Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

No deal needed—if she keeps looking at me like this, I’ll do anything she says.

She stops there, but the unspoken words are just as loud. The look in her eyes says I wanted to help, and this is all I have and I see you.

I wonder if I could convince her to She’s the Man herself onto the men’s hockey team so I never have to be on the ice without her.

Trying not to disturb Sadie mid-routine—because I can tell it’s full-out from the intensity of her movements, the artistry so beautifully woven into it that it makes my chest ache. I clench my fists to trap the anxious monster in my head that’s so desperate for more of her, worried if I even stare too long at her, I won’t be able to stop myself from doing something insane—like pinning her to the boards again. Or seeing how light she is in my hands. Could I hold her up with one hand while the other presses—

And without thinking, I drop a kiss to her forehead and pick up my gear bag, turning to leave the room before I can consider how ridiculous that move might have been.

“For the record,” I say, looking out along the lake, across all the life around us. “I am offering.” She’s silent. Smiling and shaking her head, she avoids every ounce of the eye contact I’m directing toward her. But I can’t bring myself to regret it.

“I thought you liked savory over sweet.” “I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses, and my heart clenches.

Matthew Fredderic, left winger and resident pain in my ass. With helmets on, gliding on a sheet of ice, we could be twins—we have the same height and build, which works wonders for our first line forward play as winger and center. But off the ice, we are night and day. Freddy is blond, with innocent green eyes and an overly flirty smile to match the “love-’em-and-leave-’em” personality that continues to leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake. He’s got a reputation already, has had one since freshman year—and according to rumor, he was just as wildly promiscuous in high school. He’s the kind of guy you’re worried about introducing to your mother, let alone your sister.

I’m sorry, Ben. I could barely manage to open my goddamn eyes, let alone look my father in the face. Talking to you, being honest with you, felt like climbing Everest because the idea of never being on the ice again was suddenly just as terrifying as being on the ice again. I hated myself almost as much as hockey hates me, and I didn’t want to feel anything even remotely comfortable, and you’re a savior, a protector—you couldn’t protect me from this. You’re my best friend, and I never wanted to hurt you, but everything inside me turned black, decayed, and it’s still nothing good. I am nothing anymore, and it’s selfish, but I didn’t want you to see that.

“Tell me,” I nearly beg. Maybe it’s the too-loud music giving me a massive headache, or the red light that makes this almost like a foggy dream, but I can’t make myself shut up. “Because I’ll tell you. I can’t stop thinking about the locker room,

Sadie’s like a goddamn drug, the effect just as immediate, my mind relaxing and something good chasing the dark out of my veins until I feel like Old Rhys again; even my headache dulls to an ignorable level. I gulp down her presence like air after breaking the surface from drowning. I soak it all up, knowing from my experiences with her before that the switch will flip.

“Sadie Brown! You can get off with Sean later.” A wave of frustration rolls through me, as if I have some automatic claim on her, like a fucking third grader. I licked her so she’s mine.

“Good night, kotyonok.”

The girl can read chapter-long filthy sex scenes without a flinch, but tell her a boy thinks she’s pretty and she turns into a tomato.

“Rainbow Kitten Surprise.”

I study them while making their orders: an iced black coffee with three tablespoons of almond milk for the grumpy one—Bennett Reiner, going by the name on the order—and a cold brew special, which means maple syrup, toffee nut, and a splash of condensed milk, for Rhys. I nearly swallowed my tongue as I listened to him order my go-to drink.

Ro is my best friend, no matter my best efforts at keeping her at arm’s length. She shoved her way in freshman year, not deterred by my attitude or attempts to rid myself of her. Instead, she stuck like glue, until she was so attached I couldn’t exist without her. Then she watched me suffer from a paralyzing panic attack and held me through the entire thing, rocking us both on the little twin bed in our freshman dorm.

“I know you like to have control,” I whisper, crushing my lips against her cheek. “But I’m not some boy you’re using to try to feel nothing. You’re going to feel everything with me.” My teeth clamp down on her earlobe, just a nip, before I cut off her moan with another hard press of my mouth to hers.

I turn my head into her palm and plant an open-mouthed kiss there. “Just relax and let me take care of you.”

I am gone for this girl. “Okay, Sadie Gray,” I whisper, before reaching my hands to her knees and pulling them apart.

don’t usually do this.” “What? Hook up in a bathroom?” He smirks at me again, eyes twinkling. “Funny—every time I’ve had my mouth on you has been in a bathroom.”

“I think I’m in love with her.” I hear Rhys tell Bennett, but his voice doesn’t lower even a notch. “And she won’t let me in.”

Bennett winces, helping Rhys along as we walk out the back door. “Calm down, bud.” “Sade doesn’t think I’m a golden boy, Ben.” Rhys smiles, but it’s all wrong. “I don’t have to pretend now that she’s here. She knows I’m broken.” He lets out a huffed laugh. “Rhys… you’re not broken.” Bennett sounds as distraught as I feel behind the hard mental wall of steel I have raised in a last-ditch effort to protect myself. “I am, Ben. And she’s the only one who sees it.”

“And tell your little friend up there to watch her fucking back. I don’t need unbruised knuckles to skate.”

I hate leaving him there, even with Freddy. It feels wrong, leaving him. Because I’ve begun to think of him as mine, I realize as I pull away from their nice little house. He deserves so much more. He’s temporarily broken—there’s no fixing me. That thought stays with me like a mantra, far into the night and through the next day.

“Vchistuyu,” he whispers, a sad smile stretching across his face. It’s a word I don’t recognize from my partial, limited Russian. “I don’t know that.” I shake my head, my throat catching. “Finally.” He smiles but it’s watery. Between him and my mother, the intensity of emotions in this house has always been welcoming. After the hit, it was stifling. Now… now it is starting to feel like home again. “It means finally, Rhys.

“My son! My son—help him. Please.” And then, “I can’t live without him. Not my son—he can’t do this to me.” It wasn’t some grand hurtful thing, and it would take more than a few sessions of therapy to understand it, but his screams haunted me. I’d never seen my dad upset or afraid before. And when I was at the peak of my fear, the calm, steady presence of my father wasn’t there—just panic. So I chose to keep everything to myself. Because I love my dad, and I never wanted to hear him like that again.

“My son,” he whispers into my hair, and this time no bolt of fear or panic rushes down my spine. Just warmth. “I’m so sorry, Rhys. Prosti menya, pozhaluysta.” Forgive me, please.

don’t want anyone to take us from Sadie.” Liam looks at me, eyes still red and teary. “You’re not gonna make us leave Sadie, right, Rhys?” It’s the first time the youngest sibling has looked at me like that, wary and suddenly unsure. It’s a sharp reminder of exactly how shaky their trust is, even Liam’s. “No.” I check the light again, before turning in my seat to look them both in the eyes. “Never. You and Oliver will always be with Sadie. I’ll make sure of it.” I’ll just make sure she’s not alone in this ever again.

I step forward, crowding her just slightly toward the door. “Be mad. Yell at me if you want, but it’s not going to stop me from caring, and it’s not going to stop me from trying to help you, no matter how many times you push me away.” “I—” She lets out another shuddering breath, and I wonder if she’s ever felt as helpless with my demons as I do facing hers now, worried that any moment is going to devolve into panic.

“Sadie?” She spins back to me, the divot forming between her brows. “Yes?” “I don’t want you to keep me away, okay? I want to be part of your life.” “No,” she chokes out. “You don’t, Rhys. It’s messy and way too complicated.” “I don’t care.” “Rhys.” “Sadie, if you told me you were joining the Witness Protection Program, I’d ask, ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘Can I pull off a beard?’ ”

I worry more that, if she lets me, the dark thing that lives in me will just want to take and take and take from her. I worry I will be too much, and yet still not enough.

“Fuck,” she gasps, her hands pressing my shoulders for a second. I pause, a mix of apprehension and pride swirling. “God, I really forgot about how big you are. You’re going to tear my poor pussy.” I kiss the bridge of her nose, slowly sliding in another inch. “Don’t be ridiculous, kotyonok. You can take it.”

“I’ll crush you,” I say, chuckling into the mess of her hair tickling my nose and pressing my hand to the mattress to lift myself up. “I don’t care.” She smiles with a little giggle. “Please. Harder.” Please. Giggles. It’s never been like this before, so simple and perfect and playful. More than sex; something else is forming between us.

“I’m not really a cuddler,” she argues over her shoulder, biting on her lip. “Okay,” I acquiesce. But I wake up with her little body pressed to my chest early the next morning, and blissfully cancel every alarm to fall back asleep with her in my arms.

Probably not a good idea to cancel the alarms!

“Hey, hotshot.” “Hey, Gray,” he says with another grin that I bottle up tight and hold close in my chest.

“And then.” He stretches out the word and kisses my nose. “This little punk figure skater grabbed my wrist and told me not to touch her, and I felt something. I was scared I’d never see her again.”

“And then, she was there with me. Again and again.” But he pulls back with a serious look as he keeps his grip on my jaw and draws my eyes to his. “And then, I started to use her like a crutch.”

It’s my first game, and I’m going specifically as Rhys Koteskiy’s girlfriend. I’m half thrilled, half terrified.

It’s a vintage bomber with a navy-and-teal-striped collar and cuffs. A large Waterfell Wolves logo is emblazoned on one side, offset with a patch of denim, while the other side hosts a large 51 in a pearlescent white with navy stitching. Rhys Koteskiy’s number.

I kiss Sadie on the temple when she reaches for another cookie and she sinks into my touch for a moment. I’m completely in love with her.

“I won’t. What happened on Halloween?” When she doesn’t speak, I continue. “I’m not here just for happy Sadie in my bed. I’m here for my frustrated, angry Gray. For my scared kotyonok.”

It isn’t until she’s fast asleep, drained but so beautiful, that I whisper, “I’ll never leave you. Happy birthday, Sadie.” I swear she smiles in her sleep, but I’m borderline delusional when it comes to this girl. “I love you,” I mouth, pressing the words into the skin of her forehead, hoping that somehow, she hears them. Somehow, she knows.

“I just don’t want this to be why you leave.” Another punch to the stomach. Another reason I’m planning to never let these kids out of my sight again. I’d marry Sadie tomorrow if it meant it got them out of this damn house. Who am I kidding? I’d marry Sadie tomorrow. Period. No stipulations. “Let me deal with it, okay?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to prove to you and Oliver that I’m not leaving—and honestly, I don’t care what it is, I’ll do it.”

“Because, Sadie,” he grits out, in a harsher voice than I’ve ever heard him use—especially with me. “If I look at you, I’m going to see that fear I clearly saw when you walked into the kitchen. I can’t get Oliver’s face out of my brain, and now yours. And if I see that, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from confronting him.”

“I’m gonna say something now, Gray. And I need you to hear me. Really hear me, okay?” I nod. “I love you,” he says, and he’s smiling—both dimples glinting.

“You don’t need to say anything right now, okay? I can love you enough for the both of us.”

“For now, kotyonok.” “You ever gonna tell me what that word means?” “Maybe one day,” he says before pushing me back into the mattress and pressing I love you into every inch of my skin while he makes love to me, soft and sweet and slow.

“Do you have one for us?” “Only a million,” I want to say. Rhys Koteskiy could never be confined to just one song—he’s a symphony, a never-ending playlist that I want to repeat forever. “I’ll think of one,” I say, curling against his skin. He’s burned into me, I think, like a brand. I’ll never recover from him.