I cross the room and sit on the couch beside him, close enough that my knee presses against his thigh.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“Not hungry.”
“That’s not what I asked you, baby.”
He finally looks at me and his eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed and there’s a flatness behind them that scares me. He went through the upset part and came out the other side into something quieter and worse.
“I cost us the game,” he says.
“Luca cost us the game.”
“Luca made a mistake. I had a chance to fix it and I didn’t.”
“You kept us in it.”
“Two goals.”
“On nineteen shots. That’s a .895 save percentage.” The stats roll off my tongue before I can stop them. Years of growing up in rinks and watching film with my father makes the math automatic. “Most backup goalies would’ve given up four.”
“I should have had the deflection. I was too deep in the paint. If I’d been six inches forward?—”
“Stop.” I take his chin between my fingers and turn his face toward mine. He tries to pull away and I don’t let him. “I didn’t come here to talk about the deflection.”
He exhales, shaky, and closes the laptop. The room drops into almost-dark.
“I don’t want to talk about the game,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to think about the game.”
“Okay.”
“I want—” He stops and swallows. His jaw flexes under my fingers. “I just want it to be quiet. In my head. For five fucking minutes.”
I take his hand. His fingers are cold and locked up, stiff from hours of clenching.
“Hey,” I whisper, shifting closer. “I know what you need.”
His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there a beat too long before flicking back up. His breathing changes and I take that as permission.
I swing one leg over his lap, knees sinking into the couch cushions on either side of his hips, and his hands come up to grip my thighs through my jeans. His fingers press in hard, like if he loosens his grip on anything right now he’ll come apart completely.
“I couldn’t see you before the game today,” I say, close enough that my lips almost brush his. “I think that’s what went wrong.”
He shakes his head, a tiny movement that bumps his nose against mine. “Superstition doesn’t actually?—”
I kiss him before he can finish the sentence, before he can logic his way out of this and build another wall and retreat into that fortress inside his head where I can’t reach him. He kisses me back like he’s angry about it, like he’s furious that I can walk in here and short-circuit everything just by climbing into his lap.
Good. Be angry. I don’t care as long as he stops watching that goddamn footage.
His hands drag me forward and I can feel him hard against me through his sweats. I grind down once, deliberate, and he breaks the kiss with a choked-off sound.
“Bedroom,” I breathe against his jaw.
“Mackie—”
