Page 179 of Over the Line

The trainer put up her hands and stepped away.

“Don’t blame her,” I said calmly. “I just didn’t want people in there”—I tipped my head toward the locker room—“speculating.”

He scowled. “Yeah, like everyone isn’t already talking about it.”

“I know. I just didn’t want to make that worse.” Before he could argue that point any further, I added, “We need to talk, and it can’t wait.”

Then I headed for one of the small conference rooms, praying with every step that he followed me.

He did, and a moment later, he was shutting the door behind us. “Okay.” He folded his arms and leaned against the door. “Let’s talk, I guess.”

I paused to gather my thoughts. When I was confident I’d arranged them enough to be coherent, I took a deep breath, but Chris spoke before I could.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” he growled.

I froze, mouth still open for the unspoken apology. Then I closed it.

Chris shifted his weight, hugging himself tighter. “My dad, Saints. My fucking dad. And then you both lied to me about it but you’ll tell random fans. I mean, I get that the video was AI, but someone fucking knew, and I had to hear it from… I just…” He made a frustrated gesture and started pacing across the tiny room. “What the hell?”

I watched him silently for a moment as I weighed my next words.

“I know you don’t want to hear it,” I said as evenly as I could, “but I am sorry.”

He glared at me.

“This wasn’t how we wanted you to find out.”

The response to that was a caustic laugh. “Yeah. That sure worked out. You’d think my dad would’ve learned by now that keeping things hidden will just make everything into a bigger shitshow than it needs to be.”

“I know, and your dad and I talked about that,” I insisted. “About telling you. We talked about it a lot.” I exhaled hard, leaning against the small table at the center of the room. “He felt guilty hiding it from you, and so did I.”

“So why did you keep hiding it?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you guys just man up and tell me so I didn’t have to find out like”—he gestured in the general direction of the locker room—“like that?”

“It wasn’t how we wanted it to come out either.”

“But it did. And now here we are.” His eyes—full of anger and hurt—demanded to know what happened next.

“Listen, I know this is hard for you,” I said. “And the last thing I wanted to do was cause problems between you and your dad or problems on this team.”

“What did you think would happen?” he growled. “How the hell did you think hooking up with my dad would play out when you⁠—”

“I was thinking I’d finally met someone who didn’t just want to fuck my jersey number or my bank account.”

Chris froze, lips apart.

My own words echoed over and over in my head. Fuck. Saying that out loud—ouch.

I swallowed hard. When I managed to speak, my voice tried hard to break, but I tried even harder to keep it together. “I know this is weird for you, Chris. And I know we hid it from you. But Jesus Christ, have you noticed how long I’ve been alone? How it’s so goddamned conspicuous that the fucking press can’t go a week without asking if I’ve got someone?” My shoulders dropped. “I haven’t had someone. I’ve had one boyfriend in my entire career, and even that didn’t get far for the same reason nothing else ever does—because my whole life has been hockey, Chris. All hockey all the time. Since I was a kid. Then I met your dad, and…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish that without showing more emotion than I wanted.

Chris just watched me silently, as if he didn’t know what to make of that or what to say.

“For what it’s worth,” I went on after a moment, “we knew this would be complicated because you and I are teammates. So we tried to stay away from each other.”

Chris arched an eyebrow. “You did?”

I nodded. “We both backed off and said it wasn’t a good idea. But we just…” I shook my head, suddenly exhausted by this conversation. “We kept gravitating back together. There was a connection there. Something I’ve never had with anyone. And I just couldn’t say no to it.”

He avoided my gaze, jaw working.