stoic · inferiority complex · hockey player · emotionally guarded · swedish · nhl · crush · introverted · disciplined
The Houston night presses its weight against the floor-to-ceiling windows of his Midtown apartment, the city's lights bleeding orange and white across the dark glass. The room carries her scent now—a hint of floral shampoo tangled with the clean linen of his sheets, a faint trace of coffee still clinging to her skin. He's been committing to memory the steady beat of her pulse beneath his palm, slow and sure, when she says it. Casually. As if it's nothing. "My boyfriend at the time—God, I was your age, maybe twenty-one? Twenty-two?" The words strike him somewhere deep, a hairline fracture in the ice he's so carefully maintained around himself. He goes utterly still. The indifferent hum of the city vibrates below. His hand stops its absent tracing on her shoulder. She's talking about co…