The sincerity in his voice hit me hard. “It’s my pleasure, Adan.”
He smiled—that crooked grin that had been affecting me more than it should—and headed out of the arena.
I stood alone on the ice for several minutes after he left, trying to process what had happened. How had he affected me so much, I’d barely been able to do my job? I’d been so… so aware of him. Of every muscle in his body, every breath he took, every nuance of expression on his face. God, I had it bad. I needed to cut this out. This was getting out of hand.
The fact that he was my student should’ve been enough to kill any inappropriate thoughts before they fully formed. The professional relationship we’d built was too important to jeopardize over a momentary lapse in judgment. The trust Coach Brennan and the program had placed in me was not something I could afford to compromise.
And even if none of those factors existed, there was still the fundamental reality that Adan was straight. Whatever I thought I’d seen in his expression during that charged moment, whatever I’d imagined about the way he’d responded to my touch, was almost certainly wishful thinking on my part.
The smart thing—the only reasonable thing—was to maintain strict professional boundaries from this point forward. No more hands-on training that wasn’t absolutely necessary. No more lingering glances or moments of inappropriate proximity. I was here to coach hockey, not to complicate a promising young player’s life with my own confused feelings. Today had been a wake-up call, a reminder that I needed to be more careful about maintaining appropriate distance.
But as I unlaced my skates in the quiet locker room, I couldn’t shake the memory of those few moments when Adan had been in my arms, the way his body had felt against mine, the look in his eyes when he’d turned to face me.
I had felt so damn good.
But I needed to make sure it didn’t happen again.
9
NILS
Saturday mornings were supposed to be peaceful.
I sat at my small IKEA dining table—the famous LACK series, which was ridiculously easy to assemble, even for me—with a cup of coffee and my phone, staring at the instruction manual for the KALLAX shelving unit. The morning light filtered through the windows of my modest apartment, highlighting the Swedish minimalism I’d surrounded myself with. Everything clean, everything organized, everything exactly as it should be.
Except for my thoughts, which had been anything but organized since yesterday’s practice. I’d never been more aware of anyone in my entire life. Every look, every touch, every snippet of dialogue between us had been torture of the sweetest kind.
And that moment when our faces had been so close, when I had wanted nothing more than to kiss him…
My cheeks heated at the memory. He’d picked up on it, that much I was certain of. Maybe not about me being attracted to him—herregud, I hoped so—but he’d definitely noticed something was different between us. That I had been different.
I needed to stop thinking about it, about him. Maybe another attempt at furniture assembly would help. Surely, I’d learned something from watching Adan do it, right?
I took another sip of coffee and opened the KALLAX instructions, spreading the diagrams across the table. Sixteen individual cubes that could be arranged in a four-by-four configuration. How complicated could it be?
The answer, apparently, was very.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on my living-room floor surrounded by wooden panels, metal hardware, and what seemed like an unreasonable number of small plastic pieces whose purpose was unclear. The instruction manual—and could it be called that when it only contained pictures and not actual words? I needed words, dammit!—showed cheerful cartoon figures assembling the unit with apparent ease. Lies. All lies.
My phone buzzed with a text from Floris.
Floris
FaceTime in 10? Greg’s finally free and Tore’s between classes.
Me
Perfect. I’m in the middle of furniture assembly hell.
Floris
IKEA?
Me
Obviously.
Floris
