have is that sometimes you long for them hard enough that they materialize right under your nose undetected. And when they do, you find yourself thinking that even the littlest of scraps from them will be fine, as long as you still get to call those parts yours. That’s what Garrett’s thinking about, anyway, sitting at the same table as her and Luke and her dad at the NHL awards, him trying to act normal at finally seeing her after months of social media stalking and shallow comments and Logan giving him questioning looks every five minutes that tells him no, he’s definitely not being normal. 

He sees Luke lean in to whisper something in her ear, and his hands form fists hard enough that Logan takes notice.

“G, are you sure you’re alright?” Logan says under his breath, shooting him a concerned look. “You look…”

Angry, he doesn’t say out loud, but Garrett already knows. His jaw is clenched. His hands fisted. He probably looks pissed off as fuck. And she is sitting there, eyes darting towards him every once in a while like she’s allowed. Like she knows what she’s doing to him and she does it anyway.

“I’m fine,” Garrett manages to grit out, forcing himself to relax. “Just nerves.”

She cut her hair, he realizes blatantly, the waves now falling just past her shoulders. And her dress. God. Deep-burgundy, leather, plunging. It’s like she’s designed just to test his limits. 

Their eyes meet again. Her lips twitch, like she knows exactly what’s going on in his mind.

Fucking hell. 

“I think you’re up next,” Logan says, perking up in his seat. “You ready, G?”

Garrett reaches for his glass of water and gulps it down. He shakes his head, mostly to himself. “I’m not gonna get it.”

“You’re gonna get it.”

His eyes snap towards her, who has raised her eyebrow at him challengingly. Luke is preoccupied talking to their coach seated beside him, but her father hears her and raises his glass in Garrett’s direction with a laugh. “Oh, definitely.”

Garrett forces himself to look away from her, the stubborn set to jaw her making the room feel a hundred degrees hotter. 

“You’re gonna get it,” Logan says this time, lips pulled up in excitement. “And if you don’t, fuck it, right? You had your best fucking season yet, man. Savor it because I’m stealing the thunder in the next one.”

That eases the ball of nerves in his gut, and Garrett finally lets out a genuine chuckle. Logan’s been unbearable ever since finding out he’s being promoted to the NHL for the next season, but Garrett can’t say he isn’t relieved to be finally playing with his best friend again. 

The announcers go on stage, and Garrett feels his grip on his glass tighten. It’s not a big deal, really. He still had an amazing rookie season. He’s swimming in money and sponsorships. He just bought a new car the other week. It’s not a big deal that Phil never even got nominated, or that for once he didn’t bother to show up and ruin his night. It’s no big deal that he feels her staring at him, like she’s so sure he’s going to win. 

And then it happens. 

He wins. 

Their table erupts in cheers, all of them standing to their feet. Garrett feels weightless. Logan is shaking him by the shoulders, but he seems to have lost his hearing, the noise around him muffled and unintelligible. For a second, his eyes meet her’s; her smile is small compared to the other people around them, her hands politely clapping. But her eyes. Warm and wanting and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

Garrett clears his throat and tries to think of unsavory thoughts the whole way to the stage. He’s not going to receive his Calder trophy with a visible hard-on, thank you very much. 

The after party is loud and dark. Occasionally, a stripe of neon would cut across the space and make Garrett wince, but he knows better than to leave too early. Every time someone spots him, they reach for a hug or a handshake, so familiar with him even if he’s never seen their faces before. He’s showered with congratulations and good jobs and enough compliments to boost his ego straight to space. He thinks of the trophy he won, sitting all by its lonesome in his hotel room nightstand. He barely had the time to put it there before he was dragged back down, because he simply couldn’t miss the celebration as the ‘man of the hour.’ 

Logan is out there somewhere, already smashed in the face. The last time Garrett had seen him, he’d been embarrassingly emotional about the whole thing, which Garrett would never admit had made his own throat feel tight. And then some of the guys from the team snatched him over, talking about some initiation for the new recruits. Garrett watched them drag his best friend away with a reluctant smile, the drink in his hand clinking from the melting ice cubes. 

He doesn’t mean to brood or stand alone in one corner. It just sort of happens that way. Everything still feels so surreal. Being in the pros. Winning the Calder Memorial Trophy. Finally getting Logan in the team with him. He feels out of his body. He doesn’t know how to deal with the thing he’s been working towards since he could remember slowly happening right in front of him, unfolding like a red carpet he’s meant to just walk on casually. Garrett’s torn between being happy and being anxious that at some point, it will all end. Not exactly the celebratory thoughts someone who just won rookie of the year should have. 

Garrett smells her perfume before he can even see her coming. It’s the same one she wore that night in the Manhattan hotel bar, the same one that permeated his senses as he stood across from her in the hallway in front of her room. She walks closer until she’s right beside him, her shoulder pressing against the same wall. “It should be illegal to look that broody with the night you’re having.”

“Hey,” he greets her, eyes fighting to stay on her face. It’s not an easy fight; with her close like this, he can feel the heat coming from her skin, see the rise and fall of her chest in his periphery. 

“Garrett,” she says, biting back a smile. “Congratulations.”

That gets a real smile from him that he tries to tamper down immediately. “Thank you. Where’s Luke?”

“Wow,” she says, raising her eyebrows to her hairline. “Straight to the point, are we?”

Garrett shrugs, and then he adds, just because it’s the truth and it’s been gnawing at him since he saw her seated at his table earlier that night, “You look beautiful.”

The words make her pause for a second.

“Luke is here somewhere,” she tells him. Her eyes have little specks of gold in between the green. Her irises are blown wide. He tries not to think too much about the reason why. “I’m not his keeper.”

“No,” Garrett agrees with a tilt of his head. “You’re his girlfriend.” The word feels bitter in his mouth. Wrong. It bothers him enough that he adds, just to tease, “and yet.”

She swallows. “And yet?”

“You’re here.” Garrett says with another shrug. “With me.”

She scoffs, her arms crossing in front of her chest. She does that a lot, he noticed. When conversations veer out of her control, or when she’s even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Garrett doesn’t know her, not really, but he knows body language. And hers is loud and easy to translate. “To offer my congratulations.”

“Sure,” he acquiesces with a nod, just a touch condescending, because he knows how to get a reaction from her. 

“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” 

“I’m sure of what I want,” Garrett corrects, stepping just a bit closer. 

She breathes in deeply through her nose. Her lips are parted, the red painting them slightly smudged now. Garrett wants to mess them up even more. Wants that color branded all over him. “Luke is your captain.”

“I know,” he says, because he does. He knows there’s no way this is going to end well. Garrett isn’t one to wish for things other people already have ownership of. He’s not one to wreck relationships. But he’s never wanted anyone as much as he wants her. And in his fucked up brain, that takes precedence. “You know the saying. What he doesn’t know…”

Like he said. Want something hard enough and you’ll settle for scraps. 

“You’re impossible,” she says, but the want is clear in her eyes, and her body is fully tilted towards him, like she just can’t help herself. 

“I’m in room 3504,” Garrett says, because he’s presumptuous and cocky and he’s burning underneath his skin. 

Her jaw drops, a chuckle getting out. “Impossible.”

Garrett finally lets himself look. He doesn’t hold back; he trails his eyes from her face to the skin of her neck slowly, down to her chest and the delicious swells of her breasts, the curve of her waist accentuated by the leather dress, the dip in her hips. He knows she’s trying to appear unaffected, but her chest puffs out under his scrutiny, like she subconsciously wants him to study her further. 

“Goodnight,” Garrett tells her simply, like he hadn’t just been looking over her like a starved man. 

Something flashes in her eyes. Regret maybe. Lust, definitely. Garrett allows himself to smirk. Just once. And then he leaves.

The after party’s basically dead, anyway. 

The knock comes sooner than he expects.

He’s probably been in his room for eight, ten minutes, his shoes kicked off, his suit jacket thrown over an armchair, the first few buttons of his shirt undone, when the sound echoes throughout the hotel room, sending heat down his spine instantly. No one else would bother him this time of the night. Everyone is too drunk and too tired and too preoccupied. So really, it could only be one person. 

Garrett gulps down harshly. It’s a bad idea–the worst, actually. There’s no way he’s getting out of this unscathed. And yet the image of her there right outside his door, unable to resist him, wearing that dress that’s been driving him insane all night…All morals go out the window. 

He crosses the room in three big strides. The second he opens the door, his breath leaves him.

For the first time since he met her, she looks unsure of herself. Her hands are fisted by her sides, but Garrett can see them shaking. Her shoulders are hunched slightly. She looks breathless, like she ran from the elevator to his door. But her eyes are clear. Determined. She wants this as much as he does. 

He opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to it. 

“Shut up.” She places one palm to his chest, already heaving with anticipation. The touch burns him instantly, the direct skin contact from his unbuttoned shirt sending tingles down his spine. She walks him backwards, lips bitten, and kicks the door close. It’s the hottest thing Garrett has ever seen. 

“Listen–”

Her hand on his chest suddenly grips his shirt to pull him close, their bodies flushing together. “Just shut the fuck up and kiss me.”

And, well, who the hell was he to decline?

They don’t mean for it to become an affair. 

That’s what Garrett says to himself, anyway, three weeks later in another hotel room, this time in New Jersey before their game with the Devils. She’s riding him steadily, her hands braced on his chest and her head thrown back. Garrett’s gripping the sides of her hips like a lifeline, helping her bounce on him, his feet planted on the mattress to get more power behind his thrusts. 

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. Something to take the edge off. To get her out of his system and vice versa. 

“Fuck,” she cries out, nails digging into the skin of his chest. Her mouth is dropped open, eyes closed shut. She feels so good wrapped around him that Garrett doesn’t even know what sex felt like before her anymore. “Garrett.”

“I know,” he grits out, squeezing her hips. “I know, baby.”

A choked sob leaves her straight from the chest. “I’m close.”

“I know,” he says again, before reaching one hand down between her legs where their bodies are meeting, finding her swollen nub of nerves expertly. “Let me help you.”

He feels her clench around him, and his thrusts stutter in pleasure. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but Garrett can’t help himself. He’s addicted–to her taste, to the way she feels, to her mouth, to the sounds that leave her lips when they’re tied together like this. Every single time with her feels like a revelation. The pleasure is always white-hot and delicious, the guilt secondary. Because who the fuck cares about screwing over his captain when his girl feels like liquid gold sinking down his cock?

“Don’t–” she says, slightly slurring. “Don’t stop. Please. Please.”

Garrett keeps his pace steady, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing harsh circles on her clit. He knows how close she is just by how much her cunt is fluttering around him, her hips jolting with every thrust, her face screwed up in abandon. 

He sits up suddenly, and the angle change causes another loud cry from her mouth. He buries his face in her jaw. Licks at her neck, her shoulder blades, the pulse point beating erratically under her skin. “Need you closer.”

“No marks,” she gasps out, but he barely registers the words. She shifts her head just enough to press their lips together. It’s messy and unbidden, the kind that he knows isn’t pretty from the outside; all spit and tongue and teeth clanging together. But the feel of her warm mouth on his gets a groan from his chest. Something about how dirty it is gets to him. The pure instinct of it. No false pretenses. Just raw need. 

Garrett feels her whole body tighten, around him and over him and against him, and suddenly she’s coming with a muffled shout, her thighs shaking from where she’s straddling him, the long line of her neck exposed. He can’t resist it, so he leans forward and nips at the skin there with his teeth, and with a loud grunt, he follows her over the edge, pumping her full of his release. 

The comedown is slow. She collapses on him, her knees giving out, but Garrett is unbothered by the extra weight. If anything, the close pressing of their bodies add to the warmth smothering his chest from the inside. She digs her nose into his neck and for a while they just lay there, him panting soft breaths into her hair, her warming his softening cock that’s still stuffed inside of her. 

“All good?” He finally manages to say, moving his head so he can look at her face.

Her eyes are closed, but her lips are ticked slightly upwards, a pleased smile if he’s ever seen one. “Stop fishing.”

“I’m asking how you are, Sinclair, not for a performance review.” Garrett chuckles. 

She huffs and opens her eyes. “Fine. 10/10, no notes–Garrett!”

Her squeal cuts off her own words, Garrett’s fingers finding their way to her waist and tickling the sensitive spots there. The movement makes him slip out of her, which in turn causes her to gasp for a whole other reason. 

“Sorry,” Garrett says, not feeling sorry at all. He stands up with a groan, then drags a hand down her arm gently. “Let me get you a warm towel.”

Her hand shoots out and catches his wrist, halting him. “Don’t bother. I need a shower.”

His eyebrows raise at that, gazing down at her naked body sprawled on his hotel sheets, sweat-glistened and perfect. “Oh?”

“Alone,” she corrects with a roll of her eyes. “Besides, don’t you have a team dinner in, like, fifteen minutes? Luke said something about going over some tapes informally.”

Garrett immediately tenses up at the mention of her boyfriend. 

She notices, because of course she does, and her face falls, the mood in the room suddenly flipping. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he shakes his head immediately, his jaw muscles working overtime. “Just. Do me a favor? Don’t mention him when you’re still naked in my bed with my come dripping out of you.”

She gives him a look. “Garrett.”

“What?” He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “It’s a fair request.”

Listen. Garrett knows he’s a piece of shit. He knows he’s fucking another man’s girl. Knows that he’s on the losing end of this arrangement. But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t suck. That it doesn’t make his chest ache sometimes when he thinks about their situation for too long. Or when she goes to a game wearing Luke’s name and number but having her eyes locked on Garrett, like that makes him feel any better. Like that doesn’t make him feel less like a dirty little secret. Whatever. He knows what he signed up for. 

She sits up slowly, looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. And then she’s closer, enough to wrap her arms around his waist and press her forehead to his stomach. His abs contract at that, and his cock stirs in half-interest. 

“I’m sorry,” she says against his skin, her warm breath hitting him softly. “Hey. I’m sorry, okay?”

She tilts her head so only her chin is pressing against his stomach this time, her eyes catching his. 

Garrett feels the tension leave his bones slowly, like blood oozing out of a small wound. One of his hands pushes back her hair to cradle her cheek. Sitting there by the bed, looking up at him with such gentleness and remorse, bare and pressed up against him and so comfortable in her nudity…It’s a losing fight. Because right now she looks like she’s his, and Garrett can’t always tame the part of him that wants her to stay that way. 

The first time she stays the night is during the off-season. They get a little break, just over two weeks, before starting with practice again. Luke goes home to his parents in Canada, and she goes home to Garrett’s Boston apartment. 

She brings one duffel bag of clothes, only planning to stay for at most four days. She ends up staying the entire break. 

The novelty of not having to sneak out of hotel rooms and look over their shoulders and cut their meetings short is like a drug. They spend almost the entire first week fucking on every surface of Garrett’s apartment: his bedroom, of course, and then braced against his vanity table and in front of the mirror; his gigantic tub, and then the bathroom sink; in the living room on the couch, on the living room floor, against the floor-to-ceiling one-sided windows. The kitchen is a dangerous place, because playing house and being domestic on top of all the fucking has Garrett developing some sort of pavlovian response to the sight of his quartz countertop. He had laid her there one morning and buried his face in between her legs long enough that they were both afraid the scent of her wouldn’t rub off the surface anymore. 

One night, about nine days in, she ties Garrett up to his headboard with fuzzy pink handcuffs that are surprisingly quite durable. She wears a black lace set that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination and grinds and teases him to oblivion, until he’s a panting, pleading mess. 

“Please, baby,” Garrett croaks out when she slips the panties off with a wiggle of her hips. He feels her dripping over his stomach. Sees her nipples poking out from the flimsy fabric of her bra. “I can–I can smell you. Feel you dripping.”

She hums, rubbing herself all over him. He struggles against the handcuffs hard enough to rattle the headboard. “Can you?”

Before he can speak, she lifts her waist and shifts her body down. For a moment Garrett thinks she’s going to take him in her mouth, but she skips his cock entirely and heads for his abdomen where her wetness has spread. “Oops. I made a mess. Sorry.”

And then she sticks her tongue out and licks his belly clean. 

“Fuck,” Garrett breathes out, straining against the cuffs again. “Fuck. Fuck. Come here. Baby, please.”

She’s grinning when she comes up, both hands braced on his shoulders and looking way too proud of herself. Garrett is too far gone to care. “What, baby?”

The nickname sends another streak of heat down his spine. “Come–fuck, just sit on my face. Sit on my fucking face.”

She freezes for a second. “What?”

“Please,” he sounds absolutely wrecked, his throat cracking with want and desperation. 

She exhales shakily, and then she moves up on his body until she’s hovering over his head. Her thighs are already trembling, her desire smearing on the insides messily. “Like this?”

“Closer,” Garrett says, voice rough. “Ride my face, baby. That’s it.”

The second she drops down on him, Garrett pounces. He eats her out like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Drinks her juices like a stranded man on a dessert who found an oasis. Groans at the taste like it’s the best meal he’s ever had. 

“Shit, Garrett,” she hisses, her eyes rolling back from the feel of his mouth, one hand coming up to brace against the headboard. Her hips jerk involuntarily with each stroke of his tongue, the flush in her face going down to her chest. “Yes. That–that’s it.”

The sounds they’re making are obscene. They’ve never been this loud before, had never been brave enough to allow themselves to be. Illicit affairs are meant to be kept secret, hidden in between random hotel rooms and carparks and the occasional public bathroom, with hands covering mouths and muffling noises that otherwise would inform everyone else of what’s going on. But in here, in Garrett’s apartment, in his bedroom, they can be whatever the fuck they want to be. 

“Not gonna last,” she mumbles. Garrett can already feel her twitching, the telltale signs of her orgasm that he has memorized so much they’re already engraved in his brain appearing flawlessly. “Garrett.”

He hums against her, and that’s all it takes. She comes with her mouth open in a silent scream, her breath leaving her lungs violently, riding his face for all its worth. It’s not graceful or perfectly on beat. That’s always what sets his veins on fire. It’s instinct; the most basic, human kind. Garrett could die suffocating on her release and he’d go a happy man. 

“Uncuff me,” he manages to pant out when she pulls away just enough to sit on his stomach again, still loose-limbed and floaty from her orgasm. “Baby. Uncuff me. Now, please.”

“Hold on,” she scrambles for the keys on the nightstand. She unlocks the cuffs with shaky fingers, her thighs still twitching from the aftershocks. The second his hands are free, Garrett’s on her, switching them so suddenly it makes her squeal. “Fuck!”

He huffs his laughter in her face, grin bright and eyes dark, his chain dangling in the space between their chests. “You done?”

“Is that rhetorical?”

Garrett gives her an unimpressed look before ducking down and catching her lips against his. He times it badly; her mouth is open, so the first press has him kissing the air inside her mouth and her basically eating his lips. Before she can laugh at that though, Garrett uses his hips to press her down, one hand going to her chin to adjust the angle and press their mouths together properly. She moans against him, gripping the nape of his neck and tugging at the curls there. 

He pulls away enough to breathe against her lips, “I need to be inside you so bad.” He shifts his weight and then hooks one of her legs over his hip. “Ready?”

She nods wordlessly, breasts heaving up and down in a torturous sight. Garrett guides himself to her entrance and doesn’t wait a second more before sinking into her tight heat. 

“Fuck,” she gasps, hands coming up to his shoulders. 

Garrett gives her another kiss. Chaste, this time, but no less heated. And then he begins to move his hips. He sets a furious pace, knowing this isn’t one of those times to drag it out. He’s been on the edge since she tied him up and gave him a show. He’s aching with the need to finish inside of her, to feel her milk him dry, to hear the choked whimper she always lets out whenever he does. He bends down and takes one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking harshly. 

“Shit, Garrett,” she curses with a gasp, her entire body jolting in place. Her grip on his hair tightens, and then she’s guiding him down to her face again for another kiss, their salivas mixing messily. “Hmm.”

“You feel so fucking good,” Garrett tells her once they pull away, breath fanning against her face. “Never been this good.”

Her face does something at that, but Garrett’s not really in the proper mental space to decipher what it means. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, baby.”

She reaches down to play with her own clit, but Garrett snatches her hand away, making her whine in protest. “Garrett.”

“No,” he grunts out, thrusting harder and getting a broken “oh!” from her mouth. “Want you to finish just like this. With just my cock.”

“I–” she stutters, eyes fluttering at another deep thrust. “I don’t know if–if I can.”

“Course you can,” Garrett adjusts their bodies slightly, and when he sinks down inside her again, he hits her right where she needs him, her sharp cry cutting sharply across the room. “There you go.”

He sees her eyes begin to fill with tears. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

Garrett can feel her clenching around him, can feel her thighs shaking almost violently where they’re pressing on his sides. It feels fucking amazing, the way it always is with her. And Garrett isn’t even sure what makes fucking her so different. He’s been with plenty of other women before. But he and her slot into place like they’ve been molded from the same clay. Like they’re just right for each other. He doesn’t think he’s alone in thinking this. He doesn’t think it’s just him. He doesn’t think Luke had ever fucked her this good. 

Sweat drips down both of their foreheads. Garrett loses his sense of time. All that matters is how hard she’s gripping him, the little whimpers from her lips, the teary eyes that refuse to look away from him. It’s fucking intense and it’s everything Garrett can’t imagine going without. 

He begins to feel the familiar tightening that starts low from his stomach. He tries hard to keep his pace, but it grows frantic anyway, because it feels too good and Garrett can only have so much self-control. 

She feels it too. “Inside,” she gasps out, digging her fingernails into his skin hard enough he’s sure she’s leaving half-moon marks. “I want it inside me. Come inside me, baby, please.”

“Jesus Christ,” Garrett groans, burying his face in her neck.

“Garrett–” she cries out, and it’s his only warning before she starts squirting around him, gushing all over his bedsheets with a choked gasp. 

Garrett lets out a sound, more animal than man, and buries himself as deep inside her as he can. “Shit.”

He continues fucking her through both their orgasms, their bodies trembling with aftershocks. 

Somehow the night simmers into something delicate and quiet. His hips move gently over hers, his hand tangling with her hair to get her to look at him. She’s so fucking beautiful his chest hurts, so he closes the distance between them and kisses her while they both wind down, soft and filled with something they’re both too cowardly to name. 

They’re freshly-showered and hungry. She is attempting to assemble a meal from the minimal ingredients Garrett has in his fridge and pantry while he’s sitting on his kitchen island watching her work. She’s wearing his shirt–an old Briar U Hockey one that’s slightly loose on the neckline and frayed at the edges. She looks comfortable. At ease. The image gives him all kinds of wrong ideas. 

“You surprisingly have a decent amount of greens,” she tells him, face buried in the fridge. 

Garrett snorts. “Don’t give me too much credit. I rarely do my own grocery shopping.”

She straightens up at that just to shoot him an unimpressed look, her nose scrunched up in fake disgust. “Forgot you’re an elite athlete with access to money and nutritionists for a second. My bad.”

“If you wanted a demonstration of my athleticism, you could have just asked.”

“Fuck off,” she says back before opening one of his kitchen cabinets. “I can probably do a veggie stir fry. That alright?”

“Yum,” Garrett nods, pauses, then adds, “Protein?”

She doesn’t stomp her feet, but it’s a close thing. “Ugh. Fine. There’s chicken breast here somewhere.”

They spend a few quiet minutes just existing around each other. Garrett tries to play some game on his phone, a mobile version of the Hockey video game they loved to play in college that Dean had recommended in their gc, but every few minutes he gets distracted by her moving in front of him. He never thought the sight of someone chopping vegetables and hovering over the stove with one hand on their hip would get him going, but like he said. He’s developing pavlovian responses to every single thing in his house these days. 

She reaches for some seasoning somewhere to the right of her, causing the shirt she’s wearing to ride up. Garrett can’t take it anymore, so he crosses the room and immediately wraps his arms around her from behind, nosing her neck and inhaling her scent deeply. She smells like his body wash and his laundry detergent and it makes him hug her to his body even tighter. 

“I’m cooking,” she admonishes, but he can tell it’s half-hearted by the smile threatening to take over her face. She leans back against him, her head to his shoulder, and shoots him a side-look. “Hi.”

“You’re pretty,” he mumbles into her skin. He can’t resist it; he nips at her clothed shoulder with his teeth. 

That makes her yelp. “Garrett!”

“That’s taking way too long,” he points at the pan of veggies offensively. “Come on. Let’s eat later.”

She laughs, a bright, tinkling sound that Garrett feels reverberating in his chest. “Garrett. We can’t just fuck and sleep the whole two weeks. We need sustenance.”

His eyebrows raise to his hairline. “Sustenance?”

“Shut up,” she laughs again at the sight of his smile slowly growing bigger. 

“You sound like my friend, Tucker,” Garrett chuckles, fingers traveling down her sides to squeeze at her hips. He doesn’t move away even when she continues stirring at the pan, just lets his body follow quietly along with her movements. 

She hums. “You miss them? Your friends?”

“Sometimes,” Garrett says, but then she turns her head slightly to give him a disbelieving look. He huffs. “Fine. A lot. I guess. I mean–I kind of spent most of my life alone. Solo sports clinics and training. I went to boarding school at eleven and didn’t really click with anyone there. But for four whole years, I had the guys.”

She places the spatula she’s holding down to turn towards him fully. “They’re your family.”

“Yeah,” Garrett shrugs, swallowing around the sudden tightness in his throat. “It feels weird that we live different lives now. Sometimes in the mornings I still expect to wake up to Tucker’s cooking, or Dean wreaking havoc in the living room, or Logan fiddling with his tools.”

She flicks the stove off. “You said you went to boarding school at eleven?” When he nods at that, her eyebrows furrow, like she can’t quite wrap her head around it. “Why?”

That makes him laugh, even as he’s reaching behind her to grab two empty bowls for them. “Because my dad’s an asshole and my mom died? I don’t know.”

“You never talk about him,” she suddenly says, voice more careful now, her eyes examining him closely. “Your dad.”

“I rarely talk to him, so.”

“He’s why you were so out of it at the Rangers game, right?” She asks. She begins scooping the stir fry into their bowls. “Can you grab us some forks?”

Garrett does as he’s told, then tips his head towards the kitchen island. 

He doesn’t want to talk about his dad, especially here in the sacred space they’ve built in his apartment these past few days, in a place his dad has never stepped foot on, has never tainted. He doesn’t want to tell her how weak and incompetent Phil Graham has made him feel, because those aren’t things you tell someone who you just fuck occasionally. But even labelling what they’re doing in his head as that feels wrong somehow, like he’s betraying their connection. But what are they doing? Because she is still very much Luke’s girlfriend, and Garrett is still her dirty secret. 

“Phil is a shitty person and an even more terrible dad and husband,” Garrett says instead, stabbing a piece of broccoli with his fork. “I’m better off with him out of my life. Let’s just leave it at that.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but her phone rings suddenly, buzzing against the solid countertop. They look down at it at the same time. Luke.

Immediately, Garrett is filled with this cold sensation, like he’s been doused with icy water. She looks at him like she’s guilty of something, and it makes the feeling worse. He clenches his jaw and pushes away from the island, turning his back on her and going to the fridge to pretend like he’s looking for something. 

He hears her pick the call up. “Hello?”

Even just the sound of her voice, too timid and smaller than what she usually uses, gets him to grip the door of his fridge tight enough that his knuckles turn white. Still, he can’t help but be hyperfocused on every word out of her mouth, his brain trying to supply what Luke could be saying on the other line. Clearly Garrett enjoys torturing himself. 

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she says, and then she laughs, fake and shallow. Garrett doesn’t know how Luke can’t tell, when her real laugh is probably the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. “It’s fine, Luke. Your parents miss you.”

He knows he’s been standing in front of the fridge too long, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can’t look at her while she’s talking to her boyfriend like they weren’t just playing house literally thirty seconds ago. 

“Alright.” Luke says something on the other line that makes her pause. And then she says, almost hesitantly and definitely more quietly, “I love you too. Bye.”

His whole body tenses up. 

Garrett lets the words wash over him. He closes the fridge door too hard. “I’m out of beer. I’m just going to–”

She’s right next to him in seconds, her eyebrows scrunched up, her eyes pleading. “Garrett, please.”

It slips out of him before he can fashion it into something cleaner, more eloquent: “Why are you still with him?”

She freezes. “What?”

“Why are you still with him?” Garrett repeats, slower this time. His heart is pounding in his chest. They’ve never had this conversation before. Had actively avoided having it, even. 

They have all these unspoken little rules: only approach each other at parties when everyone is already too drunk to notice, don’t make eye contact for more than five seconds because apparently Garrett can’t be subtle in the slightest. During Hockey seasons, they can only fuck before games, because Luke always looks for her after. Never bring up her relationship with Luke, and in turn she can never ask about the other women in Garrett’s life. Only, there are no other women, because Garrett is stupid and weak and he hasn’t wanted anybody else ever since he got a taste of her. 

And the worst part is Garrett knows she doesn’t love Luke. Not really. She can say the words and try to convince everyone including herself, but Garrett knows what in love looks like and it doesn’t look like her when she’s around Luke, all small and shrinking on herself. Garrett had been there, once, in college with the first serious relationship he ever had. Things might not have worked out with Hannah for the long run, but he still thinks of their time together fondly. He had learned a lot in that relationship. He had experienced love for the first time–love that made you better; love that made you feel tall. And whenever Luke’s around, tall is the last word he can use to describe her. 

“You don’t get it,” she finally says through glassy eyes. 

Garrett huffs. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“I thought we had a deal,” she continues. Garrett isn’t sure if she’s angry or frustrated or panicked. Maybe a mixture of the three. “You know I have a boyfriend. You know that we have to do this in secret.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“That's exactly the point!” She exclaims with a disbelieving laugh. “Would you honestly be bothered that I have a boyfriend if we were just sleeping around? If this is still just casual for you?”

Garrett wants to tell her that it was never casual to him, not really. He wants to tell her that thinking about her being with Luke makes him sick to the stomach. That sometimes he gets nightmares about everyone finding out and a huge fight breaking out between him and his captain on the ice, a direct parallel to one of the biggest mistakes he made in college (not that he regrets bashing in that monster’s face). But the words feel too deep for what they are. Too real. Because she’s right; he knew what he was getting into. He didn’t sleep with her because he had this delusion that she’s going to leave her boyfriend for him. 

“It’s not about me,” Garrett shakes his head. “It’s not. I don’t care if we’re casual or if you’re hooking up with a dozen other people. That’s your prerogative and I’m not your boyfriend. I care that you’re staying in a relationship with someone almost twice your age when you’re clearly unhappy and not in love with him.”

Her face cracks open. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, so they just stand there awkwardly in the middle of his kitchen in silence. Finally, when the quiet is close to suffocating, she says, “He’s retiring this year.”

“What?”

“He’s retiring,” she repeats, backing up until she’s leaning against the counter. “His family’s been convincing him to retire since he turned 35. That was already pushing it, especially for Hockey. But he’s finally doing it this year.”

Garrett frowns, confused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“He helped me a lot when we first got together,” she explains, looking down to fiddle with her hands. “I was sort of a problem child. Comes with the territory of being a legacy kid, I guess. I was just so…angry. At my dad for never being around. At myself for still wanting to be a sports journalist when it’s so intrinsically tied to him. I was lost. Drugs and parties and everything that can help me release all that anger.” 

Garrett doesn’t say anything, letting her words marinate in the air while he fights to keep down a reaction. Because aren’t they the same? Hasn’t he been struggling with the same things, the same anger, all throughout his life? Drugs, parties, alcohol, or endless trainings, non-commitments, and obsessive focus—they’re all just different ways of getting to that same harmful escape. 

She sniffs and then continues, “And when he first asked me out, he promised that he’d help me straighten myself out. Help me become more mature. Sober. He had this five-step regime—“ she lets out a wet laugh. “He’d make me do cardio every time I wanted to get high. Had me down a green juice every time I wanted to get wasted. He brought me to games. He got me closer to my dad again. To this world that I so stubbornly left yet desperately miss.” 

She finally looks up and meets Garrett’s eyes. “He was there for me when I needed someone. Molded me when I needed shaping. And when he retires, he’s going to need me, and I’d feel awful if I left him alone when that time comes.”

“Love isn’t owed, baby,” Garrett tells her. His voice comes out tired and almost pleading, because he needs her to hear him out. “No matter what he did for you. I mean–what’s the endgame here? Stay with him, marry him, have his kids just because you feel like you owe him? Just find some other guy to sleep with to satiate your needs in the meantime? Does that make you feel better?”

She glares up at him. “I never planned to cheat on him.”

“But you did.”

“Because it’s you,” she tells him simply, like that wouldn’t ruin him, like that wouldn’t make his heart stop in his chest. She shrugs at him with a sad smile. “You snuck up on me.”

Garrett exhales loudly. 

Before he knows it, he’s backing her up to the counter and gathering her in his arms, one hand coming up to cup her jaw and pulling her up to meet his mouth. The kiss is filthy and deep, with exactly the amount of passion that he knows her relationship lacks. Maybe if he kisses her hard enough, she’ll come to her senses. 

He taps her hip as a warning, and then his hands are lifting her up to sit on the countertop. Her legs wrap around his waist instinctively, already twitching. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers against his lips. Garrett kisses her jaw, down to her neck, the blade of one shoulder exposed from his shirt’s stretched neckline. “I brought you into this mess.”

She did; or maybe he did it unto himself. Either way, Garrett still wants her like he’s never wanted anyone. Needs her like he needs air. So he pulls her forward and kisses her again, because if he’s going to be settling for scraps, then at least some part of him can still feel good. 

Garrett spends his fourth of July with family, which means he spends it with Logan, Tucker, Dean, and their girlfriends at the Di Laurentis summer home in the Hamptons. He drives over with Logan, Grace, and Tucker and tries not to think about where she is, even though he already knows that she’s with her family at her Dad’s. He definitely also tries extra hard not to think about the headlines of Luke retiring that greeted him when he opened his twitter account last week, or the team farewell party the coaches had set up for him in a couple days. And Luke is probably with her and her family, so Garrett does his best to avoid going on social media and seeing something that is going to derail his entire weekend. 

Dean is in tacky board shorts with little dolphin prints all over them, shirtless, with crooked sunglasses sitting low on his nose when they finally arrive, spreading his arms wide and yelling, “There they are!” 

Garrett rolls his eyes, but his lips are already betraying him with a fond smile even before he can get out of the car. 

“There’s my rookie of the year!” Dean points at him with a wide grin. “How are you, man?”

“Please tell me you’re not drunk already,” Garrett says, exasperated, but Dean just throws one arm over him for a side hug which he easily returns. 

Dean smirks. “Please. I’ve matured but I’m not boring.” And then he’s welcoming Logan and Tucker with the same enthusiasm, and Garrett feels something in his chest settle at the familiarity of it all, his brothers being in one space again. 

“Come on,” Dean says, gesturing to the ridiculous glass door entry way. “Allie’s just doing some self-tapes but she should be done soon. There’s a grill, a pool, a bonfire, some fireworks. It’s going to be the best weekend ever, boys.”

And for a while, it really is. Garrett forgets about the looming practice schedule that was sent to his email the night before. He forgets about the tiny pang he always gets in his chest when he finds himself craving for his friends’ company and realizing they’re leading separate lives now. He forgets about the last time he saw her before Luke came back; the intensity of it; her nails branding scars in his back, her breath mingling with his, their eyes staying locked on each other the whole way. Sex had never felt more vulnerable and more painful, and Garret had watched her pack her bag and leave his apartment with a lump in his throat the entire time. 

Tucker grills them the perfect steaks while he tells them all about his senior year at Briar and how he’s thinking of pursuing his major rather than a career in sports. Allie recounts the most absurd Broadway stories and interactions with famous people known to man. Garrett and Logan lay off on the hockey talk, even if Dean purposefully brings up his assistant coaching gig for a girl’s team in the city to bait them into it. 

By sunset, they’ve somehow convinced themselves that each boy had to set off his own firework, so the four of them line up near the docks with Allie and Grace watching them with their phones out. Dean accidentally sets off too early and almost falls to the water in shock, causing the rest of them to follow along clumsily. The night sky begins to take over, dark blues and purples painting the above canvas as they double over in laughter, carefree and together. 

Garrett and Logan build the bonfire afterwards, and they’re sitting there huddled around the warm flames when Garrett’s phone goes off. He glances down at it absentmindedly and immediately tenses up, because she is calling. It’s the fourth of July; he’s surrounded by his family and she’s with hers, and she’s calling him. 

“Excuse me,” Garrett says to no one in particular, setting his bottle of cold beer down and standing up. “I gotta take this.”

He pays no mind to the curious looks he gets at that, instead shuffling inside to the kitchen and staring at his vibrating phone for a few seconds. With a quick glance to make sure the coast is clear, he hits accept. “Hello?”

There’s a pause for a moment, like she’s surprised he answered at all, before her voice fills his ears, soft and warm. “Hey.”

“What’s up?” He asks tentatively and then immediately winces at the poor choice of words. “I mean, is there something wrong, or…?”

“No, no, God,” she laughs breathily. The sound does something to his chest. Tightens it and loosens it all at once. “Nothing’s wrong, I just–I guess I just wanted to call you. Hear your voice.”

Garrett feels his shoulders slacken at once, a short exhale leaving his lips. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be annoying about it,” she warns, and the almost petulant way she does it finally gets him to laugh. 

“How was your fourth?” He asks instead, leaning against the kitchen counter more comfortably. “Had any fun?”

“Yeah,” she answers. He can almost imagine how she looks; flushed from the day’s activities, hair windswept and flying all over the place. She’s probably somewhere private, too, like her childhood bedroom. Maybe she’s in the kitchen just like him, to be away from prying ears. “Mom cooked up all her signature dishes. I feel so bloated, I swear I’m not going to be able to fit in my pants tomorrow.”

Garrett chuckles, soaking in her voice and the casual way she tells him about her day like this is something they do. Only, they don’t. Not really. They text each other stupid shit from time to time. Mostly, though, it’s schedules and addresses and hotel room numbers. This is something new, and the abnormality of it makes his heart race. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“How about you?” she asks. “How’s the Hamptons?”

“Fancy,” he answers, his face still stretched by a too-wide grin. “But nah. Tuck made a feast and Dean had us setting off fireworks in the docks. For a second, I was fully convinced we were all going to lose a limb.”

“Yikes,” she says with a laugh. “I’d pay good money to see that.”

“I’m pretty sure Allie and Grace took some videos. I’ll send them to you.”

“Allie and Grace?” Something in the tone of her voice gets Garrett to pause a little. 

“Yes,” he says carefully. “Dean and Logan’s girlfriends.”

“Oh,” she exhales. “I thought–never mind.” This time, when she laughs, it’s a little different; a little self-deprecating. “When are you getting back in the city?”

Garrett half wants to press her for more, even though he already has an inkling as to what she was thinking. But digging for more is exactly the kind of unspoken rule they have that would get her all silent and apologetic when he breaks it, and right now Garrett just wants to hear her voice, so he lets the moment go. “Uh, day after tomorrow. We got our new practice schedules already, so I want to get ahead and start training early or else that first day back on the ice with the team is going to kill me.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” she says. “Dad’s already talking about taking the cup this season. It’s insane.”

Garrett groans, lifting one hand to rub his eyes. “You should not have told me that. That’s just gonna get in my head.”

“Don’t you dare. You better give me a good season, Graham.”

“You’re the boss,” he shoots back, trying to not feel silly about the stubborn smile on his face that just won’t go away. “Can we meet? When I get back?”

She’s quiet for a few seconds, enough to make Garrett anxious. They’re deliberately skating over the big elephant in the room that is Luke’s retirement announcement the previous week, deliberately acting as if nothing in their dynamic is going to change now that she’s not exactly expected to come to most of their games without her boyfriend playing. That–combined with Luke’s sudden free time–has been plaguing Garrett’s mind the entire week. The truth is that he’s been waiting; for the other shoe to drop, for her to heed what he said to her at his apartment, for anything that will throw him a bone. Right now, this phone call is as close as he’s gonna get. 

“I’ll try, okay?” She says softly, voice quieter now. It shouldn’t be enough. It shouldn’t. But in Garrett’s ear, with her sounding like that, it kind of is, and if he examines that too deeply, he’s going to feel pathetic, so he takes the words for what they are. “I miss you.”

Garrett closes his eyes at that. It’s unfair that she can undo him with just three words, a four-hour drive away and belonging to someone else. It’s unfair that Garrett lets it happen, anyway. “I miss you too. You left, like, a hundred hair ties at my place.”

That makes her scoff out a laugh. “I did, huh?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles with a smile. “I don’t know how a single human could have that many and still lose every single one. I’ve been finding them in the most random places.”

“Keep them for me,” Garrett can practically hear the smile in her voice. “I’m sure I’m going to need them some day.”

“Alright,” he says, biting down on his lower lip and pretending like his heart isn’t doing ridiculous gymnastic stunts in his ribcage. “I will.”

His friends are quiet when he gets back to the backyard, the loud conversation from before lulling to a peaceful silence you only get when you’re with people you trust enough to just exist around. Allie has drifted to sitting on Dean’s lap, her head resting over his shoulder and her hands gripping her fancy cocktail glass close to her chest. Logan is on the grass sitting in between Grace’s legs while she absentmindedly braids his hair. Tucker, funnily enough, looks like he’s about to doze off in his seat, eyes drooping and mouth slightly parted. They all turn towards him when he slides the door open, but it’s Logan who calls him out on his disappearance.

“Who was that?” He asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed. 

Garrett stops in place, his mind scrambling for a decent excuse but somehow only coming up with, “Uh, no one?”

It’s the exact wrong thing to say, because it causes Logan to frown deeper, Tucker to blink awake, and Dean to form an almost evil look in his eye. 

“Hold on a second,” Dean says, a slow smile growing on his face. “Don’t tell me–”

“Don’t,” Garrett stops him, which, again, is a terrible idea. 

Dean laughs disbelievingly. “Holy shit. You were talking to a girl.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Fuck off, Dean.”

“Fuck!” Dean laughs louder, jolting Allie in place and causing her to slap his knee in annoyance. “I cannot believe you’re hiding a girlfriend from us. Why didn’t you bring her here, man?”

He glares at each of his friends with enough vigor that it makes the situation worse. “Because I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Do we know her?” Tucker asks, completely disregarding his words. 

Garrett sighs. “There is no her.”

“Then why’d you hide away inside for a little phone call?” Logan quirks an eyebrow at him.

He gapes. “I wasn’t hiding.”

Logan just gives him a look. 

“Garrett has a girlfriend?” Allie asks, suddenly invested in their conversation. She sets her cocktail glass down. “Wait, I wanna meet her.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Garrett says with a shake of his head, then immediately realizes his mistake. “Wait.”

But Dean has already sat up in his seat, one finger pointed at him like he just discovered something world-changing. Logan’s eyes are popped open and Tucker is trying to hide his smile. 

“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Grace says, leaning forward. 

“Garrett,” Dean says, giving him a look. His voice is low, faux serious and all condescending. “Don’t be shy. Who’s the girl?”

He laughs helplessly. “Oh my god. No one.”

“G, you’re already caught, man,” Logan shakes his head. “Just fess up.”

Garrett trudges to his seat with heavy steps. He takes the beer he set on the floor and gulps it down, wincing at the now lukewarm liquid sliding down his throat. When he’s done, all his friends are looking at him expectantly. He has to hold back a groan. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Okay…” Logan nods, waiting for him to continue. 

Garrett laughs again, more dryly this time. He runs a hand over his eyes and says the words he knows he won’t be able to take back. “She’s not my girlfriend because she already has a boyfriend.”

Silence. 

Almost all of them have their jaws drop open, looking at Garrett in varying degrees of shock, confusion, and uncertainty. Dean, to his credit, doesn’t say anything stupid yet, though his lips twitch like he’s already thought of exactly the wrong thing to say to make him feel worse. 

“Right,” Logan says, blinking stupidly. “So we’re going to need a few more details than that.”

Allie holds her hand up. “Wait. Are you telling us that you’re—what? A side piece? Garrett Graham is someone else’s—I don’t even know what to call it. What’s the male version of mistress? Boytoy?” 

“Wow. Thanks, Al,” Garrett flashes her a sarcastic smile and raises his bottle up at her. “That makes me feel so much better.” 

Tucker leans forward, sleepiness completely forgotten in favor of dissecting Garrett’s love life. “Dude. Seriously. What do you mean she has a boyfriend?”

Garrett tilts his head to look at the sky. It’s dark, but unlike in the city or in Boston, he can see the stars from here, sparkling and scattered prettily above him. He wonders blithely if somewhere in her childhood home, she had attempted to see them today as well, through the tall buildings and city smog. 

He’s aware that he’s about to break another one of their unspoken rules: a flashing red sign that dramatically reads ‘no one can know.’ But Garrett has been carrying this secret for almost three months now, has been carrying his want for her for even longer, so he thinks he owes it to himself to at least try and unburden a little bit of the weight from his shoulders. “I’ve been…seeing someone.”

“Someone…who has a boyfriend…” Dean supplies, dragging the words out with his eyes narrowed almost mockingly. 

Garrett glares at him, but it lacks the normal heat. After an ugly pause, he continues. “Yes. She’s been having an affair. With me.”

He watches them take his words in. It’s a true testament to his trust in their bond that he knows that while it’s within their right to judge him, he knows that they will never abandon him for what he’s doing wrong. They’ll be on his ass, sure. Logan is probably already mentally preparing a whole lecture on self-respect and boundaries for the ride back to Boston. Allie is looking at him like she’s curating a to-watch list of all the affair-adjacent movies she knows that ends in absolute disaster. Only Dean is looking a little unconcerned, his eyebrows raised in a way that tells Garrett he’s a little impressed. 

“Do we…” Logan trails off, rubbing at his chin. “Do we know her?”

“I’m not telling you that, man,” Garrett says with a shake of his head. “I gotta–look. I gotta protect her, right? If this gets out, it’s going to look so bad for her.”

Grace chooses that time to quip, “So it’s someone important enough that the media will care if this gets out.”

Garrett gives her a look. Not helping. She raises her arms as if to say ‘sue me.’

Another stretch of slightly uncomfortable silence, and then Dean clicks his tongue.

“Wow,” Dean finally says, leaning back in his seat. 

“What?”

“I just–yeah. Wow.”

“Dean.”

Dean glances around at them. Beyond the unaffected expression, Garrett spots something real slipping through the cracks. Concern, maybe. “Just…Why?”

There’s a pause. All of them seem to be waiting for his answer with an almost buzzing curiosity that would have been funny under different circumstances. 

Garrett has to exhale at that, like his breath has been stolen from him, because isn’t that the age old question? Why? Why did he agree to this? He could maybe excuse the first time, charge it towards hormones and lack of control and getting a beautiful, taken girl out of his system. But the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after that…there’s no excuse. There’s no clean explanation that could justify what they’re doing. It’s not just her relationship and reputation they’re risking; it’s hurting other people deliberately. It’s lying. It’s Garrett’s freaking career. So why? Garrett doesn’t know if he can extract a correct enough answer, so he just tells them simply, “I don’t know.”

“Are you in love with her?” It’s Allie who asks, because of course she does. 

“No,” Garrett says immediately, even if something in his chest protests at the words. It’s just not possible. How can he be in love with someone he hasn’t been given a chance to love? Sure, he knows how to kiss her and touch her and fuck her in a way that makes their blood sing in their veins. But love? “I–it’s casual. It’s not a relationship or anything. We just hook up sometimes.”

Allie looks like she’s about to call him out on his bullshit. Logan definitely smells his insincerity from where he’s sitting. But it’s all that Garrett can offer that at least resembles the truth. 

"You're a good guy, G,” Logan begins to say, catching his eyes and refusing to let him look away. He does that sometimes; look at him like he knows something he doesn’t. Like something is written clearly and in bold font across Garrett’s forehead that he can read but is invisible to Garrett’s own eyes. It’s annoying and also comforting, because he knows Logan will never not have his back. “You know what you’re doing is wrong. You’re also an adult. No one else is privy to your decisions. You’re allowed to make mistakes. But... Take it easy, alright? I think I can speak for all of us when I say that no one here wants to see you get hurt.”

It already does, Garrett wants to tell them. It already hurts when he wants her by his side but she can’t come because Luke is with her. Or when she’s within reach but Garrett can’t cross the room and go to her. Or when they have real conversations in between the sex, like real people with real emotions, and she kisses him just to kiss him. It’s a bone-dry weight on his chest every time; an unhealing bruise that stings him sometimes when she presses on it too hard unknowingly. It already hurts. 

“I don’t know how to stop,” Garrett confesses, looking down at his sandaled feet. He hates that his voice catches in his throat. It makes him sound like a kid begging for more candy. It reveals layers on his skin that never should have been exposed in the fourth of July air. “I know it’s wrong but I just–I don’t know. I need her.”

They don’t say anything more after that, probably because they all know that there’s nothing to say that would magically undo his mistake or give him the clarity he needs. Still, a part of Garrett wishes someone had said something, had given him instructions or a manual he can follow, because Garrett doesn’t know what to do. All he knows is that he drives back to Boston in two days, and the first thing he’s going to do is call her and make her go to his apartment because he misses her and he needs her close to him. 

He leans forward and gets another beer bottle from the ice box next to him. The drink fizzles when he pops it open, foam spilling over and wetting his hands. His friends try to get the night back to normal, chatting idly among themselves, quieter now that something ugly and real has been exposed. And Garrett just sits there drinking his beer with sticky fingers and the knowledge that he’s on the precipice of a heartbreak that he’s not sure he can ever recover from. 

Luke’s farewell party is held at some upscale rooftop bar a couple minutes away from TD Garden. Garrett almost doesn’t go. He had sat in his bed staring at his phone for almost an hour going over the e-invite sent to his mail and coming up with reasons why he couldn’t come. Maybe he went down with something; flu or chickenpox or diarrhea. Maybe he slipped in the bathroom and had to go to the emergency room. Maybe his car broke down, or he suddenly has a family emergency out of town, or he has a date he simply couldn’t miss. Every excuse is better than the bitter truth, which is that he couldn’t come because he’d rather not see the girl he’s been having an affair with play the part of the perfect girlfriend to his soon-to-be-retired team captain. 

All of that is moot, though, because Logan bombards him with enough texts asking him where he is and telling him he’s already half an hour late and that if he didn’t get his ass to Luke’s party, he would drag him there himself. So Garrett puts on a pair of black pants and a white shirt, snatches the keys of his Jeep from his foyer and drives to the party in total silence. 

He must’ve been a complete asshole in his past life, because he arrives at the bar just as they’re doing speeches, which immediately makes him want to scurry back to his apartment with his tail tucked between his legs. Logan is standing by one of the cocktail tables near the middle and he immediately raises a hand up to signal Garret to come over. It takes him forever to reach him, getting stopped at every turn by his teammates and coaches and other members of the Bruins staff. By the time he manages to squeeze himself beside Logan, he finally sees her. 

She looks beautiful, which should be a given already but somehow still catches him off guard. The dress she’s wearing is gold and it moves like liquid over her body, catching the light in a way that feels like punishment to him. Garrett immediately zooms in on the arm Luke has thrown loosely around her waist. The touch is familiar, absent minded, the way people make contact when they don’t have to think about it too much. Garrett moves his jaw, just to get some of the tension out. And, because fate is playing him like a fiddle that night, she looks away from the marketing guy doing a speech on the makeshift stage and makes direct eye contact with Garrett. 

He sees the way she registers his presence, the slight hitch of her breath evident in the movement of her chest. 

Garret isn’t sure if he should wave or smile at her or avert his eyes completely. How do you face the woman you were fucking into your mattress less than 24 hours ago and greet her like an acquaintance? The answer is unclear, so he doesn’t greet her at all. He glances away pointedly, teeth grinding down together, and holds a finger up to order a drink–preferably something strong enough to get him through this godforsaken party. 

When he turns his head, Logan is already looking at him with a concerned frown. Garrett immediately stiffens at the calculating look, especially when Logan’s eyes flash towards where she is standing by Luke’s side for a second before darting back to him. 

“What?” Garrett asks, but already he knows the tone he uses is too defensive, too close to the truth. 

Logan opens his mouth but pauses. He chances another look at her. “You okay, G?”

His drink mercifully arrives, and Garrett downs it with a wince. He tries to ignore the weight of her stare all the way from across the room. “Fine. I’m just fine.”

The VIP all-gender bathroom is clean and quiet. It’s one of those fancy ones with a sitting area and coffee table near the door, the smell of generic freshener wafting through the air. Garrett collapses on one of the cushioned armchairs and covers his face with both hands, head leaning back against the tiled wall. 

He’s been at the party for close to forty minutes now. He’s done his part: he had smiled at all the correct people, gave away hugs and laughs like expected, chatted about the upcoming season, held his drink up in a toast at the announcement of their new captain. He did all these things while ignoring how much his eyes want to seek out where she is, so he thinks he deserves a little break. It’s not easy to long for someone ten feet away and not being allowed to show how much. 

Logan has been unusually quiet all evening, too, and Logan quiet is basically a recipe for disaster. He knows Garrett too well; he wouldn’t put it past him to be able to put two and two together just from Garrett’s late entrance alone. So Garrett dials up the charm and the pretense, extra careful under his best friend’s scrutiny. He’s sure it doesn’t work either way, but if he tries hard enough, maybe Logan can just let it go. 

He thinks of picking up a girl for the night. There are a lot of puck bunnies and friends of WAGs invited; he’s been approached by a fair few, himself. But the thought of even looking at another woman in that way makes him want to throw up, which he decides might be the most unfair thing in the world when he has to go the entire night watching the woman he wants be in somebody else’s arms. 

The bathroom door clicks open, but he pays it no mind until a familiar voice startles him to put his hands down. “Oh.”

She is paused awkwardly by the door, one hand still on the knob and her lips parted in surprise. 

Garrett sits up slowly, hands bracing on each arm of the chair. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says back quietly. She cranes her neck to look at the hallway before stepping inside fully, locking the door with a flick. She approaches him in slow, tentative steps, only stopping when his knees are almost touching the fabric of her dress. “You were late.”

He looks up at her with a harsh swallow, one hand already reaching out to pull her waist. “Come here.”

She completely melts into him; there’s no other way to describe it. She sits down on his lap sideways, her arms going around his neck, her forehead meeting his, and her body relaxes to an almost ridiculous degree, all the tension leaving her body with the simple contact. 

“Hi,” she whispers again, more softly this time. 

Garrett tightens his hold on her. It shouldn’t make sense for them to fit together so perfectly, for their bodies to feel like they’ve been molded together by a separate entity in their past lives. She smells like expensive perfume and sweat and that distinct smell of her that he’s grown addicted to in the months that he’s been privy to know her scent privately. She bumps their noses together, like she’s doing some scent inventory of her own. 

“You look beautiful,” Garrett says roughly, spreading his palms wide on the expanse of her back. 

She exhales through her nose. “Thanks, baby.”

He examines her face, the perfectly done make up, her glossy lips. He can’t help himself, so he asks, “Can I kiss you?”

“Of course,” she almost frowns, pressing their foreheads harder together. “You never have to ask.”

So Garrett tilts his chin up and kisses her. It’s soft and slow and deep, and he hopes it conveys how shitty he feels as well as how much he could never stop wanting her. She hums against his mouth and gives back as good as she got. It’s a kiss that doesn’t lead to anything more than a simple pressing of two pairs of lips together; there’s no wandering hand or suggestive eyes or grinding hips. The warmth of it spreads from their point of contact and down to Garrett’s chest, where it blooms into something new and inevitable. 

“I’m going back to my place tonight,” she says when they pull away, still close enough that the words paint butterfly kisses all over his face. “Can you meet me there?”

Garrett exhales shakily. “Of course, baby.”

She pulls back just enough to push some of his curls back, lower lip bitten in thought. He knows what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth. “I’m sorry–”

“Don’t–”

“No, listen,” she insists, putting down her hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. Her eyes are deep and her eyebrows are furrowed slightly. “I’m sorry. I know tonight isn’t easy for you.”

Garrett squeezes her waist. “It’s okay.”

“You always say that,” she almost laughs. 

“Because it is,” he shrugs. “Much better than the alternative, which is not having this at all.” 

She falls silent at that. She looks down at one of her hands pressed to his chest. “That won’t always be true, you know?”

“What do you mean?” 

She starts playing with one of the buttons on his shirt. Her throat moves like speaking has suddenly become painful. “One day, you won’t be okay with this. It’s not going to be enough. And you’re going to meet another person who can give you more than the secret moments that we steal away. That’s probably the best outcome, really.”

Deep in his stomach, Garrett feels panic settle slowly. “What are you saying?”

She still doesn’t look at him. “I’m saying that I won’t blame you if you wake up one morning and realize that you don’t want this anymore.”

Garrett’s already shaking his head before she can finish speaking. “I’ll never not want this.”

“I can’t leave him, Garrett,” she finally meets his eyes. Hers are wet and bright with tears, her face screwed up in guilt. “He’s all I’ve ever known.”

He feels that like a knife to the chest. “That’s not true.”

She gives him a confused look. 

Garrett swallows. “It’s not. I’m here. You know me. You’ve been knowing me for months. You’ve been kissing me and touching me and branding yourself on my skin while pretending that you’re in love with a man who bores you to death. Who makes you feel small.”

“Luke doesn’t–”

“And it’s okay,” Garrett interrupts. His voice remains gentle even through the huge lump in his throat. “It’s fine. I can deal with that. And maybe you’re right. Maybe one day I’ll meet some girl who can give me what you can’t. But the same is true for you. Maybe one day, you’ll realize that you’re not duty-bound to stay with Luke just because he groomed you into the person you think you have to be.”

“Garrett…”

“And when that happens,” he continues, voice cracking. “I wanna be here.” He cups her face so she can look him properly in the eyes. “Baby. I wanna be here.”

That night, they fuck with a reverie that they’ve never felt before. The safe pretense of ‘casual’ and ‘just hooking up’ are thrown cleanly out of the window, and Garrett keeps his lips on hers while he thrusts inside of her so deeply it’s like he wants to engrave his name under the skin of her belly. They’re quiet, almost suffocatingly so, the air filled with gasps and whispers of each other’s names. She cards her fingers through his hair and looks at him with such undisguised wanting that Garrett feels his world tilt off its axis. He’s never going to stop wanting this. He’s never going to stop wanting her. 

Allie’s words from the 4th come back to him, then. “Are you in love?” She had asked, in a way that hopeless romantic people who are in long, committed relationships tend to do whenever they find out you’re kind of seeing someone. Garrett had been quick to spout a denial back then, an immediate “no” that plagued him for the rest of the trip. 

And now, pressing himself so closely to her body so he can convince himself that there is an end to this where he comes out on top, where he doesn’t get left behind, where she sees sense and actually fucking chooses him…

“Are you in love?” Allie had asked. 

I don’t know, his mind answers. But if it’s not love, then it’s pretty fucking close.

Logan catches him after practice. He and Grace had invited him over for dinner, and Garrett had nothing better to do, so they agreed to just drive over to Logan’s place together. They’re at a stop light, Garrett leaning his head on the window and Logan tapping his fingers on the stirring wheel, when Logan turns to him and says, “It’s her. Right?”

Garrett sees more than feels the way his body stiffens in his reflection on the window. One of his hands forms into a fist, but he keeps it hidden from view, pressing it to the side of his thigh. “What?”

The light turns green, and Logan puts his car in drive. And then he says her name. “It’s her. The girl you’ve been seeing.”

Garrett turns to him with a frown, mouth open, a half-formed excuse already planning to fall out, but Logan continues. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, G,” he says, eyes focused on the road and voice annoyingly calm. “I know you. I saw the way you two looked at each other at Luke’s party. And the way the both of you disappeared for like, fifteen whole minutes. I noticed.”

When Garrett exhales, it’s a twisted mixture of dread and relief. Because finally their most sacred rule is broken. Finally someone else other than the two of them knows. And maybe it’s the start of things beginning to change, because they’ve been stuck circling around this affair with no direction for so long. “Yeah. Yes.”

Logan at least looks somewhat shocked that he admits to it so quickly. “Fuck. Really?”

“You literally told me you figured it out,” Garrett says with a frown. “Why are you acting shocked now?”

Logan sputters. “Well–thinking it is different than actually having it be confirmed!”

Garrett sighs, more exasperated than panicked this time. 

He feels Logan side-eyeing him. “You good, G?”

“What?”

“I mean–are you okay? How–how are you dealing with it?”

Garrett rubs one hand over his mouth. “I’m dealing with it.”

“I can’t believe you’re fucking Luke’s girlfriend,” Logan shakes his head with a small disbelieving chuckle. “It’s a good thing I never have to play with him. That would be so awkward. How did that even happen?”

Garrett shrugs. He hasn’t seen her in a couple days, and already he feels her absence like a limb. Sometimes he wishes he could want her a normal amount, as opposed to the living, beating, all-encompassing way he feels for her under his skin. “Some people just sneak up on you, I guess.”

It all comes to head a little over a month later, which Garrett should have seen coming. Things have been too good lately. They’ve been seeing each other too frequently. They text almost everyday. Whenever they sleep together, they don’t even pretend that it’s just for sex anymore. In fact, one night, he had been so tired from practice that they don’t fuck at all. But she still slept curled against him in bed, pressing soft kisses to the center of his back tattoo and rubbing her hands on his stomach to lull him to sleep. Garrett should have known that a shift would be coming. It always does when things get too good. 

He’s been home for five minutes, curls still damp from his post-rink shower, when his phone lights up with a call: her. 

He’s in a good mood; they’ve won their first few games, he has his best friend on the ice with him, he gets along with their new captain fine. The season’s looking to be another amazing one. So when he sees her name in the caller id, he thinks nothing of it at first. “Hey, baby. What’s up?”

It takes her a few seconds to respond, which immediately raises alarm bells in his head. 

“Baby?”

When she speaks, her voice is croaky and small, like she’s been crying. “Can you come pick me up?”

He’s moving before he even registers the words properly, tugging his jacket from the coat rack and sliding his feet in some slides. “What happened? Where are you?”

She rattles off an address, some 24-hour fast food place a couple blocks away from her house. She’s breathing deeply enough that it makes Garrett feel rattled to his bones. 

“Baby,” Garrett says again, fingers snatching his car keys from the counter. “What happened?”

“He knows,” she sobs out. Garrett feels his entire body freeze. “Luke knows, Garrett.”

The whole drive over is a blur. He asks her to stay on the line with him, but they both stay silent. Occasionally, she sniffs, or he hears her cry quietly, and it makes Garrett press down on the gas pedal a little harder. Finally, after what seems like both forever and a half second, he arrives at the location she sent. He parks haphazardly, but she is already jogging over to his car before he can even step out of it. He snaps the door shut and barely has time to brace himself before she’s throwing herself at him, her head tucking in his neck and sobs wracking her body.

“You’re okay,” Garrett says shakily, wrapping his arms around her tight enough to lift her off the ground. “You’re gonna be just fine. Come on, baby.”

She shakes her head, still hiding in his neck. He feels the wetness of her tears smearing on his skin. Feels the trembles going through her body. 

“Baby,” Garrett’s voice catches in his throat. “Come on. Let’s get you home, yeah?”

The drive back to his place is even quieter. She has her arms crossed over her chest, mascara smudged and her hair a mess. She’s stopped crying by the time they reach his apartment, but her mouth remains shut and her eyes averted to the floor, like looking at Garrett would set her off again. Still, he keeps one hand gently on her lower back the whole way up his floor, partly so he can reassure himself that she really is here, that she’s okay and safe and with him. 

“Let me run you a bath,” he says when they get inside and after he takes both of their jackets and hangs them up. She still doesn’t say anything, but she nods her head, a small movement that at least gets Garrett to breathe properly again. 

He fills his tub and searches for her favorite bath gel from his vanity cabinet. He makes sure the temperature is just the way she likes it; he lights candles and tidies up the shelves and prepares a fresh robe and towel and some of her hair ties. When he gets back to the living room, she is on the couch with her arms wrapped around herself, staring blankly ahead. 

“It’s ready,” he announces with a low voice. 

She finally shifts her head to look at him. Her eyes fill with tears instantly.

“Baby,” Garrett sighs, coming closer so he can hug her again. “Come on. You’ll feel so much better.”

She lets him take her clothes off slowly. There’s nothing sexual about it; just pure care. He folds them neatly and stacks them in a pile on his counter. And then he goes around her and begins to tie her hair. He does a terrible job; her hair is too messy and he can’t be bothered to scourge his apartment for a hairbrush, and he’s never really tied a girl’s hair before. But she says nothing of it, even when he finishes and drops a kiss to her bare shoulder. The only sound she makes at all is when she sighs heavily as she finally steps into the bath and lowers her body down, the warm water reaching her neck. 

Garrett bustles around for something to do. Puts toothpaste on her toothbrush. Lines up the skincare products she has for easy access. Fluffs and re-fluffs the towel. Finally, when he can’t pretend to be busy anymore, he puts a hand on his head, turns to her and says, “I’m just going to find you some clothes–”

“No,” she suddenly says with a shake of her head. “Please don’t go.”

Garrett lowers his hand slowly. “Okay…”

“I need to tell you,” she continues, her voice breaking midway. “What happened– I need to tell you.”

He comes closer until he’s right next to the tub, and then Garrett lowers himself to the tiled floor, uncaring about getting his pants wet. “Okay. Tell me.”

Her face breaks open, but she manages to hold off her sobs this time around. “Sorry. Sorry. I can do this.”

“Baby, if you’re not ready–”

“No, I need to say it,” she insists, tilting her head back. “He’s been suspicious for a while. Luke.”

Garrett gulps harshly. “He has?”

“It’s my fault,” she says with a cry, shutting her eyes tight. “I–I stopped.”

“What do you mean? Stop what?”

She looks over at him. She looks so hurt and guilty and terrified that Garrett feels his heart squeeze in his chest. And then she says something that completely unravels him: “I stopped sleeping with him. For–I don’t know. Three months now, maybe.”

Garrett leans back on his hands with a shaky exhale. He does the math in his head: three months was before their off-season vacation. Before they could get a taste of what it would be like to be together truly, without deadlines and secret meetings and schedules. Of what it would be like to sleep next to each other and wake up tangled up in bed. Three months was before Garrett could admit to himself that he wanted more. 

“I told him some terrible excuse,” she laughs wetly. “Something about seeing my doctor and my moods being all wrong or whatever. And he bought it at first. It wasn’t that difficult to do. We didn’t live together and he was so busy with his retirement planning. I had grad school. But now that everything has dialled down…He started asking questions. And he would get this look on his face, like he knew I was hiding something.” She looks down at the water. Her voice grows quiet, but Garrett hears every word like a gunshot. “He tried tonight. He made dinner and had flowers and candles. But I–I couldn’t do it. And the second I stopped him, he just–he got so angry.”

Garrett feels his entire body freeze, except for his hands, which are fisted and shaking so violently by his sides that he has to move them to rid the trembles. He places them on the edge of the tub and grips that instead. “Did he hurt you?”

Her eyes widen at the words. “What? No, no, he didn’t do anything. He–he yelled. He was so angry. He kept saying these awful things but–he’d never–he didn’t do anything physical or–”

“Okay,” Garrett interrupts her, breathing deeply through his nose. The cold-fear is still there sitting underneath his skin. Abuse isn’t just physical. And he’d been noticing, hadn’t he? He’s been saying for so long how small and unlike herself she looks whenever she’s around Luke. And he didn’t do anything about it. “What did he say?”

She laughs again at that, in time with her tears falling to her cheeks. “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”

“Don’t do that–”

“Garrett, I’ve been cheating on him for months,” she says. Her lower lip is trembling and so is her chin. The tears seem neverending. “I haven’t been in love with him for longer. And he–he went through my phone. He found our texts. We use nicknames, thank god, so he doesn’t know that it’s you. But he knows for sure that I’ve been having an affair. He knows it’s with another player. He was so angry and he looked disgusted at me and he kept calling me–” she interrupts herself with a shake of her head, like she can’t bear to repeat the words. “I couldn’t be there anymore. So I left and then I called you.”

“Why?” Garrett asks. When she shoots him a confused look, he grits his teeth and clarifies, “Why’d you stop sleeping with him?”

He hates that he’s fixating on that little fact. Hates that the words are out of his mouth before he could disguise them as something less selfish and pathetic. It shouldn’t matter. Not really. Not when she is obviously hurting. But his brain just can’t compute why. 

She looks at him for a second, and then she says, “When’s the last time you slept with another person?”

Not since you, he wants to say right away. He wants to tell her that he hasn’t even looked at another girl since that first night in that Las Vegas hotel. But the words feel too much, even if they’re true, so instead he tells her through his throat, “A while.”

She smiles, small and sad. “There’s your answer.”

Garrett wakes up to sunlight slipping through the cracks of his black-out curtains. He tries not to shift too much, mindful of her sleeping body half on top of him, her face buried in his chest, one of her legs draped over his waist. She’s wearing his sweater and little else, hair all tangled from not being dried properly before she got to bed. She’s warm. Comfortable. Garrett thinks about staying still on his bed forever. He could do it, if he wanted to. Alas, he has practice in a few hours, and the problems the two of them were facing last night still haven’t gone away. 

He shuffles carefully, arranging her in a way that doesn’t disturb her sleep. Even with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly parted, Garrett can still see the previous night’s marks on her face; red-tipped nose, eyes slightly swollen, dry tear tracks down her cheeks. He wishes he knows what to do to make everything better. Something more useful than running her a bath or holding her in her sleep. Something concrete that would take all of her pain and guilt away. 

They made a mistake–that much, he can’t deny. Luke has every right to be angry. If he ever finds out that it was Garrett who she is having an affair with, he has every right to bash his face in. To ruin his reputation. All of these things, Garrett knows to be true, but he still can’t rationalize the protective instinct in him telling him to punch Luke’s smug little face for making her cry. For making her small. For letting her believe that she can’t escape their relationship even if she’s not happy anymore. For molding her to think that way. 

It’s not textbook grooming. 

He remembers her telling him about it on one of the recent nights they’ve begun to spend together, draped in honesty and words that are a little too vulnerable. They met when she was just sixteen at one of the last few games she had allowed her father to drag her to before college and before she had begun distancing herself from hockey and from her dad, though they didn’t really speak or converse with each other deeply whenever they found themselves together. 

The next time they saw each other was when she was twenty; she had gotten drunk at a club and was so filled with drunken rage that she sat outside the curb of Warrior Ice Arena determined to confront her father. It hadn’t crossed her mind that Andrew had been retired for years and wouldn’t be showing up at all. It hadn’t crossed her mind that it was 4 AM in the morning and literally no one would be there. In her alcohol-fuelled brain, she was a little kid again, full of disappointment and resentment towards a father who was barely a father. Luke had shown up around five-thirty for some early ice time and seen her shivering on the ground. She said he saw someone helpless; Garrett thinks he saw an opportunity. A project. 

It took them two months to make it official. By the fourth month, she was already spending Thanksgiving with Luke and her family, trying to repair her relationship with her dad. Everything fell so perfectly into place that Garrett has a hard time believing it wasn’t carefully planned. 

He looks down at her again, her arms wrapped around a stray pillow now that he’s successfully gotten up from the bed without waking her. Garrett thinks about her 20-year-old self, lost, freezing on the curb at four in the morning, longing for a dad. He thinks about where he would have been around that time; sophomore year, trying to prove himself on the ice at Briar, trying to escape his father’s shadow and–more importantly–his wrath. Training himself to the ground. Chasing a dream he wasn’t sure was entirely his. If they had met then, they probably would have exploded in a bomb of paternal trauma and bad decisions. They probably would have been the worst for each other. But Garrett longs for this alternate reality, anyway, because then she would have been his before she was ever someone else’s. 

Garrett keeps his movements quiet as he showers and gets ready for the day. He goes to the cafe on his street to buy them breakfast, grateful for the two weeks she had spent in his place because now he knows her coffee order like it’s his own. His brain begins coming up with itemized plans: talk to her. Find out what she wants to do. Do everything he can to make that happen. She wants to stay with him for a while? Drive her to her place to get her things. Clear out some closet space for her. Make sure her beauty and skincare products are well-stocked in his bathroom. Done. He wants that too, so it’s not like doing those things will be hard work. She isn’t sure what she wants? Fine. She can stay with him, anyway. 

The TV is running an old sitcom when he gets back, the sound wafting through the morning air peacefully. She is on the couch, her knees hugged to her chest, still wearing his sweater. She’s slow to rise when she sees him, as if she’s not sure her feet could be steady. Garrett puts the food down on the kitchen island before approaching her in steady steps. 

“Hey, baby,” he rasps out, scanning her from head to toe, looking for signs of last night’s distress. “I got breakfast and coffee.”

That pulls a small smile out of her. She reaches her arms out and wraps them securely around his waist, pressing her forehead to his chest before inhaling deeply. “Hey.”

“You okay?”

She pauses then says, almost shyly, “I woke up and you were gone.”

The words send a pang straight to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she laughs against his shirt, burrowing her face further until her words are all muffled from the fabric. “I’m just being silly. I figured you went out to get some food.”

“All I have in my fridge are, like, frozen peas.”

She snorts. “That tracks.”

“Alright,” Garrett scoffs defensively, squeezing her tighter. “Bully the guy who got you coffee.”

She lets out another amused sound, and then she inhales again, her arms tightening around him. “You smell good.”

His mouth ticks up. “I showered.”

“I figured.”

They stay there standing in the middle of his living room embracing each other for a while. Or maybe forever. Time doesn’t make sense when he’s with her, so he can’t be sure. Eventually, though, her hunger wins out, and she drags him by the wrist to the kitchen, making grabby hands at the brown cafe paper bag still sitting invitingly on the counter. 

For a while, it was almost like last night hadn’t happened. She asks about how practice has been going, about how Logan is adjusting to the big leagues. Garrett makes her talk about the thesis paper she needs to do to complete her Master’s, and she rants about her adviser for almost half an hour straight, both in admiration and frustration. They hold hands the whole time that they’re eating, knees pressing together, faces never more than six inches apart. It’s a whole new kind of intimacy, one they hadn’t shared much with each other before. Garrett wants to box the whole morning and keep it in his jean pocket for safekeeping. 

“I gotta go in a few,” Garrett says when they’re just about finished with breakfast, glancing at the wall clock to his right. “Coach is making us watch some tapes before practice. I think he’s nervous about this season’s starting line.”

She makes a face. “I think you’re projecting, but whatever.”

“I’m not projecting,” Garrett denies, but he knows she’s kind of right. “I just think it’s nice to be prepared.”

“You’re such a control freak,” she laughs with a shake of her head. “I bet you planted the tapes idea in his head. Actually, I don’t need to bet. I know.”

Garrett rolls his eyes, but his lips are tugged up traitorously with a smile. “Whatever. Do you need a ride?” He feels his heart pound in his chest, but he continues, “I can spare a couple minutes if you need to get some of your things or something. You’re welcome to stay here.”

She immediately tenses up. She tries to play it off, but they’re sitting too close together, and Garrett feels the movement even more than he sees it. 

“What?” He asks, brows furrowing in concern. “What’s wrong?”

She pulls away from him slowly, the scrape of the chair pushing back against the floor sharp and grating to the ears. Her hands begin fiddling together, which is never a good sign. “Luke called me. While you were gone.”

Garrett feels his own shoulders tighten up. He knows without looking that his hands are already forming fists at the mention of him alone, knows his jaw is doing that pulsing thing that it always does when he gets pissed off. “Okay.”

“He said he wants to talk,” she continues, eyes trained on the kitchen island like it’s somehow became the most fascinating view in the room. 

“Okay,” Garrett repeats, just because he feels like he should say something. 

She chances a quick glance at him, a split second thing, before averting her gaze again. “He said he was still mad. Obviously. But that he thinks we can still work through this.”

“No,” Garrett immediately says, shaking his head. He feels his blood pounding violently in his head, feels his chest tighten at even the insinuation. Because last night–however horrible and painful and terrifying it was–that was supposed to be it. That was supposed to cut her ties with Luke clean. It wasn’t supposed to just be a blip on their relationship, an irrelevant fight that they could talk about over dinner like someone forgetting a date or failing to take out the trash. It was supposed to be it. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“We’re just going to talk–”

“Holy shit,” Garrett laughs without humor, standing up from his seat so suddenly the chair almost topples over. He walks several steps back, away from her, from her scent that’s now an amalgamation of his body wash and his laundry detergent, from her guilty eyes, from her touch that he craves but now makes him sick to the stomach at the same time. Because this is never going to end. She’s never going to leave Luke. Garrett’s never going to convince her otherwise. “You just–” He cuts himself off before he can say something he doesn’t mean. 

She’s looking up at him with tears already lining her eyes, frozen in her seat like she can’t do anything else but watch him unravel in front of her.

“You’re never going to leave him,” Garrett finds himself muttering, almost to himself, though he knows his voice carries the message across from the way she holds herself even tighter upon hearing them. “You’re really never going to leave him. It doesn’t matter what I say or how you feel. It doesn’t matter that you’re not in love with him, or that you can’t even pretend enough to stand his hands on you. It doesn’t matter that I’m right here. I’m right fucking here.” Garrett rubs a hand down his face with another helpless chuckle. “You’re never going to leave him.”

Her voice breaks when she speaks. “Garrett–”

“And I’m starting to realize that…” he clenches his jaw. He doesn’t want to say the next words out loud. He knows what’s going to happen if he does. But Garrett just feels so fucking tired all of a sudden, like all the weight of the world has suddenly been put on his shoulders. He’s tired of always looking over his shoulder. Of feeling guilty for wanting her. Of being her dirty secret. He’s tired of her scraps. 

“I can’t–” he shakes his head. “I can’t do this. I can’t do it. I can’t.”

He sees her face fall, panic taking over her features. “What are you saying?”

“I thought I could, but I can’t,” Garrett shrugs. His throat and chest feel tight, like oxygen is suddenly secondary to the white-hot pain. It shouldn’t hurt this much, he thinks. She’s not his girlfriend. She’s not his anything, really. “I know we said casual. I know I said I was fine with it. I know I said it was enough but that was before–fucking–I don’t know, before you started staying over like you belonged here, or before we started sharing pieces of our lives together, or before we started kissing just for the sake of kissing. I thought I could do it but I can’t. It’s not enough. It’s not.”

She shakes her head slowly. Tears are falling rapidly down her cheeks, but her body is still, like she’s afraid if she makes any sudden movements, the moment will escape her clutch and he’ll be out the door. “Please don’t.”

Garrett feels his chin tremble, so he has to tilt his head and look up at the ceiling. He shakes his head again and exhales deeply. “I can’t do it.”

“Garrett, please,” the crack in her voice is a wet and horrible thing. It grips at Garrett’s throat like a vice. 

He knows if he looks over at her he’s going to lose all his composure. He knows if he sees her crying, sees her hurting because of what he’s saying, he’s going to take it all back and kneel at her feet. It’s for this reason that when he looks back down, he avoids looking at her entirely, focusing his gaze on the empty plates and paper cups of coffee instead, bracing both of his arms on the edge of the island. 

“Listen, you don’t understa–”

“You can’t make a choice so I’ll make it easy for you,” Garrett interrupts her. His voice has gone quiet but no less resounding. He feels their weight in his tongue even before they’re out of his mouth, hears them crash into the space between them in loud, resigned thuds. “You don’t have to choose anymore.”

“Garrett.” A sob escapes her chest, guttural and almost animalistic. It makes him clench his eyes shut. 

“You don’t have to choose anymore,” he repeats through gritted teeth. It takes everything in him to get the words out. Everything. “I have a practice I need to go to. I’m gonna leave, and– and when I get home, you won’t be here. You’ll be with him. And I’m done.” Garrett nods, like he’s trying to convince himself even more than her. He swallows thickly, and then he repeats his words, just so they could stick and land somewhere permanent. Just so he could pretend that one day, they’ll ring true. “I’m done.”

He snatches his car keys off the table and he walks out before he can change his mind. 

Are you in love with her, Allie had asked. 

Like there’s a reality in which he isn’t fucking head over heels.

The drive to the Warrior Ice Arena is a blur. 

Garrett isn’t sure how he manages to get there uninjured and with his car in one piece. The only thing he’s sure about is how much his hands are shaking, and how he feels like he left his soul right there in his kitchen in the clutch of the loss of his life. 

He parks almost haphazardly. Lifts the hand brake harshly. And for a few seconds, he just stares blankly ahead, his lips parted and his brain trying to catch up to the flashing pain he’s feeling all over his body. He had done it. He let her go and it fucking hurts. 

His body seems to cave in at the same time that his heart does, and Garrett doubles over the stirring wheel with a shaky exhale, finally letting himself break. 

This is how Logan finds him a couple of minutes later, knocking at his car’s window with his eyebrows furrowed in concern. 

“Garrett, open the door,” Logan says, tapping on the glass continuously. His voice is muffled from being outside, but Garrett hears him loud and clear. Still, he blinks sluggishly at nothing for a couple of moments, not registering his best friend’s words yet. Logan taps more insistently. “Garrett.”

He reaches for the lock almost absentmindedly and clicks on the unlock button. In a flash, Logan is opening the driver’s side door, one hand pushing Garrett’s shoulder back to inspect him properly. “What the fuck happened to you, man?”

But Garrett can’t speak. If he tells Logan, if he says the words out loud, then that means this is real. He lost her. He let her go. And maybe he’s a coward. Maybe he’s weak. But he doesn’t want to face that reality yet, so he just shakes his head, his vision blurring even as he fights not to cry like a kid. 

“I cant–” he shakes his head, staring at the way his fingers clench and unclench around the steering wheel. 

He hears Logan exhale. “Okay. Okay. Come on. Get out of there. I’m driving.”

“What?” Garrett finally looks at him in confusion. 

“You can’t drive when you’re like this. I’m not letting you.” Logan’s tone makes it clear that he’s not taking no for an answer. Garrett steps out of his car slowly, one heavy foot at a time. 

He feels untethered. Like he’s going to float away any second now, or maybe sink into the ground. He had known heartbreak before. He had cried over losing his college girlfriend and had been sad for months afterwards. But the pain taking over his body right now feels crippling and brand new, which feels absurd because she and him were never serious in the first place. He had hoped, he can admit; in between lingering kisses and quiet conversations and laughter. He had hoped they would get there someday. Hoped to pull her close and kiss her without having to hide. But it never happened. They were glorified fuck buddies at best, and maybe that’s why the hurt is so surprising. 

“Start thinking of a solid excuse why we’re missing practice, G,” Logan calls to him while he comes around to get to the passenger seat. “Everyone’s going to be on our ass.”

Garrett doesn’t say anything even after he gets inside the car and tugs his seatbelt on. He doesn’t question where they’re going or why Logan’s skipping ice time with him. He just leans his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes, content in letting his best friend take him away. 

It’s only a couple of minutes–maybe half an hour–later that he feels the car pulling to a stop. Garrett looks around at the empty parking lot. The familiar curved shape of the building that he called home for over four years. The banners with the Hawks mascot. “We skipped practice so you can take us to Briar?”

Logan rolls his eyes, turning the car engine off. “Come on.”

The rink is empty. Practice wouldn’t be for another two hours, at least. Logan takes out a set of keys and wiggles them in front of Garrett’s face. 

“You still have that?”

“Yep,” Logan says, popping the p. “I’m sentimental like that.”

The walk to the rink is so familiar Garrett feels like he traveled back in time. There are only a couple of lights turned on, and the quietness of the morning loosens his shoulders bit by bit. He follows Logan’s lead, and they walk until they reach the players’ bench just a few steps away from the ice. Logan sits first, then taps the space next to him pointedly. 

Garrett drops down beside him with a heavy sigh. 

“Remember the first time we stepped on this ice?” Logan suddenly says, a small smile taking up his face. “Freshman year summer tryouts.”

Garrett frowns but nods anyway. “Yeah. We were insufferable.”

“I was so excited to play college hockey, man,” Logan laughs, slapping his knee with his palm. “I just remember thinking to myself that I can’t fuck it up. I had to be the best freshman there because I wanted to make the starting line so bad. And then you fucking saunter in like you already own the place.”

Garrett lets himself smile. Even back then, he had a single-minded focus on becoming the best, on succeeding in a way that would finally get his dad off his back. A lot of universities had reached out to him then, offering him a place on their teams with just his high school stats and his father’s name backing him up. Briar hadn’t been one of them. He got invited to a tryout, like all the other college hopefuls there with him. Garrett won’t pretend that having Phil Graham as his dad didn’t make getting in easier for him. He’d be deluding himself if he did. But Briar at least had the decency to see how he played first before deciding he’s worth it. “I wanted it badly, too. I wanted to know how good I was without my dad breathing down my neck.”

“And you fucking killed it,” Logan tells him, making him scoff out loud. Logan elbows him harshly. “Just fucking take the compliment, G. I’m not giving those away for free.”

Garrett pauses for a moment. He looks at the ice, freshly resurfaced and so shiny the fluorescent lights are reflecting off it like a mirror. He thinks about all the hours he spent here–practices, games, more practices, sometimes skating just to skate. He could be angry or elated or fucking devastated and all he would do is come here and let the smell of the rink wash over his senses like water. Garrett clenches his jaw. “We were kids.”

“Yeah,” Logan agrees. “We were.”

A beat. And then, “We’re not kids anymore.”

He sees Logan look at him from his periphery, waiting for his next words. “No.”

Garrett feels his eyes begin to sting, so he averts his gaze upwards. “And growing up means…we have to make tough decisions. Because we know better. Because we need to take care of ourselves, too.”

Logan hums. “Doesn’t mean it still won’t hurt, though.”

Garrett finally turns his head to look at him, a humorless laugh falling from his lips. “No. It doesn’t.”

Another pause. Then Logan asks, “You love her?” 

His throat tightens and he feels his shoulders sink. “I think…I don’t know how not to.”

They stay there for another hour, only leaving when the team finally arrives for their practice. Coach Jensen asks them to sign a couple of things. Tucker is so smug at being their friend that he practically grows five inches from it. They get lunch at Malone’s just the three of them for old times’ sake, sending a picture to the gc with Dean only replying with ‘fucking traitors.’ And Garrett pretends his chest isn’t caving in. Maybe if he does it often enough, it will come true. 

Life goes on. That’s always been the cruel part. 

A New Year’s Eve party after a win against the Capitals is a high like no other. The previous season, the Bruins played (and lost) on the 1st, when most of his teammates were hungover and Garrett had to go home embarrassed at their 6-2 score. Tonight, fresh off a win with no games scheduled in the morning, Garrett loses count of how many shots had been handed to him. 

His stomach is twisting ever so slightly, not used to the overindulgence anymore, and Logan is hanging off of Grace’s arms by their table with glassy eyes and the most dopey smile in existence. Somewhere on the dance floor, Dean and Allie are dancing and/or most likely making out without a care for an audience. 

Garrett leans against the bar. His body feels heavy with alcohol, his movements turning sluggish. He’s panting just a little—Dean had dragged him and Logan to the dance pit earlier, when a cheesy song from their college days began playing from the speakers. They jumped up and down more than they danced, and for a while Garrett forgets. But only for a while. 

It’s been five months since he last saw her. 

When he returned from his surprise trip to Briar with Logan, his apartment was empty. All of her things were gone—clothes, toothbrush, her skincare products and makeup that used to take up too much space in his bathroom. She didn’t leave a note. She didn’t text him or call him or beg for him to come back. She simply left and that was it. 

Her break up with Luke hits the media a week later, and Garrett has to stop himself from reaching out. Because if she had finally escaped her relationship and she still never came back to Garrett, then that has to mean something. That has to mean that no matter how much it hurt, letting her go was the right thing to do. It’s harder to convince himself of that when he’s getting a box from under his bed a couple of days later and sees a stray hair tie hidden there, or when he’s on the ice and he subconsciously glances at where she usually sits. The only relief is that Luke and her’s joint statement names “mutual decision” and “growing apart” as their cause of break up, so Garrett doesn’t have to worry about her reputation any more than he worries about her well-being in general. 

“Post-win blues?” 

Garrett whips his head around to see a woman he doesn’t know–dark short hair, long lashes, thick eyebrows. She’s wearing a bedazzled, bodycon dress version of a Bruins jersey, and even in her heels her head only reaches Garrett’s shoulders. 

“I’m Cara,” she introduces herself with a hand extended towards him. Garrett takes the handshake politely, gesturing to the bartender and buying her a drink, only because he feels like it’s the right thing to do. 

She tells him about herself as he knocks back another shot–tequilla this time, the liquid burning down his throat pleasantly. Gun to his head, though, he couldn’t tell anyone a word that she’s saying, his mind floating far away from the party and into places that he knows he should have banned long ago. As she’s talking, Garrett catches Dean’s eye from the dancefloor; he has both of his thumbs raised up, his head nodding up and and down while an almost manic grin takes over his face. Allie’s clinging to his arms laughing, and Garrett has to try very hard to suppress an eyeroll at the two of them. 

He downs shot after shot, maintaining shallow conversation with Cora the entire time. Before he knows it, the countdown to the new year is happening, and when the clock strikes twelve, Carol tilts her chin up at him expectantly while the entire club erupts in cheers and a cheery club mix of Auld Lang Syne. Garrett lets the moment run its course and kisses her, just to prove that he still could. Just to prove that she hadn’t broken him entirely. He even lets himself take her home to her place and fuck her against the front door, his pants pooling his ankles and her dress bunched up at the waist. It’s rough and quick and it makes him feel so dirty afterwards that he spends an hour in his shower when he gets home, scrubbing his skin raw. 

In March, Garrett finds himself at the same Manhattan hotel when they play against the Rangers in New York again. He avoids the bar and the diner tucked in between an ice cream shop and a laundromat like the plague. 

The playoffs this season is brutal, and by the end of April, Garrett feels ready to collapse on the ice. Every game is hard-won by the skin of their teeth, and every loss is a devastating knock down. Garrett’s not confident about taking the cup yet. It’s their first year playing with a new captain; the team’s dynamic on the ice is still rocky, and he feels it when they hesitate at times during passes that should have been second nature by now. 

The pressure is a steady, pressing thing, especially now that they’re having their first home game in a while. Even Logan is a little psyched out, judging by the constant tapping of his foot, the skate guards thudding against the locker room floors annoyingly. “Grace just texted me. She said the crowd out there is insane.”

Garrett shoots him a look. “Not helping, man.”

“Right, right, sorry,” Logan mutters under his breath, foot still keeping the rhythmic tap-tap-tap on the floor. “How was your weekend with–what’s her name? Linda?”

“Lindsay,” Garrett sighs, already tired of the conversation. She was a friend of one of their teammates who he had been set up on a date with. Garrett let her pick the place: a Japanese restaurant in the city with dishes in small portions definitely unfit for a pro athlete like him. “The food was good, I guess.”

Logan actually laughs at that. “Brother, I’m not asking about the fucking food. I meant how was it? You know? How was Lindsay?”

“She was fine,” Garrett shrugs again, avoiding his best friend’s eyes. 

“She was fine,” Logan echoes, leaning his head back. “I’m guessing there won’t be a second date, then?”

“I’m not looking for any dates,” Garrett corrects him. “I’m not really fit for relationships at the moment.”

Logan looks like he has something to say about that, but before he can open his mouth, their coach enters the locker room and everyone’s focus suddenly shifts to the home game they can’t afford to lose. 

The Bruins easily take the first period, but the second period is where shit starts hitting the fan. Garrett takes a hard hit from one of the Flyers’ defensemen, leaving him to be benched for the entire period. He stews in the sidelines quietly, the only sound coming from him angry huffs that belong more to a comical movie villain than a supposed elite hockey player. If he’s being honest with himself, he knows the problem even before he stepped foot in TD Garden that morning. 

The problem, as always, is her. 

It was a 2AM mistake, which is funny because he shouldn’t have even been awake at that hour when he has an important game the next day. Garret wasn’t even thinking about her when he opened up his Instagram; he’d been thinking about the local Boston gossip page that posted a candid picture of him pulling up to 311 Omakase with Lindsay. Allie had sent the link of the post to his DMs, and the notification combined with his inability to sleep had him clicking on the app absentmindedly. 

It was an alright picture, he guessed, at least as far as paparazzi pictures go. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses despite the late hour, his head ducked ever so slightly. Lindsay is walking close to him in a short red dress, her arm brushing against his, lips pulled to a wide smile. It looked far more enjoyable than the entire date had been, though Garrett wasn’t really expecting anything different. No woman can pique his interest lately, and he’s not above pretending he doesn’t know why. 

Clicking out of the gossip page was where things went wrong. The app led him back to his timeline, and the first thing that greeted him was her post from only a couple of hours ago. They didn’t block or unfollow each other–it would have been too obvious, otherwise. So Garrett just lets his team run his account for him, trying to avoid catching a glimpse of her life without him as much as possible. But now it’s all for naught, because she’s right there on his phone screen, hair almost as long as she had it when they first met a year ago, eyes crinkled, beaming down at the camera. She’s holding a thick hardbound thesis in front of her chest, and her caption reads: officially grad-waiting!

A couple of familiar people left congratulatory comments. Luke even liked it, which should have sent Garrett into a whole other kind of spiral, but he just couldn’t focus beyond seeing her face, her pretty smile lighting up the entire picture, her green eyes gleaming. She looked beautiful, of course she did, but more than that, she looked good. Happy. Lighter in a way that Garrett’s not sure he’s ever seen before apart from millisecond glimpses at moments caught off guard. 

It had been months, and he’s getting better at not thinking about her, at not hurting about her, but in that moment Garrett felt another fissure form deep in his chest, cracking like concrete and spreading thin strands of breakage all over his heart. 

He shut off his phone and darkness swallowed his entire bedroom. He tried not to think about the possibility of her seeing his face online and feeling her heart break too. 

The score is 4-3 in favor of the Flyers when Garrett finally manages to get back on the ice. Logan is there with him, eyes narrowed in that deeply focused way that he usually gets when the game is too close a fight. Their captain is explaining a play he wants them to do when Garrett instinctively glances up at the stands. 

The first person he sees is Andrew, which isn’t all that surprising. Even with his pseudo (ex) son-in-law retired, Andrew always goes to their games, especially home ones like tonight. What freezes Garrett’s entire body is the person sitting next to him, wearing a generic Bruins jersey, hair flying all over the place, the blush on the tip of her nose spreading all over her cheeks, glancing up at the scoreboard anxiously. 

Her.

Beautiful, devastating, no-longer-his her. 

Logan reads his body language immediately, following his gaze to the audience and exhaling shortly when he spots her sitting there. He pats a heavy hand on Garrett’s shoulder, finally getting him to look away from where she is. “I know this is a big deal but can you spiral later? We got a game to win.”

Before Garrett can say anything, the referee is already motioning for them to get back in position. Garrett looks back up to the stands. She’s smiling now, talking to her dad who’s gesturing wildly with his hands. Garrett hasn’t seen her in months. She’s been out of his life for longer than she’s been in it. But does it count when he feels like she never really left completely? When he knows for a fact that he can get his ribcage opened right this second and it’ll reveal her name?

His first few steps on the ice are shaky and clumsy, like he’s a toddler learning to skate all over again. But to his (and Logan’s) surprise, the next period is the definition of changing tides. Garrett plays like a fucking beast. He assists Logan into a neat goal only a couple minutes in, and he dodges all the opposing players with expert glides, reading their play like an elementary grade book. The last eight minutes of the game is practically a victory lap around the rink, and Garrett finishes it off with a clean goal that has the audience erupting in cheers. 

6-4. 

They won. 

He gets roped to do an interview the second he steps off the ice. The Bruins captain is a couple of feet away from him, doing the same thing. Logan passes by with a two-fingered salute, making Garrett scoff under his breath. 

“Garrett, what a game tonight!” The ESPN reporter gushes to him, standing on a small, square platform to be able to hold the mic up to his face. “You definitely played like you had something to prove today.”

Against his better judgment, Garrett’s eyes travel back to where she is sitting. He almost flinches when he finds that she’s already looking at him. Her smile is gone, lower lip bitten and eyes wide like she’s seen a ghost. She’s so beautiful his knees almost buckle at the sight. He’s glad he already saw her earlier, or he definitely would have embarrassed himself on live television. Heart in his throat, he looks back to the reporter and says, “I guess I did.”

“And did you?” She questions, holding the mic up higher. “Prove it?”

Garrett huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.”

He practically runs past the tunnel in his haste, which is probably why he almost trips the second he sees her waiting for him at the end of it, both her arms crossed, back leaning against the tiled wall casually. She stands back up when she sees him, and Garrett has to stop himself from barrelling into her and taking her in his arms. 

“Hi,” he pants slightly, chest heaving up and down. With his skates still on, he towers over her even more, her head barely reaching his shoulders. 

She’s standing one step away. It’s the closest they’ve ever been since that fateful day in his kitchen, when Garrett realized that he has to let her go before he loses himself in something that will swallow him whole. She had been crying then, and Garrett had been trying to keep it together. Now, with her looking up at him like this, her face unreadable but close enough to touch, Garrett feels all the hurt and longing slam back into him full force. 

He misses her so much he can barely breathe. 

“Hi,” shey says back, her voice soft, still looking up at him through her eyelashes like she can’t believe that they’re sharing space again. “Good game.”

“Good?” Garrett repeats with an amused frown. “It was amazing.”

She scoffs, and the sound steadily drains the tension out of both of their bodies. “Okay, now.”

“I was amazing. Admit it.” Garrett says, feeling the edges of his lip begin to lift in a helpless smile. 

“Fine,” she smiles back slowly. “You were.”

His eyes scan her face like he’s memorizing every feature, like he’s comparing the woman from his memory to the one in front of him now, cataloguing the small differences like a scientist with a microscope. “How are you?”

“I’ve been good. Great.” She exhales a breathy laugh. “I just defended my master’s thesis, so that’s a big deal, kinda.”

He nods with a harsh swallow. “I saw. Congratulations.”

This time, when she sighs, it’s tinged with frustration. “Can we not do this?”

Garrett frowns. “Do what?”

“Make small talk like everything is normal,” she says with her eyebrows furrowed. “We both know it’s not.”

He feels his jaw clench, one hand coming up to rub down his face. “Why are you here?”

She looks down at her shoes. When she speaks, her voice is quieter, like what she’s about to say is a secret she’s been keeping close to her chest. “I wanted to talk.”

Garrett swallows thickly. “So talk.”

That makes her glare up at him before she turns her head to check their surroundings. Before he can protest, she’s dragging him by the wrist to the green room, legs moving swiftly and head slightly ducked, like they’d get less attention that way. 

She closes the door behind them with a relieved huff, closing her eyes and leaning back with both palms still pressed to the door. Garrett’s busy looking down at his own wrist, his skin still tingling with the memory of her touch. “That’s better.”

Garrett just looks at her. He doesn’t know what to say, really. He doesn’t know what’s allowed. So he just looks, because he doesn’t know when he’s going to be able to do it again. If it’s going to be another nine months, or if at all. He takes her in greedily; her flushed cheeks, the Bruins jersey that should’ve had his name and number on it in another lifetime. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play like that,” she begins, flitting her eyes on him for a quick glance before settling on something over his shoulder. “I mean–I knew you were good, but tonight…It was different. It was like you couldn’t wait to get to the other side.”

Garrett breathes out through his nose. He’s suddenly all too aware of how sweaty he is, his damp curls falling over his face, his jersey sticking to his skin. He probably smells like shit. Still, he can’t get himself to move from where he’s standing in front of her. “Because I couldn’t.”

When she looks at him questioningly, Garrett only lifts an eyebrow at her, because of course she knows. Of course she knows that her being here is going to change things. That ending the game means that small chance of getting to talk to her again, of seeing her up close. 

She knows, and so she says what Garrett suspects she came here to say: “You really hurt me. That day at your place.”

He feels his face drop. His breath hitches on a protest, or an apology, but the air fizzles out before it can form coherent words. 

“But I know I hurt you too,” she continues with a sad smile. “I know that I dragged you to the end of your rope. And I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks at the last word. 

Garrett clenches his fists by his sides. He doesn’t move a muscle. 

“And I wanted to thank you, as weird as that sounds,” she chuckles wetly, one hand coming up to cup the back of her neck. “I think I needed that. I needed to hurt. I needed to lose you so I could understand that–” she cuts herself off with a shaky exhale. “To understand what it means. To truly be in love with someone, you know? Because I thought I knew. I thought I had it with Luke, so much so that even when I knew that I didn’t feel anything about him anymore, I just couldn’t let go. I needed to see you walk away so that I could figure out that keeping him as my safety net isn’t worth the heartbreak that cost me you.”

Garrett feels his breath leave him entirely. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but he knows his mouth is slightly agape, his chest tight and his eyes stinging something awful. His heart is pounding so loudly that he thinks the entire arena must be able to hear its violent thud-thud-thuds against his ribcage. His brain is blank. It feels like a dream but also the most awake he’s ever been. 

“I thought I liked myself with Luke,” she tells him with a small sniff. “I liked that he got me out of my cringy rebellious funk. I liked that he got me closer with my dad again. I liked that I didn’t have to think with him because he’s already ten steps ahead of me. I liked that version of myself; that put-together, stable grad student who doesn’t do shitty, self-destructive things like get blank-faced drunk and push away her family and, I don’t know, cheat on her boyfriend and fall in love with another guy.”

“I–”

“Let me finish, please,” she rushes out, one tear falling rapidly down her face which she immediately intercepts with a wipe of her hand. “That’s the girl I wanted to be. The girl that Luke convinced me I had to be so I could tell myself I wasn’t a sad excuse for a human being. But you–” her chin trembles, and she has to let out a slow, shaky breath before continuing. “You never made me feel like I had to contort myself in order to be better. You just wanted me, period. And I guess I thought that if I got to keep you while I kept pretending to be this other person with Luke, then I’d get the best of both worlds. Because I didn’t know who I was anymore. Was I the lonely college girl waiting outside an arena for a dad who wouldn’t come or was I the perfect trophy girlfriend? Was I the girl you met at that diner or the one who called you on the fourth because hearing your voice made me feel like flying? I didn’t know. And for months, I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

Garrett takes a slow step forward. “Did you? Figure it out?”

“Not everything,” she laughs, wiping at her eyes again. “I did realize one important thing, though.”

Another step. Garrett feels lightheaded in the best way. “What?”

“It’s been nine months since we broke it off,” she begins. “I’ve tried therapy. I’ve tried soul-searching out-of-the-country trips. I finished my master’s thesis. I got drunk a lot. I made friends. I even went on a handful of dates. And still, at the end of the day, when I get to my bed at night, all I find myself thinking about is how much I want you there with me. How right it feels when you’re pressed against me. Like we just slot together perfectly.”

Garrett releases a breath. “You really hurt me.”

“I know.”

“I know it was hard for you to face the reality of what’s going on with you and Luke. It’s hard to unlearn the only relationship you’ve ever known, but–” Garrett blinks heavily. “You made me feel like I wasn’t enough. You’d get my hopes up so high some days that I would think this is it. She’s really going to leave him this time. I couldn’t be the only one feeling this. But then the next second, you’re leaving me and going to him. It’s–it really fucked me up.”

Her voice is smaller when she repeats, “I know.”

“And it’s been really frustrating because, like you said, it’s been nine months. I should’ve gotten you out of my system by now.” She visibly flinches at that, but Garrett continues, because he doesn’t know when else he could muster up the right words to her face. “I’m not saying you were the only one to blame. We both fucked up. You cheated because you didn’t know how to leave a toxic relationship. I slept with you despite knowing you were taken. We’re fucked up people, apparently, and what’s even more fucked up is that I still want this. I still want you like I’ve never wanted anyone before.”

Her face breaks open. The hope lining her eyes is a blinding thing, and it’s enough to get Garrett to say the next sentence he’s always wanted to say: “I’m in love with you. I hate that this is how you’re hearing it for the first time but it’s true. I’ve been trying to convince myself I didn’t love you when the whole time I was just–fucking–gone. I love you.”

“You do?” Her voice breaks at the question.

Garrett closes the distance between them, until she has to crane her neck to look up at him, until he can feel the heat coming from her skin on his own. “Yeah. I do.”

She laughs, or maybe cries–it’s a weird combination of both, but the sound goes straight to Garrett’s chest anyway. “That’s great.”

“That’s great?” He repeats in disbelief. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

Her arms slowly reach up his neck. Tentative, like she’s still not entirely sure this is really happening. Garrett feels the same. “I missed you. So fucking much I felt like I couldn’t breathe sometimes.”

He pulls her closer by the waist. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods with another wet smile. “I love you, Garrett. I’m sorry it took so long. I’m sorry we had to hurt each other before we could get here. But I love you. And I think I’m going to be loving you for a very long time.”

Garrett feels his own eyes sting at that, but he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed. “So we’re doing this? For real?”

“For real.”

“No more casual? No more sneaking around and hiding our relationship?” Garrett continues asking, making her nod at each question eagerly. He pauses, then says, “No more boyfriends?”

She presses even closer. “Just the one. If he’ll have me.”

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and he can’t take it anymore, so he walks her until her back is flushed against the door, ducks his head, and kisses her like he’s been aching to do since he saw her at the stands earlier that day. Since he walked out on her and felt every inch of distance like a gun to his chest. He kisses her like he loves her, because he fucking does. 

The moan she lets out at the contact goes straight to his crotch. She parts her lips slightly, and Garrett doesn’t waste any time tangling his tongue with hers, tasting her spit and familiarizing himself again with how her mouth feels all wet and open for him. 

“I love you,” she says against his lips, and Garrett has to squeeze his eyes shut at how euphoric the words make him feel. “Garrett, I love you.”

He pulls away so he can press a kiss on either of her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her eyelids still wet with tears, her jawline, down to her neck, everywhere his mouth can reach. “I love you.”

“You can’t leave me again,” she tells him, pulling him back by his jersey to press their lips together again in a chaste kiss. “I don’t think I can handle it.”

Garrett shakes his head. “Never. Not happening.”

“Good,” she grins, and then they’re kissing again. It turns filthy fast, and soon Garrett’s fighting back a groan while she grinds their hips together so they could feel even closer. “Missed you. I need you so bad.”

Garrett feels his heart stutter. One of his hands snake down from her waist to grope at the globe of her ass, making her whimper against his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Fuck,” she hisses, pulling their mouths apart with a wet sound. Her cheeks are bright red and her pupils are blown wide. Her lips are swollen and wet with their combined spit. Garrett knows he doesn’t look any better, and it’s like she’s only just registering how disheveled he looks with his filthy jersey and sweaty hair, because she laughs out loud and pushes a curl back with her fingers. “You’re gross.”

Garrett rolls his eyes but drops another quick kiss to her lips. “Someone accosted me before I could go to the locker room and shower.”

“Shut up,” she scoffs before biting down on her lip, eyes going over his frame darkly. “Do you think we’re moving too fast? Because I really want you to bend me over this door and fuck me senseless.”

“Jesus Christ," Garrett huffs, squeezing her against him. “You can’t say shit like that to me. I’m going to fucking die.”

Her eyes widen in amusement. “Well, don’t do that. I need you alive for a very very long time.”

Garrett laughs and kisses her again, but he pulls away before it can turn deeper. “I want to. I really fucking want to. But I’m not fucking you for the first time in nine months in the fucking green room. We can do so much better than that.”

“Can we?”

He nods, like he’s already got something planned. “We can.”

She laughs breathlessly, and then one of her hands reaches down to intertwine with his, already pulling him to the door. “Let’s go, then.”

“Wait,” he tugs at her gently, causing her to look back at him in question. Garrett pauses. There’s still that old lingering doubt floating in his chest that he knows they’re going to have to work hard to eradicate completely. There’s still a part of him that’s not sure if this is for real, or if they need to start hiding again, so he asks, “Are you sure?”

Her face melts into something soft. She squeezes his hand tightly. “Very sure. Didn’t you hear? Garrett Graham is my boyfriend now.”

He lets out a relieved chuckle, feeling his cheeks and ears burn. “Alright,” he nods, then copies her words. “Let’s go, then.”