That’s how long it’s been since she showed up after practice. Since I laid her out across the table and tried to erase everything tearing us apart. Since I silenced her moans with my own.
Three whole days of convincing myself that eventually the silence between us would fix what I’d broken.
It hasn’t.
If anything, the quiet’s worse than any fight could’ve been.
My phone has been like navigating a damn landmine ever since. Every time it buzzes, I hold my breath, hoping it’s her.
I’ve typed out a dozen messages I’ll never send.
I’m sorry.Delete.
You didn’t deserve that.Delete.
I can’t stop thinking about you.Delete.
Because what am I supposed to say? That I hurt her protecting a job that might never be mine? That I’m more worried about how word coming out about falling in love with my brother’s ex-girlfriend could damage my already tarnished reputation?
The truth is, when she showed up after practice, I wanted to talk to her.
I wanted to explain.
To tell her that it wasn’t about not wanting her—it was about timing, and pressure, and every stupid rule I’d sworn I wouldn’t break again.
But the second I saw her, it all went to fucking hell.
Seeing the hurt in her eyes, the bite in her voice, tore through every last strand of control I had left.
One second, we were arguing, and the next, I had her spread out across the table, my hands on her like I didn’t care who walked in.
And I hated myself for it.
Not because I didn’t want her. God, I did. I still do.
But because that’s not how I wanted it to go.
I wanted to sit her down. To tell her why I couldn’t say anything when I took the job, not until I knew it was mine. That I wanted to give it time before we told our families. That I wanted to show her what we could be together before we took that chance.
But none of that came out.
Instead, I gave her the worst parts of me—the anger, the pride, the fear.
And when it was over, I did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.
I walked away.
By the third night, I stop pretending the voices in my head will fade. I try to bury it the way I always do—by focusing on hockey. I have a team who needs me, and I owe it to them and to myself—for all I’ve sacrificed to get here—to give them my attention.
It doesn’t work.
She’s still there.
In my mirror staring back at me every morning. In my mind when I step into our morning team meetings and still see the papers scattered across the top like she wasn’t just there days ago. In the flash of her eyes right before I lost all control.
When practice ends, the arena empties faster than I can blow my whistle. I’m left standing there with my clipboard under my arm, wondering when I turned into the kind of man who walks away from the only thing that’s made me feel alive, other than hockey.
Because no matter how much I tell myself I was protecting her—protectingus—the truth is uglier.
