Page 36 of Shattered On Ice

My clinical brain comes online, immediately sounding a blaring alarm. We are in too deep. You are forming a profound emotional attachment that will shatter the moment his boundaries return.

I swallow and ruthlessly shut the therapist down. I don't want to analyze the impending devastation.

I just want to be his.

“Take me home, then,” I whisper, running my hands up his arms and squeezing his shoulders to ground myself in everything I know is true.

Later that night, when we are showered and tangled together on the couch, the scent of popcorn replaces exhaust and the enthralling scent of Westin’s perspiration from the afternoon. We have 50 First Dates playing on the TV. It’s one of Westin’s absolute favorites, which still endlessly amuses me. The big, intimidating NHL player is a total sucker for nineties and two-thousands rom-coms.

I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady, comforting thump of his heart as we watch Adam Sandler’s character, Henry, orchestrate elaborate, ridiculous scenarios just to meet Drew Barrymore’s Lucy over and over again.

“It’s crazy, right?” Westin murmurs, his fingers absently stroking my damp hair. “He knows her memory is going to wipe every single night. He knows he’s going to wake up a total stranger to her. But he puts in the work to make her fall in love with him every single day, anyway.”

I tilt my head up to look at him. The flickering light of the television casts shifting shadows across the strong line of his jaw. “It’s a lot of dedication,” I say softly. “To build a whole life in the margins like that. Knowing the timeline always resets.”

“It’s worth it,” Westin says with conviction. His gaze drops from the screen to meet mine, the sudden, intense weight of his words having nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with us. “If they’re the one, you do whatever it takes to keep them. Even if you have to start over every morning.”

My chest aches with a bittersweet pang of yearning that I can't quite swallow down. Our timeline is about to reset, too. We’ve built this beautiful, delicate connection in the margins of my brother’s absence, but the amnesia is coming. We are staring down the barrel of our own reset, knowing that soon, we will have to look at each other and pretend we are nothing more than friends. Acquaintances, really. It’s not fair, yet we cling to this precarious time when we’re allowed to pretend that what we have is normal and not built on deceptions. The thought of becoming his dirty secret once again is heartbreaking, but it’s what I willingly signed up for. We chose the shadows together.

I press my face back to his chest, holding onto him as tightly as possible until the credits roll.

The quiet hum of the refrigerator feels exceptionally loud this morning. I stand at the stove in nothing but boxer briefs and my glasses, humming a low, mindless tune as I scramble eggs in a pan. My body is deliciously sore from staying up half the night with Westin showing me every position he could take me in, with encouragement and taunting from me every step of the way. My skin is marked with the impressions of his teeth and fingers, little raspberry colored bruises in the strangest places where his ecstasy sank deep. I am fully, completely branded as his as we enjoy another slow morning together. The scent of butter and sizzling turkey sausage fills the kitchen, a domestic warmth that has seamlessly woven itself into the fabric of my life over the past two weeks.

I glance over my shoulder, and my chest goes suddenly, overwhelmingly tight.

Westin is leaning against the counter, wearing an old pair of my sweats that are slightly too short for him. Indiana sits directly on his bare feet, staring up at him with unblinking devotion, waiting for a dropped piece of sausage. Westin yawns, running a hand through his messy hair, and picks up my favorite coffee mug. I watch, completely captivated, as he pours exactly the right amount of cinnamon-brown-sugar oat milk creamer into my coffee without even having to ask.

He pauses, the coffee pot suspended in his hand, as he catches me staring. The look that passes between us hits me with the force of a physical blow. The air in the kitchen suddenly feels impossibly thick, scented with our breakfast and unspoken connection that snaps taut between us. This isn't a casual fling anymore. He knows exactly how I take my coffee. I know what side of the bed he favors. I know the exact breathy sound he makes when I trace the scar on his jawline in the dark. We’ve spent fourteen days together playing house, and looking at him standing in my kitchen, it feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever lived. The craziest thing is, I just hope he feels the same, and I can be the home he’s always been missing.

But it’s still a house built on a fault line, and the tremor is already starting.

I turn back to the stove, swallowing the heavy, jagged lump forming in my throat. I divide the eggs onto plates, add the sausage, and walk them over to the island.

Westin smiles, reaching for his plate, but his expression falters when he sees my face.

I set the plate down and look at him, offering a soft, inescapably sad smile. “Rook’s flight lands at five tomorrow evening,” I say quietly.

Westin freezes. I watch the realization crash over him, extinguishing the light in his hazel eyes. The fantasy shatters around us, the invisible debris coating the kitchen floor. Our two-week timer is up. Tomorrow, he has to pack up his toothbrush, leave this kitchen, and go back to being the best friend. Tomorrow, we both have to go back to starving.

Thirteen

Knight

The doorbell chimes multiple times, sending Indiana Bones into a barking frenzy as she races from my office toward the front door. I shut my laptop, done for the day anyway, and get up to answer it. But the door opens on its own, so it has to be Rook.

“There’s my bestest girl!” he bellows over Indiana's yaps and yodels. “I missed you so much.” He scoops up the dog and rolls his suitcase into the house as he talks to her.

The noise and cacophony are jarring after getting used to the settled silence of the empty house or Westin’s low tones while he was here.

“She’s so happy to see you. I’ve never seen her wiggle like that.” Westin wheels in Rook’s carry-on bag right behind him, shutting the door with a bang. “I think she likes you even more than those season ticket holders with glass seats by where we warm up. They don't even get this excited when you come out on the ice.”

I stall in the hallway, my feet rooted in place. What is he doing here? Did he pick up Rook at the airport? I wasn't expecting that. And is he sticking around now?

Westin parks the bag next to Rook’s, and they both head into the living room, taking their noise with them. I follow a moment later, panic swirling through my system in discordant waves. I’m used to the quiet, soft Westin who was focused entirely on me for weeks as we shared this space. Now, he’s matching Rook’s energy levels and volume as they catch up.

First, how in the hell does Rook have any energy left after that flight? And, second, what are they talking about now that they didn't cover in the ride from the airport?

“So, Lucia, the one girl I was telling you about? She spots me at the café the next day with Briony, this chick from England I’d met, and Lucia starts screaming at her in Italian, gesturing at me like a wild woman, until they both turn on me,” he says, his face animated as Westin looks on.