Page 124 of The Offside Rule
“Yeah, Bug.” I moved toward her immediately. “Come here.”
She shuffled into the hall, and I scooped her up even though she was getting too big for it. Tonight, she just rested her head on my shoulder. Mom wiped under one eye fast enough that Isla didn’t notice.
“Want to watch a movie?” I asked.
“Moana.”
“Original or second one?”
“Original.”
I carried her to the couch and settled her in with a blanket. Mom made chamomile tea while I turned on Moana. The music started, familiar and soft, and some of the tension left Isla’s face.
“Small sips,” Mom told Isla.
“Okay.”
Then Mom looked at me. With the full force of thirty-three years of maternal disappointment, fear, and love. I sat on the other end of the couch, close enough that Isla’s feet rested against my thigh. She was home. Moana sang about the ocean, my daughter sipped tea, and my mother watched me like she was trying to decide whether to hug me or hit me with a throw pillow.
I looked down at Isla’s little socked feet pressed against my leg and thought about Catherine walking down the hall alone, embarrassed and scared because of me. Then I thought about what I’d told my mother.
I’m falling in love with her. The words didn’t scare me as much as they should have, and that scared me more.
CHAPTER 22
Catherine Celia
A week after Sloane Russell caught me sneaking out of her son’s apartment, I was standing in the Dallas Blaze treatment room pretending my life had not become completely unhinged. The arena should have been a safe place to focus. It was familiar now. The sharp smell of disinfectant. The constant thud of skates against rubber flooring. The scrape of sticks being dragged down the hallway. Wren shouting for tape. Dr. Patel asking for updated notes.
By the end of July, prospects camp had shifted from overwhelming to almost comfortable. I knew where Dr. Patel kept the extra gauze. I knew Luca, the rookie defenseman, pretended he was fine even when he clearly wasn’t. I knew Dax hated ice packs. I knew Nate flirted when he was nervous, which meant he flirted constantly. I also knew Hunter Russell could walk into a room and ruin every professional thought in my head without saying a word. That was inconvenient. We had been careful all week, which meant no towel closets. No late-night visits. No stolen kitchen counters or waking up in his bed with my heart lodged somewhere behind my ribs. Careful meanttexts that started normal and turned loaded after midnight, and passing each other in hallways with polite nods while my body remembered exactly what it felt like to have him over me, inside me, around me.
I had never been good at wanting something quietly. And Hunter was not something small to want. He had touched me like he wanted to learn me, not just have me. The memory hit me at the worst possible time. Across the treatment room, Max sat on one of the tables while Dr. Patel cleaned a cut near his eyebrow.
“Be honest,” Max said, leaning toward me. “Does this make me look tough?”
Dr. Patel dabbed the cut with antiseptic. “It makes you look like you lost a fight with someone’s elbow.”
Leo Karlsson walked in behind him, still in practice gear, blond hair damp from the ice. “I vote stupid.”
Max pointed at him. “You don’t get a vote.”
I tried not to laugh while updating a chart.
Max turned his grin on me. “Catherine, you think I look tough, right?”
I kept my eyes on the tablet. Leo made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh.
Max pressed a hand to his chest. “That’s not nice, dear cousin.”
I finally looked up. “Medical intern has disinfectant.”
Nate whistled. “Careful, McGuire. She’ll clean your wound aggressively.”
Then Hunter walked in, and I felt the air shift. For everyone else, nothing changed. Max kept talking. Leo leaned against the counter. But for me, everything narrowed onto Hunter in black training shorts and a fitted Dallas Blaze shirt, his hair damp, his jaw rough with stubble, his expression calm in that controlled captain way that made everyone else settle without realizingthey were doing it. His gaze found mine for one brief second. Then he looked away, like I was nothing more than another person in the room. I knew better, though. We had been texting all week, trying to find a way to see each other that was safe. It had been a week of wondering how something that felt so good could also feel like a disaster waiting for the right match.
“Shoulder?” Wren asked him.
“Fine,” Hunter said.
