Then I stood in my kitchen at one-thirty in the morning, holding a container of cookies and having a very serious conversation with myself about what I was about to do.
This was not keeping personal and professional lives separate the way my father had reminded everyone to do in this morning’s meeting. This was me in pajama pants and an old t-shirt, holding cookies at one-thirty in the morning, about to walk across the street to a hockey player’s apartment.
I put on shoes, grabbed my keys, and left before I could talk myself out of it.
The street was quiet at this hour, only the occasional car passing and the sounds of a city that never truly went completely silent. The air felt cool enough that I should’ve grabbed a jacket, but going back for one would mean giving myself time to think.
I stood outside the entrance to his building for thirty seconds, container in hand, before I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The elevator ride to the third floor was the longest forty seconds of my life.
I’d never been inside, but I knew which unit was his by his window. Some things you just memorized without meaning to.
I strode over to his door and raised my hand to knock.
What was I doing?
It was one-thirty in the morning. I was holding cookies. I was standing outside his door in pajama pants like a rom-com main character who hadn’t thought through the implications of her choices.
Behind his door, I heard footsteps. Then Beau’s small yip, the sound he made when he heard something interesting.
The door was going to open.
I was going to be standing here with cookies at one-thirty in the morning, and Tolrek was going to see me, and I was going to have to explain what I was doing here.
Except I couldn’t explain it, not in any way that didn’t sound like exactly what it was.
I stepped back from the door.
Beau yipped again.
The footsteps came closer.
I turned and jogged back to the elevator, jabbing the button. The doors opened right away. I stepped inside and leaned against the wall as the doors closed.
My apartment was exactly as I’d left it, the kitchen still covered in cooling racks and baking supplies. All evidence of my inability to handle my feelings like an adult.
I set the container on the counter and stared at it.
We couldn’t keep doing this without defining it. Stealing moments in corridors and stairwells and calling it nothing wasn't fair to either of us.
Who would’ve thought the coach’s daughter would fall for a player on her father’s roster? That she’d hide it. Lie about it. Compromise everything she’d built because she couldn’t stop herself from wanting something she shouldn’t have.
My phone sat on the counter where I’d left it.
Picking it up, I opened a new text to Tolrek.
We need to talkI typed.
I deleted it and typed instead,We should discuss what this is before the tape session.
I deleted that too.
I’m falling in love with you, and I don’t know what to do about it,I typed in the blank space.
I stared at it before deleting it and setting the phone face down on the counter where I couldn’t see the screen. Then I cleaned up my kitchen. By three in the morning, my kitchen was spotless, and I was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.
I climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, we’d sit in my office with the door closed and the monitors glowing and all the space in the world to talk about what we were doing.
