Page 2 of Break Away
Tired from practice and school. Tired from being the guy Coach Little expected to hold the room together now. Tired from driving to North Cut after lifts to resurface ice for youth league parents who complained about rink fees while I calculated how much of that paycheck I could send home before my own card declined. Tired from my mom saying everything was fine in the voice that meant it wasn’t. Tired from Skylar texting me screenshots of shoes she wanted and pretending it was a joke. Tired from Vivi needing a routine I couldn’t always be there to help protect.
Tired from loving Aura Clarke in the only part of my life that had once felt like mine and watching her treat it like another room she could leave before morning.
I rolled off her and onto my back, one arm thrown over my eyes while my heart kept punching like it hadn’t gotten the memo that the best part was over and the worst part was about to start.
The mattress shifted beside me as Aura sat up because lying next to me too long might reveal the honesty. I heard the sheet slide over her skin, heard her reach for whatever piece of clothing she had thrown somewhere near the foot of my bed, and heard the quiet exhale she made when her feet touched the floor.
A year. A fucking year of this.
A year of her climbing into my bed or pulling me into hers. A year of dirty texts at midnight and her hand on my thigh beneath tables where nobody could see. A year of her wearing my jersey once as a joke and then acting confused when I stopped breathing. A year of her falling asleepagainst me after sex and waking up like she had committed a felony.
A year of me trying to find the right door into her life while she kept changing the locks, all while the rest of mine demanded pieces I didn’t have left to give. Team workouts and North Cut shifts where I smelled like ice melt and old rubber until two in the morning. My mom working too much, Skylar pretending she didn’t need anything, and Vivi needing the kind of steady I could only give through phone calls and money transfers.
Every part of me had somewhere to go, someone to help, or something to prove, and somehow Aura was still the thing I kept choosing with the scraps I should have been using to survive.
I dropped my arm and stared at her back.
She had one of my shirts pulled halfway over her head, the fabric catching on her braids before she tugged it down with a sharp little motion. My shirt swallowed her, black cotton against her perfect brown skin, WADE 13 stretched across her shoulder blades in faded white lettering from an old training camp tee.
My throat tightened because she looked better in my name than anything else she wore.
“You leaving?” I asked.
Her shoulders stiffened by a fraction. Then she smoothed it away and glanced back at me, one brow lifted like I was being dramatic for asking an obvious question.
“It’s late.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her mouth curved, but it wasn’t soft anymore. It was the smile she used when she wanted to make something serious feel stupid.
“Okay. Yes, Wade. I’m leaving. It’s late, and I have mock trial practicum early tomorrow.”
I hated when she called me Wade instead of East or Easton. Wade felt like a scold, like it was weaponized or mocking. Like using my last name could turn intimacy into sarcasm if she angled it right.
I sat up slowly, the sheet slipping down my waist. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do that.”
She turned fully and crossed her arms. My shirt hit mid-thigh on her, and the sight should’ve distracted me. It always had before.
Not tonight. Tonight, all I could see was the exit plan in her eyes.
Aura sighed. “Can we not do the post-sex feelings seminar tonight?”
Something in me snapped tight to the point of pain. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Actually, we can.”
Her brows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“We can talk about it tonight.”
Her face went still. “Easton.”
“No.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grabbed my sweats from the floor, pulling them on because I suddenly hated being naked for this. I hated that she got to stand there wrapped in my shirt while acting like I was the one asking for too much. “Don’t use that voice.”
“What voice?”
