We didn’t talk much—talk gives things names. We pretended not to need language when we had gravity and heat and the kind of chemistry that makes rules look like props in a play everyone knows is fake. Even now, the ghost of it tightens my hands into fists, then unspools them like I could pull the past closer if I wanted it hard enough.
The memory stops where it always does: at the door. Dawn turning the neon dull, my tux shirt buttoned crooked with fingers that didn’t feel like mine, her dress scooped up off the floor like a secret. I knelt to find her zipper and the carpet burned my knees, and I didn’t care because I was stupid on happiness—drunk on the idea that something could be this easy when nothing in my life ever had been.
She put her palm flat against the door and didn’t look at me.I can’t, she said, voice rough from everything we’d done and everything we hadn’t dared to say.I’m not going to be your problem.
The latch clicked when it opened. It clicked again when it closed. It learned my name in those sounds and hasn’t stopped saying it since.
I stand in the dark now, the suite too clean and too quiet, replay pressed under my thumb like a bruise I keep checkingfor color. The AC hisses. The city hums. My body doesn’t understand the difference between then and now; it only knows the ache that follows wanting—and the worse ache that follows losing.
I close my eyes and hold the memory where it hurts the least, which is still everywhere.Deep breath, I tell myself, and the room doesn’t argue.
The neon glow of the city seeps through the thin hotel curtains, painting the room in flickering light. The air conditioner hums—a steady, indifferent rhythm against the storm in my chest. I’m sprawled across the bed, the sheets tangled around me, rough against my skin, like the ghost of Riley’s touch. Her scent still lingers—citrus and ice, sharp and clean—woven into my skin. I bring my hand to my nose, inhale, and for a moment, I almost believe she’s still here.
Her laugh echoes in my head, warm and reckless, pressing against my lips like a promise I couldn’t keep. But the sound fades, and all that’s left is the click of the door when she left.
The ache in my chest tightens. I grip the sheets, my knuckles whitening, my pulse thudding in my ears in time with the memory of her—her taste, her heat, the way she’d clenched around me, whispering my name into the dark.
I’m hard, painfully so, my cock throbbing against my thigh. My hand moves before I can stop it, fingers brushing the edge of that ache. I close my eyes and let the memory of her take over—her legs wrapped around me, her nails digging into my back, her breath hot against my ear as she said things that made me lose control. I stroke myself slowly, chasing the ghost of her body. But when I come, it’s hollow—just friction and breath, not her.
The air feels heavier after. The neon light flickers on the ceiling, mocking. I reach for my phone, her contact glowing faintly on the screen. “Can we talk?” I type. Then I delete it. Coward. I know the rules—the no-dating policy, the whispers,the smirks from teammates whenever Riley walks by. “The trainer,” they say, like she’s some untouchable idea. But I can’t stop thinking about her—the way she looked at me like I wasn’t just another uniform.
I almost get up. My hand even brushes the doorknob before the sound of laughter in the hallway stops me. Teammates. Their voices drift through the door—jokes about professionalism, about self-control. I feel heat rise in my chest, anger and helplessness twined together. I slam my fist into the doorframe, the noise sharp and stupid.
Then there’s a knock, and my heart jumps. For a second, I think it’s her. But it’s just one of the guys, grinning, saying something meaningless. I slam the door shut harder than I should.
The silence afterward is worse. I lean my forehead against the wood, close my eyes, and imagine her standing there, ponytail swinging, smirk in place. “Miss me already?” she’d say, her voice low, teasing.
My hand tightens into a fist. I can still see her—her green eyes, her small, strong body moving under mine, the way she’d whispered my name like a secret. I push off the door, the memory of her taste thick in my mouth. Is she thinking about me too?
The room feels smaller by the second. The AC hums louder, the neon light harsher. I pace to the window and pull the curtain aside. The city below buzzes—alive, electric, careless. But it all feels far away, like I’m watching it through water. None of it matters. All I can think about is her—the way she’d laughed when I teased her, the way she’d looked at me like I was something worth keeping.
I turn back to the bed. The sheets are still tangled, still carrying her scent. I sit down, drag my hands through my hair, and try to tell myself to focus. Focus on the game. Focus on whatmatters. But she’s under my skin. She’s in the static of the air, in the way the sheets wrinkle, in the way my pulse refuses to calm down.
My phone buzzes—a team group chat. I don’t even glance at it. My eyes go to her door again. The hallway’s quiet now. I can almost hear her laugh, her voice, the teasing lilt when she said my name.
I stand. My heart pounds. I know I shouldn’t, but I cross the hall anyway, stop in front of her door. My hand hovers over the knob. Just knock. Just one knock. But then the consequences flash through my mind—the no-dating rule, the press, the team, the headlines. I step back, the air thick in my lungs.
I lean against the wall and close my eyes. “Miss me already?” I can almost hear her say it again. I don’t have an answer. I never do. The silence between us feels unbearable, the distance impossible.
I push off the wall, fists clenching, breath shallow. I know I can’t keep doing this—this wanting, this holding back—but I also know I can’t stop. I can’t let her go.
The neon light flickers again, shadows shifting across the wall. I look at her door one last time, the question pressing against my ribs: is she thinking of me too?
I don’t know. But I know this—I can’t stay here forever, caught between wanting her and pretending I don’t.
I go back to the bed, the sheets still tangled with her scent. I lie down, hand on my chest, heartbeat loud in my ears. The room feels too small. I close my eyes, and she’s there again—her smirk, her touch, her voice—and I wonder if I’ll ever find the courage to knock on that door.
I try all the athlete tricks: box breathing, counting backward in sevens, listing the faces of every defenseman who’s ever tried to put me through glass. None of it drowns the shape of hermouth when she told me to breathe like I was something worth saving.
The memory drags me by the wrist to the edge I’ve been hovering over since the bench. Want is a muscle—you can ignore it, work around it, ice it. It doesn’t atrophy just because you pretend it should. I let the dark close in, let the ache crest, and choose the thing that gets me through nights like this when the only other option is carving her name into the drywall with my teeth.
After, the quiet is louder. The AC ticks as it cycles; a siren smears past three floors down. I lie there breathing like I finished a shift I didn’t earn and wait for the relief that used to come when I was younger and dumber and believed biology could outvote feelings. It doesn’t. If anything, the edges sharpen—as if taking the pressure off the valve only made the pipes rattle harder.
I scrub a hand over my face and roll to the window. The city has the decency not to look back. My phone is a square of cold light on the desk, screen sleeping, conscience awake. I don’t pick it up. I do. I don’t. I do.
The lock screen blooms with a picture I took of the ocean months ago, pretending you can keep something if you turn it into pixels. I thumb through noise—stats apps, group chats buzzing about a poker game down the hall, Julia’s earlier warning sitting there like a traffic cone. I skip all of it and open Contacts. My brain does this ridiculous thing where it braces like a hit is coming. It is. Just not from the direction a ref can call.
Riley Lane. The letters crowd together, too much meaning in too little space.
