I want her yes.
I carry the mug to the window and stand in the wash of the streetlights, hip throbbing, heart misfiring. A good goalie is patient. We live in the quiet between explosions. We wait, then we take the angle away. I can be patient.
Patient isn’t passive.
What opens her? Not force. Not noise. She told me the key: confidence, dominance done right. Not steamrolling. Not performing. Leading—steady, sure—so she can let go because she knows I’ve got her.
I exhale. The decision settles clean.
Start small, because small works. I’ll find her rhythm, then take the lead when the moment’s right. Nothing showy, nothing she can point to, but enough to signal the shift. If she pushes back, I ease off. If she leans in…we’re just getting started.
I sip the tea that tastes of grass and prudent decisions. My hip spikes, a clean throb that says stop thinking and roll. I grab my mat and drop to the floor. Adductor slides. Groinflossing. Boring, brutal work. I breathe through the burn and picture her hands braced on my thigh, firm and unapologetic. Heat pours through the ache. Great. Now I’m doing PT with a hard-on, acting like a teenage idiot all over again.
I flip over and go into a plank, hip steady, core tight, mind unhelpful. I should be thinking about angles and rebounds. Instead I’m cataloging all the tiny things I remember from every era of her—kid Eden with the shell bracelets and the way she avoided red grapes; teenager Eden learning to choke out boys twice her size; woman Eden keeping her distance, convinced I’m the last complication she needs.
I finish the set and roll onto my back, catching my breath in the quiet. Any other woman and I’d line up the easy route: let her pick a loud bar where the lighting is kind and I don’t have to try too hard. Then run the standard offense—hands, grin, one story, one joke. Walk her home. End it tidy, wake up unfussed. But I’m past easy. Easy is forgetting five minutes later. Easy is a name I don’t text.
I don’t want easy.
I want the moment she stops holding herself together and lets me take the lead. I want the exact second the air goes heavy and her hand stutters on my skin. I want to know why she disappeared and if there’s a way back to me.
The kettle clicks again, reminding me I’m standing still. I text Coach I’ll be in the facility gym at seven for prehab before my treatment block. If I’m first in, I set the tone. If I’m already warm and loose when she walks in, she doesn’t get the chance to throw me off; I’m the one setting the pace.
The phone buzzes with an instant thumbs-up. Coach thinks I’m dialed in. He’s not wrong. I am. Just…not to what he thinks.
I shower and crawl into bed, too awake for sleep, roomdark except for the golden spill of the bedside lamp. My mind wanders back to Eden. I can hear her laugh under fireworks and the snap of the dock at sunset and the promise I made to myself at eighteen: don’t want what you can’t have.
Bad promise.
I want her anyway.
I drift somewhere between awake and out when the memory sneaks up—the ferry pulling away, her missing on the dock, the hollow ache in my chest I filled with hockey and miles and other women’s mouths. It still stings. Not in the way that makes you bitter. In the way that makes you stubborn.
Yeah, Trouble. I’m coming for the answer this time.
The facility isquiet in the morning—clean air, soft lights, the hum of treadmills, the low thud of a medicine ball against a wall. I’m twenty minutes into a sweat when the trainers start rolling in, along with a couple of rookies. I nod, finish a set of Copenhagen planks that torch my adductors, then wipe down and head for the PT wing.
I beat her there by five. Good. The room smells of antiseptic and eucalyptus. I drop my bag, then take the table with a lazy sprawl meant to signal I’m the one in control.
My pulse ticks higher. Not nerves. Anticipation. The blurriest memories are the loudest ones: her chin up when she’s scared, the way she tests a boundary before she crosses it, the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes when she’s trying not to smile. I want all of it. I want new tells.
Footsteps in the hall. Her voice, low and even, a quick hello to someone. A soft knock. The handle turns.
When she walks in, the energy in the room shifts an inch and everything slots into place. Her hair is in a ponytail today, and she’s wearing navy scrubs that should look plain but don’t. Her iPad is tucked to her chest like a shield.
Her gaze hits my face, skates away, then drags back. The barest flush rises in her throat. There it is. Tell one.
She sets the iPad down. “You’re early.”
“So are you,” I say, glancing at the clock. “Must’ve caught the first train in.”
A quick, almost imperceptible lift of her shoulder—she doesn’t want to make a thing of it. “Didn’t want to risk being late.”
I file it away. Tarrytown’s a haul from the city. Means she was up before dawn.
“Morning,” I add, voice easy as a Sunday. “Figured I’d warm up for you.”
“For…me,” she repeats, and I swear I hear her swallow before the professional mask slips back over her face. “Let’s start with range. How did it feel overnight?”
