But I didn’t reach for my keys. Instead, I stared up at the window. Blair’s window. Where light glowed behind a curtain, soft and golden. Blair’s silhouette shifted across before it disappeared from view.
I imagined him up there, his hair damp from a shower as he walked around. Shirt off, barefoot, rubbing lotion into his wrist where Travis had grabbed him. My stomach turned hot at the thought of it. A twisted mixture of anger and something murkier. Something needier.
I could have killed Travis.
If Blair hadn’t said my name…
If I hadn’t heard Blair’s voice…
I didn’t know how far I’d have gone in the parking lot.
I could still feel it. A ghost of the moment replaying itself. Blair’s grip on my arm. Not scared. Not really. Just firm and steady. It calmed me, soothed me. Centered me.
And I fucking hated that.
I wasn’t supposed to need anyone, least of all Blair. But here I was, parked outside his house like a stalker, watching and waiting.
My hand instinctively slid toward the door handle and tightened around it. I pictured how Blair’s face might look if I knocked. The surprise, the wariness, then… a flicker of something else.
Something he’d never admit but I’d seen, in spite of his efforts to hide it. The curiosity, the pull.
My knuckles tensed so hard I thought my fingers might start to bleed.
I could walk up there; tell him I wanted to talk to him. Wanted to make sure he was okay after the parking lot incident.
But it’d be a lie.
Because I didn’t want to talk.
I wanted Blair up against his wall, to feel the closeness of him. To hear the sharp intake of breath he always tried to conceal when I got too close and surprised him. To see if the fear in Blair’s eyes would melt into something else entirely.
The problem was I wasn’t just circling Blair. No, it couldn’t be that simple. I was circlingruin. Every step closer meant something could snap for both of us. The stakes were high. For him, his buttoned-up job. For me, my career and multi-million-dollar contracts on the line.
Suddenly, the image hit me; my coach’s face, carved with bone-deep disappointment that cut worse than a punch. The scandalous headlines flashing across sports networks and my phone buzzing incessantly with my agent’s frantic calls, his voice breaking as he reminded me that creeps who watch therapists through their bedroom windows don’t get welcomed back on the ice with fanfare.
I could practically smell the Tiger Balm in the locker room, the tiny sticks and splinters I’d get under my thumbnails during games.
I had to remind myself about my career. My entire life’s work.
But in this moment, I didn’t care whose life unraveled first, as long as I was the one who pulled the thread.
My fingers tightened on the truck’s door handle. But I forced myself to let go as my hands shook.
Not like this.
I wasn’t prepared to learn what I might do if Blair opened the door.
So, I steeled myself, gritted my teeth, and stared at the glow in his bedroom window until it finally flicked off.
I exhaled and started my truck, then drove away as every nerve in my body screamed.
The engine’s low growl filled the silence, a sound that should’ve meant escape. Should have meant control, survival. I made it halfway down the block, my headlights cutting across the empty, cold sidewalks of Chicago at night.
But I couldn’t do it.
The steering wheel trembled under my grip. I sat at a red light that refused to change, frozen in time. My jaw was filled with a numb pain from grinding my teeth every night.
And day.
