My apartment is in the Cherokee—a prewar courtyard complex from the 1910s with wrought-iron galleries, exterior staircases, and tall French doors—tucked between York Avenue and the East River, a quiet little secret off the main map. Tonight, the courtyard is strung with fairy lights, frost dusting the ivy. Upstairs, our two-bedroom apartment smells of lavender candles. I toe off my heels, rub the line they carved into my toes, and try not to think about how easy it was to let a stranger hold my hand, and how hard it is to breathe when a very specific man tips his mask my way.
Liz pops out the second my keys click. “Well?”
“He’s great,” I say, hanging my coat. “Kind. Funny. Has a dog named Ralph.”
“Kissable?”
“Yes.” True, and not enough.
She narrows her eyes. “But?”
But my pulse kicked for a goalie who doesn’t belong to me. But ten years of silence weren’t enough to stop the ache. But I want to want the man who wants me back, and my body has terrible aim.
I shrug instead. “I’m out of practice.”
“Practice is fixable,” she says briskly. “Eat. Sleep. Text him tomorrow.”
“Bossy,” I mutter, fighting a smile.
“Effective,” she counters, kissing my temple before disappearing. “You looked happy. It suits you.”
When the apartment goes quiet, I wash Bennett’s cologne from my neck and pull on a sweatshirt. Yorkville hums under the windows. My foam roller waits by the couch, overzealous and torturous.
I sit on the edge of my bed and let the night replay. Thekiss. The stillness across the ice. The tiny extra heartbeat Nate spent in the crease after the goal. The rules I wrote for myself and the ones other people handed me.
He’s just a goalie, I tell myself.
The lie tastes bitter.
2
THE LATE GLOVE (NATE)
The horn eats the last second, and I’m still seeing her. Row six. Tall. Blonde waves over her shoulders. Black jumpsuit. Mouth on some smug asshole in a cashmere sweater.
I push to my feet, skate an arc, tap my posts. One-two. Water. Mask down. Tell myself it wasn’t Eden. Could’ve been a lookalike. My head doesn’t care. Jealousy hits clean and dumb. The jumbotron narrowed on her, and my lungs stuttered. He kissed her slow, sure. He hadn’t earned it.
Mine. Not mine. Not the point.
The shot that beat me wasn’t hard. Screen up top, a knuckle through traffic. My glove was late by inches. The kind of goal that rides you down the tunnel and into the room.
I don’t miss glove-side.
I also don’t twitch when my left adductor pings on a wide seal, but it did in the second. Small bite, inside the hip. It shut up when the puck dropped, but it’s there. A quiet, smug little problem.
In the locker room, I strip gear in order: right pad, leftpad, blocker, glove. The boys talk around me. Sticks clatter. Tape peels. I heard a few fans ride me on the walk off. Fine. Let them. I know the save I should’ve made.
Liam drops into the stall beside mine, towel around his waist, captain’s eyes on me. “You good?”
“Fine.”
He studies me. He’s been studying me since we were kids at Chelsea Piers. He can read it when I’m lying. I stare back until he lets it go.
Finn swings past, hair damp, grin crooked. “You were a wall for fifty-eight. One squeaker got through. We’ll take it back Friday.”
I grunt, which is a heartfelt thank-you. He pops my mask with his knuckles and moves on.
Mercer, our head trainer, lingers a half second too long near my stall. “Anything nagging?”
