Page 22 of Puck Me Back to Life

A dark stain slowly spreads through the fabric near my thigh.

I look away. Right now, I don't want to acknowledge any of it. I just want one night where William doesn't die. One night where strangers don't scream at me. One night where my own brain stops treating me like a criminal.

The exhaustion settles over me again, familiar and heavy. Eventually I push away from the counter and head toward the bathroom.

Tomorrow will come whether I want it to or not. It always does.

And somehow, despite everything, I'll still be here when it arrives.

4

Ash

Ispend the next few days becoming completely normal about Hayes. By which I mean I become the exact opposite of normal. It starts innocently enough.

The morning after the game, I catch myself looking for him when I walk into the locker room. The realization annoys me immediately because I am thirty years old and fully capable of entering a room without scanning it for one specific person. Apparently not.

The problem only gets worse from there. Part of my brain is constantly keeping track of where Hayes is. At first, I tell myself it's because of his ribs.

That excuse works for approximately twelve hours, then I catch myself watching him bend over to tie his skates. A rib injury does not require that level of surveillance.

The bruise is still visible whenever his shirt rides up while he's changing. It's an ugly thing stretching along his side, dark purple fading into yellow around the edges. Every time I see it, I want to ask if it's feeling better. But I stop myself because asking about it would be weird.

We're teammates. Not whatever my subconscious is trying to make us out to be. Still, my eyes keep finding him.

The other problem is that Hayes doesn't seem nearly as interested in me as I am in him. Which is driving me slightly insane. Not because I need his attention.

I don't.

I mean, I definitely want it. I want him to check to see when I come in for practice. I would like to catch him staring at me for once. In reality, Hayes seems perfectly capable of going about his day without obsessively tracking my location. The lack of fairness irritates me.

A lot.

Dante corners me while we're changing. Actually, cornering isn't the right word.

Dante lacks the physical capability to ever corner me, but still, he tries.

“You've been weird.”

I don't look up from my gear. “We could've opened with 'Hi, how are you?'”

Dante ignores the sarcasm; the man has built up an immunity to it over the years. “Hi, how are you, Grant? Why are you acting so fucking weird all of a sudden?”

He sits beside me and studies my face.

“I'm not acting weird.”

“How are things with Riley?”

The question catches me off guard.

I stop taping my stick. Then I shrug. “We ended it.”

Dante's eyebrows immediately climb. “Oooh.”

I already dislike that tone.

“What?”