Cassie believed him. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Okay. We keep it quiet. But I’m not sorry.”
“Me neither,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again before he pulled her on top of him. She straddled his hips, letting him slip inside of her. They made slow, lazy love, this time unhurried, memorizing each other all over again. There was laughter when Luke tried to flip his hair and accidentally whipped her nose, and quiet when they simply lay together, her head on his chest.
Luke rose from the bed, stepping into the bathroom and turning on the shower. After the steam from the hot water filled the room, Cassie joined him, and he pulled her into the shower with him.
Luke adjusted the showerhead, and they stepped closer to share the stream. He reached for the shampoo and worked it through her hair, his fingers lingering at her nape as she tilted her head back and met his eyes through the water. She lathered soap between her hands and traced it across his chest and shoulders, her palms sliding over slick skin, pausing when he sucked in a breath at a tender spot. They took turns washing each other, exchanging quiet looks and small, deliberate touchesthat conveyed care rather than urgency, allowing the shared closeness to settle over them like the steam curling in the air.
They stepped out of the shower onto the bath mat, water dripping onto the tile, and Luke reached for a towel, wrapping it around Cassie’s shoulders first. He dried her carefully, hands firm but unhurried, brushing the towel along her arms and down her back before she took it from him and did the same, pressing the fabric against his chest and shoulders, careful again with the injured side.
The sun was only just starting to rise, but they both knew that Cassie needed to get back to her own room before Luke’s teammates in the neighboring rooms started to stir and meander into the halls. They dressed in quiet efficiency—jeans, sweaters, socks pulled on one at a time. At the door, Cassie hesitated, then leaned up into him, and he bent easily to meet her. The kiss was slow and lingering, a promise more than a goodbye.
Luke stood alone in the quiet of the room after she left, the sheets still warm, the air still faintly altered by her presence. There was a strange, steady calm, threaded with fear. He replayed the look on her face when they’d finally stopped pretending—how certain she’d been, how deliberate. It hit him that this hadn’t been a lapse or a mistake. He felt protective in a way that surprised him, already cataloging what he would do differently now. For the first time since he’d signed in Pittsburgh, hockey wasn’t the only thing shaping his decisions. That realization settled heavy and right in his chest.
Back in her hotel room, Cassie sat on the edge of the bed without turning on the lights, her pulse still uneven. She felt untethered and sharply awake, the way she did after filing a story she knew would matter. What frightened her wasn’t that she’d crossed a line, it was how clearly she’d seen it, stepped over it, and notwanted to step back. She thought of her career in clean, linear terms, the way she always had, and understood that something irreversible had shifted. Not ruined. Changed. She lay back and stared at the ceiling as the city woke beneath her window, a knot of exhilaration and dread tightening together. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something she could file and move on from. And that, more than anything, made it feel real.
At practice the next day back in Pittsburgh, she wore her professional mask. She interviewed the coach, updated fans on Luke’s injury, and typed her game story without mentioning anything that had happened behind closed doors. Luke returned to practice a few weeks later, and in public they were cordial, distant. In private, their phones buzzed with inside jokes and stolen moments. They deleted messages as quickly as they sent them, saving screen shots only in their minds.
Twenty-One
The secret became their ally and their burden. They reveled in stolen hours—an after-practice drive to an out-of-the-way diner in the suburbs where no one recognized them, a walk along the rivers at midnight with hats pulled low, late mornings sleeping in at each other’s apartments. Every meeting was charged with urgency; every parting was an exercise in restraint.
Stan, Cassie’s editor, continued to watch her coverage closely. She made a point to be harder on Luke in print than she might have been otherwise. She quoted anonymous scouts criticizing his footwork, praised other defensemen’s breakout passes and omitted Luke’s name entirely on some nights when he played well. In person, she kissed him for those very plays, proud and torn. She would sit in the press box, heart thudding, typing that Luke needed to be more physical while secretly texting him a heart. Luke, for his part, returned to form on the ice. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was the grounding influence of the relationship. He blocked shots, moved the puck crisply and started to get standing ovations again.
On a February road trip in Chicago, after the Renegades had stolen an overtime win over the Blades, Luke texted her from the team hotel: “Room 521.”She hesitated only long enough to wait until the other reporters had cleared out of the hotel lobby bar. When she slipped into his hotel room that night, he was waiting by the window, city lights casting golden patterns across his barechest. Cassie walked straight into his arms. They kissed as if they had been starved, hands mapping familiar territory as he pinned her against the wall. This time there was no slow undressing; they shed their own clothing as they kissed, eager and breathless as they tossed shirts and pants across the room. Luke lifted her and carried her to the bed, laying her down gently before joining her.
Their lovemaking was less tentative now, more confident. Cassie lost herself in the sensation of his hair brushing against her thighs, the rasp of his stubble against her collarbone, the sound of his voice groaning her name as he entered her. She whispered his name in return, fingers digging into his shoulders. They moved together in a rhythm that was their own. They caught up between kisses—about a new restaurant she wanted to try, about his defensive partner’s habit of leaving his stick in the wrong place. It was domestic and illicit at the same time. Afterward, they lay side by side, catching their breath. They stared at the ceiling, their hands intertwined, savoring the rare quiet.
“I keep thinking someone will knock on the door,” Cassie said, half joking, running her fingers through his hair. Her heart still raced from the adrenaline of the game and the afterglow of their time together.
“Let them,” Luke murmured, eyes closed. “I’m not ashamed. I just don’t want to be the reason you lose your job.” He kissed her palm.
“You won’t,” she replied, though a part of her knew it was a promise she couldn’t guarantee. For now, they had this room, this night, and the rest could wait. Later, when she returned to her own room, she wrote a biting column about the team’s penalty-kill. No one suspected she had been pressed up against the wall of one of the penalty-killers’ hotel suite an hour earlier.
The Renegades’ next game was a home meeting with Philadelphia on Valentine’s Day. Luke left a single white rose on Cassie’s desk in the media room, tucked inside a game notes folder. She bit back a grin all day.
Twenty-Two
Practice ended with the familiar scrape of blades and the dull thud of pucks rattling into buckets. The Renegades filtered off the ice in small clusters, steam rising from their gear as trainers moved in with towels and water bottles. Cassie lingered near the stalls, notebook tucked under her arm, waiting for the room to thin out.
She found Tanner Brooks at his stall, methodically untying his skates. At thirty-nine, he moved slower than he once had, but there was still authority in every motion. His beard was streaked with gray now, his knuckles thick with scar tissue accumulated over nearly two decades in the league. The “C” stitched on his chest carried weight.
“Got a minute?” Cassie asked.
“For you? Always,” Tanner said, glancing up with a tired smile.
She waited until the cameras drifted away. This wasn’t a post-practice soundbite; it was something quieter. “I wanted to ask,” she began. “Have you thought about whether this could be your last season?”
Tanner leaned back against the stall, exhaling through his nose. “That’s the million-dollar question, huh?”
Cassie didn’t rush him. She’d learned that silence often did more work than follow-ups.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “My body feels it more every year. Long road trips hit harder. Being away from my kids…that part doesn’t get easier.” He rubbed at his wrist absently. “My youngest asked me last week why I miss so many birthdays.”
Cassie nodded, giving him time to continue.
“But,” Tanner continued, eyes sharpening, “I also know how close we are. I’ve been chasing this thing my whole life. You don’t walk away when you still believe you can lift the Preston Cup. Not if you’ve got anything left.”
“So you’re undecided,” Cassie said softly.
