Page 52 of Hat Trick
“I dare you. And the minute you’re back to skating, I’m going to make you do laps until you hate me.”
“Yeah?” I grin. “Looking forward to it.”
SEVENTEEN
LEXI
I’m goingto murder Riley Mitchell, and I won’t have any remorse for my crime.
He skipped our rehab session—again—and he’s not answering my texts. If this were the first time he no-showed, I’d be concerned.
Since it’s the sixth time in two weeks, I’mpissed.
Instead of lingering in my office and trying to explain his absence to Coach, I grab my keys and phone, heading for my car in the employee lot. I pull up his address from the time I took him home and make the quick drive to his apartment, not thinking twice as I ride the elevator to the sixteenth floor and bang on his door.
“Open up, Riley.” I rub my fist and stretch out my fingers after an aggressive three minutes of knocking. “Don’t make me cause a scene in front of your neighbors.”
There’s a moment where I think he might not be home, but then I hear the click of a lock. The door slowly opens and Riley stands on the other side…
Shirtless.
The gray sweatpants he’s wearing sit low on his hips. His glasses slide down his nose, and he pushes them up with his index finger before crossing his arms over his chest.
Jesus Christ.
Riley Mitchell ishot.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t allowed myself to look at him as anything other than an injured hockey player I’m working with so I can keep my firm boundaries in place, but being here, seeing his body outside the confines of the fluorescent lights in the training room and away from the arena where we have very specific roles is like seeing him for the first time, and,oh.
Hell.
He’s aman.
I’m noticing physical features I’ve never picked up on when we’ve worked together. Details I shouldn’t be categorizing and appreciating like sculpted biceps and defined lines across his chest. Dark hair trailing down his stomach and disappearing inside his pants and abdominal muscles that could be cut from glass. A faded scar or two near his hips and a certainty to his posture he didn’t have a month ago.
He’s goddamn beautiful, so much so it feels like I’ve stopped breathing the longer I stare at him, and I can’t believe the fucking audacity of him to hide a body like that under clothes.
“What do you want?” he asks, and my eyes snap up to meet his.
“Glad to see you’re alive,” I say, doing my best to swallow down the flash of lust I’m experiencing from seeing a bare-chested man. “It would’ve been nice of you to send a text. Or answer the sixteen I sent you this morning.”
“Sorry. Overslept,” he says, not appearing very sorry at all. “Do you need something?”
“Yeah, I do.” I push my way into his apartment, determined. He doesn’t put up a fight and closes the door behind me while letting out a heavy sigh that sounds like he’s been carrying a weight on his shoulders for years. “What the hell, dude? I try to be respectful of your time, but you’ve been nothing but inconsiderate of my schedule.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley mumbles again, and when I turn to look at him, he’s hanging his head. His hands come up to land on his hips, and I watch his throat bob around a swallow. “I was getting ready to head your way, but I got distracted.”
“By?”
“ESPN. They did a whole segment on whether or not they think I’ll be able to skate again. They brought in a doctor who broke down my injury and talked about the challenges I’m going to face if I ever want to get back on the ice. It felt like a huge invasion of my fucking privacy.” He lifts his chin and runs a hand through his hair. “Then my prosthetist called and confirmed the appointment for my final leg fitting next week, and I kind of spiraled.”
“Fuck ESPN.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “That’s what I said.”
“Why did the call with your prosthetist send you spiraling? Isn’t that a good thing? You’re moving in the right direction. You won’t have something temporary anymore. It’ll be permanent.”
“Yeah.” Riley leads me to the living room and sits on the couch, motioning for me to join him. I drop on the cushions and relax. “It also makes all of this a reality. I’m not delusional. I know what happened. I know my leg isn’t going to grow back. I know I’ve been in a prosthetic for a while now, but the second I put that final leg on, that’s it. It’ll be my new life until the day I die, and… that’s hard to grapple with.”
