And for the first time in months, I feel awake.
Chapter Two
Silas
Iwake before the sun slips up from the horizon. The world is still. It’s the only time life makes sense to me. I feel like I can breathe without feeling like something's pressing on my chest.
The silence fills my whole body with peace.
I grab my phone off the nightstand. I look at First National, my investment portfolio, and my money market account. Same ritual every morning, same ritual every night. All the numbers sit exactly where I left them.
As long as my numbers are a few pennies more than the last time I check, I can convince myself that everything is fine. Most people would call this paranoid. I call it necessary when your own mother tried to steal everything you earned.
I start my morning by dropping to the floor beside my bed. Pushups until my arms shake. Sit-ups until my ribs burn. Pull-ups on the bar mounted in my doorframe until my grip starts to fail. The old injury in my right shoulder, a consequence of a run-in with an opposing enforcer, flares hot and angry. But I don't listen.
The pain doesn't get a vote. It never has.
My condo looks like a locker room. Everything is in its place. Protein shake bottles line the counter in perfect rows. Meal prep containers stack in the fridge. Chicken, rice, broccoli. Same thing every day. The knives in the block all face the same direction. My shoes sit squared by the door.
I eat my prepared meal, heated in the microwave, while I'm standing at the kitchen counter. It's the same meal I eat every day, so I don't think about it, don't even taste it really. Instead, I work on a Sudoku puzzle on my phone. Dropping numbers into their allotted spaces, neat and predictable. True.
Numbers never look at me with soft green eyes and ask for parts of myself I don't know how to give. Scout Nash slips into my head anyway.
I add a 9 to my Sudoku puzzle, determined to pay attention. But I quickly realize that I haven't gotten the last few numbers in this row right. Does the 9 go at the end of the row or in the middle? Damn it.
It's ridiculous. It's all Scout's fault, really. I tell myself I'm not thinking about her, but there she is. Arms full of schedules and coffee cups, dark braid slipping loose, smile too bright for six in the morning. She's always running somewhere, always helping someone, always making herself useful.
I remember the time she asked me out. Eight years ago, back when she and I were both U of W students. She approached me in the parking lot after practice, cheeks flushed, words tumbling out fast. She was gorgeous, even though she was dressed down in a pair of stretchy black yoga leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that said Juicy. Not a hint of makeup, her voluptuous curves calling to me.
She looked like a ripe peach, begging to be plucked froma tree and devoured whole. And she was offering me the first bite.
Like a complete idiot, I told her no. I had reasons, of course. Hockey came first. Focus. No distractions. No complications.
They all sound like excuses now, standing here alone in my silent kitchen, eating nuked chicken at five in the morning. I'm a coward. Scout figured that out back then. Soon after, she did a disappearing act, dropping out of school. I told myself it was fine, because Scout has been nothing but icy to me ever since I turned her down.
But last night, when I saw her photo on Twinge, I had to swipe right. Because, what if...?
Pretty curls, grippable hips, those tight black yoga pants and tantalizing crop tops. Scout’s my fantasy, come to life. Always has been.
To my surprise, she swiped right on me too, even though my profile is just a shot of my abs and a couple of lines of bio designed to keep me anonymous.
Yoga4Lyfe. How fitting that she would call herself that. We exchanged a few lines of meaningless chatter before she stopped answering. And I spent the next few hours gripping my dick in one hand and my phone in the other, flipping through the photos she posted while I jerked off, over and over.
God, I'm such a fucking creep.
The morning air is brittle, cold and damp and relentless. January in Seattle feels like being inside a freezer while you're soaking wet. Though I'm used to it, I still have the yearning for sunlight like all Pacific Northwesterners. By February, I'll actually look forward to flying into Phoenix and Houston just for the sunny winter skies. It's always so gray and drizzly here.
The practice facility smells like cold metal and rubber when I walk in. The scent hits me first, then the quiet. I'm always the first one here. I like it that way. No voices or expectations. Just the hush of the ice and the hum of the building settling around me.
I head straight to my stall in the locker room. My sticks lean against the wall in perfect order, tape spiraled on each one. I check my laces, pulling them tight the same way I have since I was fourteen. My helmet visor gets polished with the microfiber cloth I keep in my bag. My phone goes face down on the shelf in my locker so the screen can't light up and distract me.
The room fills one by one.
Jett shows up first, all broad shoulders and movie-star grin, chirping at a rookie like he's already in mid-conversation. His hair looks like he just ran a hand through it and called it styling. Beck Tate walks in next. He’s sharper, his jaw set as he mutters about traffic and curses when his skate lace won't stay flat. My brother Hunter prowls through after him, all dark intensity and tightly wound muscle, eyes flicking like he's waiting for someone to start something. And then there's Grayson Reed, leaning against his stall with careless grace, curls messy, tan coat hanging open, smirking at whatever's on his phone.
The noise swells and fades around me, but I stay quiet. I absorb it without giving anything back. That's what I do. I watch. I listen. Filing everything away in the organized drawers of my mind.
Then Enzo Morelli walks in. I stifle a groan.
