5. Chapter 5

I couldn't sleep.

Couldn't stop seeing the broken look on Bowie's face when Coach Turner had benched him.

Torn rotator cuff, I'd said. And then I'd unpacked a monologue of detailed stretches, exercises, massagework, and ice-heat routines into the void between my mouth and their ears while they stared.

He should be off the ice for the next several weeks, I'd finished. Rest. No skating.

Those words echoed in my head on repeat.

Because fuck.

I knew how hard they hit. Knew the terror of wondering if your dream was about to get washed down the drain, before your eyes. Rinsed right out of your fingers. And you couldn't risk that, not when you were so close. All you needed to do was reach out and grasp what was in front of you, injury be damned. If you were just a little stronger, fought a little bit harder …

That was how your career ended. And that was what I wouldn't let happen to Bowie. Not with talent like his, with a future that bright.

Still, I couldn't stop feeling guilty about it. Even though I'd done the right thing by telling Turner, the remorse left me raw. It shouldn't. It really fucking shouldn't.

If anything, I was saving his career. With the proper treatment plan—rest, mobility exercises, sports massages, stretches, ice, use of a shoulder brace—he'd be back playing in no time.

The alternative was worsening the injury. Followed by decades of cortisone injections. Or surgery, and then injections. If he rested, he'd recover without surgery, save his career—and twenty years of counting down the days between shots.

Or so I kept telling myself.

I rolled over in bed for the nine hundredth time before I gave up. It was barely six in the morning, the sun just cresting the city skyline to bathe the world beneath in faded grey light. But I needed to get out, and Brady was a good dog who never complained about a run, no matter the hour.

She kept pace with me in a loping canter as I tore down the sidewalk outside my apartment, headed south, away from the Downtown core.

My knee protested in a persistent, dull ache, but I knew it could handle a few miles, even at a brisk tilt. Some stretching afterwards, a little ice, and it'd be fine.

What wouldn't be fine, I realized as the sheen and sparkle of Downtown softened into long rows of brick townhouses, was Bowie. He was probably awake, too, tossing and turning and wondering if he was about to be benched for a season or traded or wind up a free agent sans team. Career over before it had gotten started.

Because of me.

But I was okay with that, I told myself. I'd done what needed to be done. Bowie had more talent in his pinkie finger than I had in my whole arm—magic fingers be damned. And he could hate me til the end of time before I'd let him throw it all away on a preseason injury.

Before I'd let him wind up like me.

My sneakers tapped the sidewalk, the steady rhythm of stride and breath and heartbeat forcing calm to leak into my muscles and bones. The townhouses pressed closer, crowding the street, the brick fading into worn edges and soft, well-loved corners.

Bowie didn't have to like me. Or forgive me, I decided as that rising calm tempered the guilt into maintainable submission. I didn't care how he felt about me, whether or not there was something real under that cocky facade.

But I did care that he stayed off the ice. And I knew better than anyone how fucking impossible that would be for a kid like Bowie. He needed a friend, someone to watch out for him the way no one had watched out for me.

I crossed the road onto a narrow, residential street lined in boxy white duplexes and scrawny oak trees. Brady pattered ahead, drawing the leash tight with a snap, as she caught sight of a squirrel. The twitchy little bastard watched as we got close, then raced up a tree at the last moment, flicking his fluffy tail.

Brady sobbed out her frustration in a long whine. I dragged her down the road, rolling my eyes in fondness. Maybe she was making me soft, or maybe it was the way all the tight, hard things wound up inside of me loosened whenever he walked into my office under the pretext of having an injury checked. Maybe it was that I imagined I was starting to glimpse the real under the mask.

But Katie's words about not having a present echoed around in my big thick empty head, and I couldn"t help thinking that in my office, when I was rolling my eyes or laughing—that's when I felt present.

And maybe that's what made something inside me say, I can be the friend Bowie needs.

There was still a month before training camp, then six quick preseason games. If Bowie followed my strict exercise and stretching regimen, he'd be back in time for the regular season. He just needed someone to convince him it was in his best interest to take a break.

Someone to distract him with some life outside of hockey.

The final dregs of guilt smoothed, and I settled into the rhythm of the run. Let my mind wander off. Quiet now, calm. Sneakers tapped, Brady's nails clacked, and the miles slipped away with the buildings of the city.

Almost before I'd realized it, we'd looped around to my condo. It was eight o'clock as I dragged Brady into the elevator, but I knew it wasn't too early.

I closed my door behind me, removed Brady's leash. Phone in hand, staring at the screen. I had Bowie's number stored—had the contact information for all the guys on the team—but I couldn't bring myself to make the call.

I was seeing the arrogant blond fuckboy again, trying to get a reaction out of me because he was used to getting what he wanted, and me, the PT who'd taken him out of the game. We weren't friends.

Brady pranced into the kitchen, set her fluffy paw onto the edge of her bowl, and flipped the empty dish over, explaining in no uncertain terms of her imminent need of post-run sustenance.

I hit Call.

Eight in the morning on a Saturday, and Bowie answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

The soft resignation of his voice almost broke me. Like he'd spent the night tossing and had finally given up and accepted his fate.

"Hey, Bowman." My voice came out with impressive calm, despite the sudden uncertainty in every molecule of my body. Brady stared at me like she could mind-control me into feeding her.

"Dr. Sullivan?" His voice went hard, and that hurt more than I cared to admit. That and the use of my name and title. Not Kitty, not even Jamie. Dr. Sullivan. How very professional. A cold reminder that we were not, in fact, friends.

I propped my hip against the kitchen counter, fanned my sweaty T-shirt away from my chest. "Yeah, it's me. I was just calling to check—"

"How the hell did you get my number?"

I winced. Creep much? "I'm your PT. Your doctor."

"Isn't it illegal to use confidential client information for personal use?"

Fuck this kid. He's a manwhore until suddenly he's playing hard to get?

I sighed. "It's not illegal if I'm checking on a patient."

"Well, I don't need checking on." His voice sounded so … cold. I'd never heard him sound like that, and I didn't like it. He was going to hang up.

I panicked. "Bowie."

He hesitated. Didn't say anything. But didn't hang up either.

"I get that you're mad—"

"I'm not mad," he snapped, and then his tone smoothed out into that icy calm. "Look, I know you're being a good doctor or whatever. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Actually, I really fucking hate it."

"I know." I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to find the right words. "Trust me. I know. But sometimes you have to sit back a few games so you don't end up sitting back forever."

I almost choked on those words. On how badly I wished someone had said them to me ten years ago, though it wouldn't have mattered anyway. No sense of self-preservation? Nah, it was just a different kind—preserve game before self.

"Sitting is sitting." His voice shifted a little, from resigned to sad. "You sit one game, maybe you sit forever. You wouldn't understand."

I did, though. And the words were right there, right on the tip of my tongue to tell him. But I didn't. Couldn't. "I'm a pro hockey PT. You think I haven't seen this kind of shit before?"

"I'm sure you have."

"I'm not going to say sorry. Because I'm not. But …" More words. Right on the tip of my tongue. "You been out to Moosehead Lake yet?"

Brady glared, boring holes into the side of my skull with the intensity of her hunger and attempted menticide.

"Nope. Haven't had time. With …" He let the sentence trail off. With hockey. With training. With the season coming up and him needing to keep an edge because he was the new guy—nevermind that he was a rising star.

"I'm heading out there today." Was I? I guess I was now. I needed a day off anyway. "Come with me. It's nice this time of year. Nature's good for healing and shit."

"Me go with you? That doesn't seem very professional." Aw, fuck, there it was. The little bit of Bowie, of flavor, back in his voice. Like a sad puppy who'd perked up at the sound of a snack. My heart did weird little flippy things behind my ribs, and over my shoulder Brady upturned her bowl again.

"It's not professional," I admitted, trying to quash down all that rattly stuff. "But I'm not asking as your PT. I'm asking as your friend."

A beat of silence as he took those words in. Mulled them over and decided what to do with them. He didn't want me as a friend, I knew that. But I wasn't about to be his fuck buddy, either, and he knew that. Or at least, I thought he must by now.

"Did someone swap bodies with the real Jamie Sullivan?" he asked, and I almost laughed with relief. He was back. Not quite his chipper normal self, but closer anyway. "This seems very out of character for the Kitty I know."

"It does, right? Maybe there's something in the water," I said, trying to hide the smile creeping over my face. Did it come through in my voice? "I bet a nice, vigorous walk will fix me. You in?"

"So, this means you are using my number for personal reasons."

I tilted my head to stare at the smooth white ceiling. "Oh, fuck off, kid. Really?"

He laughed. Actually laughed, and my heart did that fuzzy fluttery thing behind my rib cage again.

He was back. "You better not try and touch me up or anything on this walk. After luring me out with my phone number you got from my patient file."

"Actually, I might rescind my offer—" But I was smiling again, wasn't I?

"Nope. I think it's my duty to make sure you get back to your normal serious mardy self. Nobody else is annoying enough to do it."

"Ain't that the truth."

"I don't have a car," he said. "You gonna give me a ride?"

"Is that British for something else?"

"Of course not, cowboy." But there was a smile lurking behind the words.

Bowie's apartment was ten minutes away, on the northern side of Downtown Bringham, a couple of blocks off the main nightlife drag. It was one of those new-build mixed-use neighborhoods where hopeful cafes lurked under half-filled residential buildings, but nothing real had stuck around yet. It was the kind of place with too-white sidewalks and little sapling trees along the road because everything was hastily built to look nice. Nouveau-luxury.

It didn't suit him.

Not that my condo—on the southern side amid more established luxury where nobody bothered lying to themselves about multipurpose buildings—suited me. On the inside anyway. I'm sure Dr. Sullivan in his pressed button-downs wouldn't live anywhere else.

Which, I guessed, was why I lived there.

I steered the truck to the curb beside a sleek apartment that probably had a lock code and a doorman, lifted my phone to check the GPS one more time—and put it back down as a lithe blond figure stepped away from the building. Like he'd been leaning against it, waiting for me.

My eyes drank in the sight of him as he crossed the wide sidewalk towards the truck. The way he moved, the smooth bunch and flex of his muscles under the fitted black T-shirt, the sparkle of his green eyes behind that serious facade. Everything about him was mesmerizing.

And maybe I should've been more concerned about that.

"Hey, Kitty. Nice wheels." He pulled the Tundra's door open, tossed a small hiking pack to the floor, and slid into the passenger seat. "A giant truck. Classic America. Everything's bigger, yeah?"

He winked, and it struck me what I was doing—what we were doing. How awkward this was going to be and how poorly it could go. What was I thinking?

"You can't wear a backpack with that shoulder." Smooth, Jamie. Real fucking slick. It's such a mystery you don't get laid.

"Maybe my friend Kitty will carry it for me." He flashed that cocky grin, and I wasn't sure whether to kick myself for suggesting this or to adjust my pants to make more room, so I settled on pulling out onto the road instead.

It was still early enough—and Saturday—that the city hadn't awakened. The Tundra barreled through quiet residential streets like the oversized and unnecessary monster it was.

"You can put your stuff in my bag." I jerked my thumb at the pack on the backseat.

"Sure. Yeah. Maybe you could carry me while you're at it." He turned towards me, and when I glanced over, his grin had gained a sharp edge. Not his normal cocky confidence. Something harder. More real—but not in a good way.

Right. Okay. So we were still salty. "Bowie."

He sucked in a breath at the sound of that name. But barrelled on like the obnoxious little shit he was. Or wanted everyone to think he was. "I mean, if you're trying to protect me from doing anything or whatever."

I turned the truck on to Route 6 towards the lake. Pine trees towered up around us, eating up the growing spaces between houses. Morphing city into country with little transition between. I was a city kid, born and raised in the burbs of Boston, but being out here, away from buildings and cars and people, always calmed me.

Helped me find strength. "You know a little injury like this won't hurt your season, right?"

I dared a glance over to see him gritting his teeth, a muscle in his jaw flicking beneath his skin. He didn't know. Shit, he really didn't know. Enough cocky swagger for a whole hockey team, and he didn't know.

"I wasn't lying when I said you were the best player I've seen come through here." I reached into the compartment under the stereo to grab my sunglasses. Partly to give myself something to do. Partly to hide my eyes, my expression. "I've—I've been around hockey a lot, okay? I know the game."

I was choking up. Cool it the fuck down, Sullivan.

"So when I say you've got talent like nothing this team's ever seen before—I mean that. They're not gonna let you go over a preseason shoulder injury. I bet you could ride the bench the whole regular season and still have a starting spot next year."

I dared another glance his way, keeping my eyes hidden behind the mirrored aviators. If he'd bothered to look over, he'd have seen the hard, tense lines of his own face reflected back at him.

Jamie Sullivan: coward.

I kept talking anyway. "You have any clue what they probably paid to get you? Draft spots they traded away?"

"They paid me a lot of money," he snorted, "that they could just as easily pay someone else."

Didn't I know it. "Sure. But they won't. You know what the guys think?"

That got his attention. He turned, brows lifting in genuine curiosity. Damn, the kid did not know. Under all that swagger and conceit was … what? Underconfidence? Fear? If Bowie was a mask, who was lurking beneath?

"I'm not on the team." I kept my eyes on the road as the trees fell away and the lake stretched out calm and blue to the right. "But I hear a lot of shit. So … trust me, okay? The guys are in awe of you. This isn't gonna end your season. And your career?"

I angled my gaze to peer over the tops of the glasses. Meet him eye to eye. "Your career's just getting started."

"Sure, Kitty. Whatever you say." His mouth gave the smallest twitch before he tilted his head back on the headrest. "Those sunglasses are sexy as hell. Are you trying to impress me?"

"You know I'm not." I rolled my eyes. But I didn't miss the way his shoulders relaxed into the seat. His voice had lost that sharp venom.

Relief eased the tension from my muscles, and I let my gaze trail over the sparkling blue waters of the lake. Cool air whipped through the open windows, ushering in the scents of pines and aquatic vegetation. It'd be hot once we stopped moving. Hotter once we started walking.

Maybe I'd pick a hike that ended at a beach.

Or maybe that was a bad fucking idea, and I should avoid it at all costs. Neither of us had suits. Though I had a feeling that wouldn't present a problem to Bowman.

"How the hell are you wearing long sleeves?" His gaze was so heavy, I felt the weight of it on my arms, though I didn't turn.

"My apartment is over-air-conditioned." It was. And the cold shower after my run hadn't helped. It wasn't the primary reason, but—

"Uh huh. Sure. You think I'll stare at your massive arms otherwise?" He was grinning again, and I tried not to feel it in my ribcage.

"Yeah, sure. That's it. I'm trying to get into your pants with my sunglasses and massive arms."

"I mean, it would work." He stuck his elbow out the window and half-leaned after it. "Why bother having massive arms if you don't let anybody look?"

"It's not about the look," I huffed. It wasn't, either. It was about … about needing something else to fill the space where hockey used to be. Something else to make my muscles burn and ache, to fuel that need for pain and gain.

But I didn't say that. "I like working out. It relaxes me."

"You do seem a bit tense." Bowie tilted his head sideways as he looked at me. That grin, that fucking grin. "Maybe you need to get laid? I know that's my problem. Well, one of them anyway."

Oh, my fucking lord. Down, boy. "You don't have an off button, do you, kid?"

"Off? Nah, not usually. Not once I get going. Or when I want something." He was still looking at me. Still grinning. And fuck, I believed it.

I was also desperately trying to convince my dick there were reasons to stay placid. There were—he was too young, too cocky, likely to forget me in three seconds, a fucking hockey player, my goddamn patient … Why was it so hard to remember all of that good, sound logic at the moment?

Fortunately, the pull-off for the trailhead parking lot opened up on the left, and I swooped the truck in on two wheels.

Cut the engine, jumped out the door and into the late-August heat. The humidity weighed on my shoulders like a physical force, and I was already sweating through the Henley I'd pulled on over my tee. No way it'd last a whole hike.

So I bit the bullet. While Bowie was busy shoving his water bottle and snacks and probably porn into my backpack, I swiped the long-sleeve shirt over my head and hucked it into the back, leaving only my white tee behind. "You ready?"

I slammed the truck's door, started around the bed. My hiking boots crunched in the gravelly dirt of the parking lot. Bowie zipped my bag closed as I approached. Looked up—

He stared. Jaw dangling, eyes round as mossy green coins. "Holy fuck."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I snatched the bag out of his limp fingers and headed for the trail. "I have a few tattoos. We walking? It's only gonna get hotter."

"Hotter, definitely, yeah—wait!" He snapped his dangling jaw up and broke into a jog. Trying to catch up to avoid the very real danger of being left gaping beside my truck. "Wait! I have so many questions."

My boots hit the rough rocky dirt, and the trees soared overhead, all but blocking out the clear blue of the sky. Earth and pine infiltrated my every sense. "Or we could enjoy the quiet of nature?"

Fat chance of that. "Are you … are you not just the super serious uptight doctor with a stick up his ass?"

"No, I am." I tilted my head, like I was considering it. "Super serious. Uptight. Doctor. Not sure about the stick, cause I don't typically like stuff up my ass, but yes to the other things."

"Shit, Jamie. So, not a bottom then?"

I groaned. "For fuck's sake."

His boots crunched behind until the trail widened up so he could nose up next to me. Which he did. Not quite close enough to touch, but close enough I felt the heat of him, the weight—the force—of his presence. "So …"

His eyes raked down me. Unraveling the colors and lines as he tried to read between them. I lengthened my stride. Increased my pace as the trail angled upwards. Nothing like a good burn of exercise to get your head clear of all the sharp, awkward things clanking around.

I was sweating. The moisture in the air and the heat of the sun stuck my shirt down to my skin. And that green gaze …

"All right, help me fill in the blanks here." Bowie matched his stride to mine, moving over rocks and roots and bends in the trail with the same graceful ease he brought to the ice.

"What kind of blanks, Bowman?" I asked archly. If he could play games on my table, I could play games when he wanted answers. It was only fair. I leapt up onto a jutting rock, biting back a wince as my knee twinged in protest.

He leapt up after me, nimble as a mountain goat. "Just, you know, connecting the dots between prudish doctor—"

"I am not prudish," I protested, and half-turned to find him grinning again. Always. Dammit, even when I was playing games, he was the one getting to me.

"... Between prudish doctor," he continued like I hadn't spoken, "and rock star tattoos."

I rolled my eyes hard enough to see the cerulean sky through the trees. "They're not rock star tattoos."

"Okay, so." He fell into stride beside me again as the trail leveled out. Birds chirped overhead. Our boots crunched underneath. Warm wind lifted sweat off my forehead, ruffled his blond hair, bringing with it the scent of his shampoo and shaving cream. "What are they?"

His gaze dropped to trace the unbroken lines of ink stretching from around my left wrist up into the sleeve of my T-shirt.

"I was young once." Celebrated every victory and wrote every pain in my skin to wear forever. "Did stupid things, same as any kid."

"You think they're stupid?"

"No." I shrugged, held my hands out, turned them over palm-up to expose the ink on the insides of both wrists, crawling up my forearms and elbows and the swell of my biceps. Let them drop to my sides again. "I like them. A lot, actually. But they belong to a different life."

When I looked up, he met my gaze with big, unreadable green eyes. "A different person."

"Yeah." Surprise softened my voice to barely more than a breath. "A person I used to be."

"Well, I think they're—"

"Hot?" I lifted a brow at him, trying to bring back his flirtatious smirk. Someone had to lighten the mood. "Sexy?"

That smile blossomed across his face like a bright spring day in the middle of winter. "I mean, yeah. But I was going to say, beautiful."

I nearly tripped on a root, but kept my feet under me. Being a pro athlete—even an ex pro—came with its perks. Some of which didn't include constant aches and a Tylenol habit. "You waxing poetic on me, Bowman?"

"Would that ruin your impression of me?"

"Kinda, yeah." I aimed half a smile over my shoulder at him. "I might think you take things seriously."

"I'm starting to wonder if you don't take everything seriously." He surged ahead of me to pounce up onto a mound of rock protruding from the right side of the trail. "Like, maybe there's a person hiding under the doctor's coat."

I climbed up after him. The land fell away in a tumble of low bushes and jutting rocks to reveal the lake stretched beneath us. Wide and blue and bright. Pines curled around the shore to cup it in a soft green embrace.

"I don't wear a doctor's coat." My arm brushed his good shoulder through my T-shirt, and the warmth of him burned like a brand into my skin.

"The button-downs then. It's okay, though. I enjoy the button-downs." His gaze shifted back towards me. "Especially if there are tattoos underneath. Shit, Kitty, your sex appeal just doubled."

I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my gym shorts and reminded myself, in very stern words, that we were here as friends and he was a cocky kid and well, there were probably other things I should remember too. "Not happening."

"Of course not." He turned away, so I only caught the edge of his grin as he tossed it out over the lake. Then he folded his legs down under him in a cross-legged seat. "Can we stop for a snack? I'm starving."

"We've been walking for thirty minutes."

"I'm a pro athlete." He shrugged—just his one good shoulder, and something snagged inside my chest. "And I'm twenty-five. My metabolism is insane."

"Oh, youth," I sighed, crouching down next to him, on his left. Trying to keep my knee straight without being obvious about it. Trying not to let the leg of my shorts ride up high enough to expose the scars. Five surgeries, and they hadn't fucking fixed it.

"C'mon, Kitty." He beamed up at me, clearly not looking at my knee. "You're like four hundred pounds of muscle. You can't tell me you don't have to eat a lot."

"I'm thirty-seven." I shrugged the backpack off into his lap. "All yours."

He fished a power bar out of the front pocket and dug in. "So, what's the story with the tattoos? Did you not always want to be a physiotherapist, then?"

My fingers clenched with the suddenness of the question, but if I kept my eyes on the lake, I could answer. "Does any kid want to be a PT?"

"No, probably not. What made you do it?"

My knee twinged again as I shifted my ass into a more comfortable position on the rock. "I like sports. Working with athletes. The whole … mindset of it."

"And the view? The honed backsides?" That grin loomed, taking up my entire field of vision.

I pressed the palm of my hand to his face and shoved him away. "Fuck. No."

He laughed, and I couldn't hold back my own grin. Like trying to hold back the tide of a broken dam with my bare hands. "Do you think about anything besides sex?"

"Um. I'm twenty-five." He donned on an expression of faux sobriety. "So. No? Do you ever think about sex?"

More than I should have lately. "That's not your business."

"It is if you think about it with me." The shit-eating smile reached his ears. "Do you? Picture what it would be like."

Jesus. "Nope. I don't mess around with cocky little fuckboys like you."

Sunshine gilded his blond hair in strands of pure gold. His teeth gleamed white in that crooked, cocksure grin. "Sure, sure. So, what's your type, then?"

"Again, not your business."

"So it's open to my interpretation and imagination. Perfect." He tapped his chin with an elegant index finger. "Time for a self-insert—"

I bit down on my smile. "You're self-inserting into my sexual fantasies?"

"So, you do have them!" he crowed, his face alight with joy. "And yes, now I will definitely be in them. Little Jamie likes me."

Little Jamie had a lot of favorable thoughts about him. I groaned and flopped back onto the rock to stare at the sky. How was he this good at this? It wasn't fair. "Please don't call my dick Little Jamie. Or talk about it, for that matter."

"But I can think about him?"

"For fuck's sake." I tried to throw an arm over my face, only to remember I was still wearing sunglasses. Drama, thwarted by practicality. "No."

"I'm gonna think about him so hard—"

"Quietly. Please. Jesus. And don't make that face." I peeked out from under my arm to sneak a glance at the dopey smile stretched across his cheeks. "I hope that's not your sex face."

"You want to see my sex face, Kitty?"

"For fuck's sake." Nope. I was not picturing his sex face. Or anything having to do with him and sex. Would not give him, or Little Jamie—dammit, no I was not calling it that!—the satisfaction.

It was time for a change of topic. "So, did you always want to play hockey?"

Way to take things from sexy to ultra-serious, Jamie. Always the life of the party.

"You taking the piss?" Bowie snorted, and his face softened into gentle sobriety as he turned to the lake. "I'm British. It barely exists over there."

"Oh." Yeah, oh. Bravo, Sullivan. "So how does a British kid wind up playing pro hockey?"

"Obsession." The word tumbled out, and the way his brows furrowed tight against it, I thought they'd surprised him as much as me. "And pure dumb fucking luck. You inherit your brother's mate's skates, right, dodge rocks and cow shit on a frozen field, fall in love. Hitch lifts to the rink in the next town over. Sometimes you get up at the asscrack of dawn."

I nodded along. All hours. Morning, night, frigid temperatures, black dawns, frozen hair and frozen gear. Sketchy ponds and pockmarked ice. Any of it. All of it. For the game. To taste another hour of stale frost-cracked air. To feel the cut of blades and the grip of gloves, to hear the smash of puck against boards.

For the minutest chance to be better than the next guy.

"I tried out for the team at uni as a joke." He huffed an ironic little laugh. "Didn't think I'd make it, and I did, and I couldn't get enough …"

His words trailed off, and I realized I was staring. At him. At Bowie—no, at Archie Bowman. The man beneath the mask. The bit of real I'd glimpsed before, laid bare for me to marvel over.

And then the words hit me. I sat up so fast my sunglasses slid down my nose so I stared at him over the tops. "Wait, you've only been playing since college?"

"Well, I played roller hockey before that. And field hockey at school." His eyes drifted upwards in thought, and his right hand tangled in his hair. "And open hockey sometimes at Swindon Ice Rink. And a lot of fucking rugby. A lot."

"Roller hockey," I repeated like a parrot with an intensely limited vocabulary. "Field hockey. Open hockey. Rugby."

No little league, no peewees or midgets or prep school. No summer travel leagues, no juniors. "Fuck me, Bowman. Do you have any idea how fucking nuts that is?"

"No?"

"Do you have any idea what you are?"

His mouth curled half upwards. "What was it you said? A cocky little manwhore? Or was it fuckboy?"

"Well, yeah." I let out a soft laugh, surprised at how natural, how easy, it felt. "I was gonna say prodigy, but manwhore might be more accurate."

"Manwhore is definitely more accurate." He gathered his long legs up under him and stood. "Keep walking? I want to get to the beach."

I followed him back out onto the trail, my mind still reeling with everything I'd learned. All these new little pieces of him for me to puzzle over. Calling him a prodigy had made him … uncomfortable, and no wonder; he hadn't had a lifetime of coaches and parents and teammates stroking his ego.

There was so much more to Archie Bowman than I'd realized.

He picked up the pace right where I'd left it—fast and focused. For a while, neither of us said anything, the only sounds were the tread of our feet, the shift of the trees as the breeze wound through, the twitter of birds and the distant hum of traffic. Sweat gathered in my hair, slicking my shirt to my arms and torso. My socks probably smelled awful.

"Why Bringham?" Bowie asked, as we rounded the last turn of the path before the hidden beach.

"Hm?" I'd gotten lost again, in the low pulse of nature or my own thoughts, could never be sure out here, when they wove together into one homogenous tapestry.

"You grew up in Boston. So why are you in Bringham?" Sweat slicked his blond hair, beaded his forehead. His cheeks glowed with exertion.

He was fucking radiant.

I nudged out in front of him to take the lead down the narrow, winding side-trail that led down to the hidden beach. "Went to grad school here."

"You didn't want to work for the Bears back home?"

My knee buckled, causing my boot to slide against a patch of loose gravel, but I kept my balance. "I wanted to branch out."

I'd needed to get away from the team I once played for. I hadn't made it out of the pro circles, but I couldn't stay in Boston, with the Bears, my past, so close.

I hopped down the last few feet of trail to the rocky shoreline below. It was only once my boots leveled up with the lapping water that I remembered why I was avoiding the beach. "I didn't bring a suit."

"Me either." Bowie was already stripping out of his shirt. I yanked my gaze away before it got caught on any wayward abs or deltoids. Or—fuck. He was sliding off his gym shorts now. Why was he always undressing in front of me?

Maybe I was in the wrong profession. "This is a public park, Bowman."

"I'll leave my knickers on." He kicked his shorts into a pile with his shirt and waded into the shallows. Yelped. "Why is it so cold? I'm freezing my bollocks off."

"It's Maine." I studied his pile of discarded clothing, then risked a glance at him … and burst out laughing. He stood knee-deep in the water, shoulders hunched and one arm wrapped around himself. The other not-so-subtly lowered to shield his—Jesus Jamie. Don't. "You look a little chilly, Bowman."

"You can't talk." He scowled at me. Then, his face molded into a sharp expression I recognized as a challenge. "Fully dressed on the shore."

Lord fucking help me. Don't rise to the bait, Sullivan. Be the professional. The adult—

I dropped my backpack. Kicked my boots off as I lifted my T-shirt off. His gaze burned holes through my skin, but I refused to meet it. Refused to look up as I did the very stupid, very unprofessional, and very unadult thing.

I dropped my shorts onto the sand. Keeping my right side angled towards him, left knee away.

And I waded right the fuck into that heart-stoppingly, breath-snatchingly, ball-shrinkingly cold ice bath. Fuck, fuck, and more fuck—but I was not about to let him see how much the cold water was affecting me. I didn't pause. My brain was short circuiting, everything in my body clenched against the brutal temperature.

I dove in.

Bit my tongue to keep from swearing as I popped back up. "Coming in, Bowie?"