Icebreaker

by A.L. Graziadei

He’s just hot

“Your eyes are a nice color.”

And Jaysen likes the color of my eyes, and my haircut, and my voice. Now I’m gonna be thinking about that all day.

“So,” he says. “You like my dimples, huh?”

“Will you two dusters stop making heart eyes at each other and shoot some goddamn puck?”

But I catch him looking at me again a few minutes later.

Cauler laughs, all dimples and crinkly eyes, and I just about melt into the ice. It’s nice, making him laugh. He can make any emotion look good, but this is my favorite.

I open my eyes to find Cauler looking right at me. He doesn’t turn away when I catch him staring.

Cauler’s the first one to like it.

His hand around mine sends my heart lurching more than any jump scare this place could throw at me.

“You can get in the bed,” he says after a few minutes. “It’s big enough.”

“He might come visit on spring break,” Cauler says.

His eyes rove over my face, hesitating over my lips before he meets my stare again. “What would you do if I said yes?”

Jaysen Caulfield is into me. Maybe just as much as I am into him.

His grin opens up into a full-blown smile, dimples in both cheeks, eyes crinkled. “You little shit.”

Cauler doesn’t say anything. But he smiles. And, oh, I am so fucked. His smile has never been more beautiful than it is now. Shy. And genuine. And at least in part because of me.

I. Should’ve. Kissed him.

no one is paying any attention to us. So when Cauler finally makes the move, I put my hand right next to his, our skin touching as we pull the seat back.

Cauler sucks his lips into his mouth as he climbs into the car, not looking at me. But I see the smile fighting to pull through.

I smile. Even laugh. And when I face forward again, I find Cauler watching me just like I’d been watching Kovy. He looks away as soon as I notice.

Jaysen: I think you’re plenty interesting

I like him.

He steps closer, letting his stick drop to the ice. He pulls his right hand out of his glove and reaches up, trailing his fingers across my cheekbone and pushing them back into my hair. Each second lasts

“Same page?” he asks softly, a slight tremor in his voice. “Same page,” I almost whisper.

And then his mouth is on mine, his full weight pinning me and both hands pushing into my hair. I feel it everywhere. It takes everything in me to hold myself up.

The sight of Cauler makes it hard to breathe, and when he looks up at me and smiles, I think I die a little.

He finds me in the stands and points a finger right at me, this smug little grin on his face. And he winks.

He gives me that same shy smile that makes me want to die every time.

“You act like she stuck her tongue down his throat,” Cauler says. He kicks his shoes off with a little too much force, so they slam against the bottom of his stall.

He’s jealous.

Depression doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve been through, she said. It’s an illness that can happen to anyone.

and Cauler’s watching me with this soft kind of look on his face.

Cauler smiles as he presses me down into the couch with a hard kiss and rough hands under my

He gives me a crooked grin and pushes a hand through my hair, knocking my hat off my head.

Cauler gives me this soft, almost loving last kiss

“Look, Cauler. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m…” I laugh bitterly. “I am

deeply depressed. Now I’m on medication and I’m still trying to get used to feeling things, and honestly a lot of the time, I really hate myself.”

He traces his cold fingers along my jawline, pushes them into the hair at the nape of my neck, and pulls me against his chest. I melt into him, wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze him tight.

“I don’t wanna be just another one of your former teammates,” he says into my hair. “I wanna be able to call you after your games and make fun of the faces you made on the bench or freak out about

a sick play you made, and I want you to call and ask about mine and I want to wake up to texts from you. I want to be the one you c...

He smiles, so soft and beautiful it makes my heart stop for a second or two. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me like that before.

“Then let’s do this right,” he says. He steps back enough to hold my hands between us. He lifts one up to brush his lips against my knuckles. My knees feel weak. “Mickey Liam James III. Will you be my boyfriend?”

I’m with my favorite person,

“But I think the biggest factor was me getting a handle on my own mental health. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, and once I got on medication and started seeing a therapist, I was able to put so much more energy and passion into hockey. I was able to start liking it again, not just seeing it as something I had to do.”

“Honestly, don’t be ashamed. A lot more people deal with it than you think, and the best way to cope is to acknowledge it and ask for help. Don’t suffer alone.”

Mickey: You look good Jaysen: You can barely see me Mickey: But i still know you look good

I look at Cauler. He’s looking at me. And that matters far more than the name called first.