Gravity

by Tal Bauer

His voice sinks into my bones. It melts me, making me think about impossibilities and first kisses and threading his fingers through mine.

I breathe in, and imagine how it could happen. My lips on his, his hands reaching for me.

“Is that an invitation? Or is that a French way of teasing me with a good time?” “Mais oui,” I laugh, and push against his stomach. He captures my wrist, and my heart stops.

“M’sorry, I haven’t gotten much sleep.” How could he? We’ve been together for almost the past twenty-four hours.

Montréal and Carolina are not going to play each other again this season. I frantically searched the schedule last night in my hotel room, hoping— Non. In less than twenty-four hours, Hunter will be gone, and I will be back in Montréal.

This weekend?” He looks me in the eyes. “It’s going to be the highlight of my career. I already know that.” It is already the highlight of my life.

“You can have anything.” Anything? Can I have your kiss?

He has a hundred things he can do other than spend any more time with me. I have monopolized his weekend.

Maybe it’s the lights playing across his face, but it seems like there’s something different about the way he’s looking at me.

Vegas is cool, but my first night out of slamming shots and playing poker has far paled in comparison to hanging out with Bryce.

I want him to keep talking forever. I never want this night to end, because I've clicked with Bryce in a way I rarely do with anyone.

Something about me has always been different. I was the hockey kid when everyone else played football, or I was the big guy, or the quiet guy. It takes me a while to warm up to people, and it takes others just as long to warm up to me, if they do at all.

I hope the way I make Bryce laugh and the shine in his eyes as he listens to me ramble means he feels...

I’ve been through with my third beer for about ten minutes, but I didn’t want to get...

When he returns, his eyes lock onto mine. He doesn’t sit. “You have blown my mind, you know that?”

He rests his hand on my shoulder and guides me back, and then straddles me, one knee on either side of my thighs. He’s suddenly on my lap, both of his hands wrapping around the back of my neck. His fingers are in my hair.

“I’ve wanted to do this all day…” Bryce leans forward while tugging me to him, collapsing the inches that separate us.

His lips close over mine. They’re soft and gentle against my chapped and dry skin. A breath sneaks out of him, a surprised little gasp escaping in the half-second when he pulls back.

Then he surges, his moan swallowed by the kiss. What was tentative is now hungry, almost desperate. His tongue slips out and caresses my bottom lip. My hand squeezes his hip, and then I slide it up his body until my palm is over his racing heart. I can feel it hammering against my touch. My God, my God.

I know everything there is to know about my hero. I know his favorite color and his favorite pre-game meal and how he likes to tie his skate laces for good luck, but this. There’s never been a hint.

I’ve never kissed a man before. Hell, I’ve barely kissed women. And

Nothing adds up. Not Bryce Michel liking men, not this weekend and what’s exploded between us, and especially not—especially not—Bryce kissing me. Out of all the men Bryce could have, out of an entire planet of men… me?

Who is Bryce Michel, deep down on the inside? Was I given a glimpse? And have I pushed that away?

I am poison. To myself, to this team, to everything I touch.

The teams we play smell our blood in the water. They score goals that would never have happened two weeks ago. Before the All-Star Weekend. Before I kissed Hunter.

I thought, since we were inextricable on the ice, it meant that off the ice, he, too, was thinking I was the missing piece of his life, non?

I projected my dreams onto the curve of his smile and the warmth of his shoulder when he leaned against me and laughed.

Before, the man in my dreams was indistinct. He was warm and solid, and he held me close and blocked out the world, but he never had a face. He was an idea, a formless want. My imagination at midnight. He has a face now.

I cherished him, and I cherished those minutes and hours we spun into a world of our own, a reality where we dazzled one another and became each other’s heroes.

I wanted to stretch that weekend into a year and spend countless sunrises and sunsets exploring the potential between us.

I fell in love with my hope, and I h...

My team has gone, and I am alone, and my world is collapsing. I miss him so much.

Why me? You can have anyone. He’s a superstar. I am nobody. Out of everyone he could have, why did he kiss me?

Lacey. Number 21.

We can't share the same number on the same team,

I rip myself from his gravity and escape back to the ice.

I skate like Hunter is my North Star and I am a planet orbiting his gravity.

But arms wrap around me from behind, and I’m tugged against a body that is far too warm and far too perfect of a fit against my own. “Bryce,” Hunter breathes into my ear. “He’s not worth it. Don't do this.”

Hunter’s arms tighten. My anger wavers. I want to spin in his hold and turn into him, push my face into his neck and breathe. I can smell his sweat, feel the rise and fall of his chest. “I’m okay,” he rumbles, and a part of me wilts.

How could anyone trade him away?

Hunter and I collide in a bear hug at the boards. He’s beaming, and so am I. I bury my face in his neck as his arms circle me again. This hurts so fucking badly, but I shove the pain away. Focus. Your broken heart is not important.

On the ice, we’re misfiring. Our passes don’t connect. Our timing is off. He stumbles, and then I do. Off the ice, we avoid each other. Or, he avoids me.

A team lives as a pack, and one player working so diligently to avoid another is noticeable… until the rest of the team begins to avoid you, too.

I have no idea what to do now, but I know that I’ve hated every second that’s passed since I walked out of your hotel room.

I’m the one who kissed you. I’m the one who fell for you. I’m the one who cannot get you out of my head.” You’re not the only one, I want to say. But I don’t.

You are in my thoughts and right in front of me. You are in my dreams and in the dressing room. I cannot escape you. Or what I feel about you.”

“I think about you all the time. How we were on the ice together. How we were when we were hanging out. You remember, after the divisional round, when we drove into the desert under the stars… I was so happy that night. Mon Dieu, I almost kissed you then, but I was too terrified. If only I'd stayed afraid, non?”

Calisse, will I destroy everything I have touched? My life, my team, and now your life?”

“You should be living on the beach, with your sun and your surfboard. You should play in the NHL for fifteen more years. You should win the Stanley Cup every season. You are merveilleux, but here I am, dragging you down.”

The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but that seems to be all I have done since we met. Tabernak.” My thoughts won’t line up, won’t make sense. He is hurting me, but not because of the trade, or because I'm not surfing anymore. He's hurting me because… “I miss you,” I blurt out.