Road Games & Reckonings
Chris
The morning skate before the away game was quiet, filled with clipped instructions and the squeak of blades on fresh ice. But no one said what they were really thinking.
Not about Levi’s shaky performance lately.
Not about the press leak.
And definitely not about him and her.
He’d grown used to being a distraction. Hell, he was the distraction for most of last season. But dragging Anna into it? That was different. Unfair. Dangerous in ways he hadn’t considered when she showed up at his apartment looking like something solid in a world full of smokescreens.
Now he was skating with a target on his back.
And for once, it wasn’t because of how he played.
---
Anna
The hotel room was sterile, the kind meant for business travelers and exhausted athletes. Her bag sat half-unpacked, her team ID on the desk, her nerves twisted up like wires behind her ribs.
She hadn’t slept much the night before. Hadn’t eaten, either.
The adrenaline of medical training only took you so far—eventually, fear settled in. Not of failure. She could handle high-stakes trauma.
But intimacy? Feeling something she wasn’t supposed to?
That was the real danger.
She checked her watch. Thirty minutes to puck drop.
The door clicked shut behind her as she headed to the tunnel, shoulders squared against everything waiting on the other side.
---
Chris
Levi went down hard in the second period. Chris saw the hit coming half a second too late.
He barely felt the scrape of his own skates stopping against the ice. The noise dropped out—replaced by a sharp, ringing silence as Levi lay there, unmoving.
Time fractured. Trainers scrambled. The med team hit the ice.
Then Anna.
She didn’t hesitate.
He watched her kneel, assess, control the chaos with clinical precision. But her mouth was tight. Her hands slightly too rigid.
He knew her well enough to spot the difference now.
The hit wasn’t dirty, but it was bad. Neck strain, maybe worse. She kept her expression unreadable, but Chris saw it: the moment her mask cracked, just for a second.
A flicker of fear.
For Levi. And maybe for herself, too.
He wanted to skate over and say something—anything. But all he could do was watch.
---
Anna
The arena roared overhead. But down here, everything felt muffled.
Levi was conscious, which was a miracle. His pupils weren’t perfect, though. She wouldn’t rule out a spinal issue until after imaging.
She barked orders. Called for a stretcher. Kept her gloves steady and her tone even.
But Chris. Always Chris.
He was still watching. Standing just past the boards like some war-torn statue.
She could feel his presence like gravity.
And when their eyes met—briefly, helplessly—she felt the breath catch in her throat.
It wasn't professional.
It wasn't safe.
But it was real.
---
Chris
The team rallied after Levi’s injury, like they always did. When one of their own got taken out, they tightened ranks. Chris scored in the third period, feeding off adrenaline and fury.
But none of it felt like a win.
Back in the tunnel, after the game, cameras caught up to him fast. Too fast.
“Chris, do you think the team doctor acted emotionally during the response to Kells’ injury?”
That stopped him in his tracks.
“I think she saved his career,” he said coolly.
“But—”
He stared the reporter down. “Next question.”
Later, when he saw the clip playing on loop in the bar TV back at the hotel, his gut twisted.
The media wasn’t going to let go of this.
And now, neither could he.
---
Anna
She didn’t go down to the bar with the rest of the staff.
Instead, she stood under the shower in her hotel room until the water turned cold, trying to scrub the press conference soundbite from her memory.
She saved his career.
It shouldn’t have meant anything. Should’ve been clinical. True.
But it had felt like something more.
Like he was drawing a line in the sand—for her.
She dried off, dressed in a hoodie and leggings, and opened her laptop to type up her medical report.
Then she saw the envelope.
No logo. Just her name.
Inside:
> You were the calm in the worst moment tonight.
You were the reason we kept playing.
I’m not trying to make this harder—but I won’t pretend anymore either.
—C
She pressed the paper to her chest and closed her eyes.
---
Chris
He was halfway to the elevator when he changed his mind.
Instead of going up to his room, he walked to the far end of the hotel floor, stopped at her door, and raised his hand to knock.
He didn’t.
Instead, he leaned forward and rested his head against the doorframe, just long enough to breathe in and remember the way she’d looked on the ice—fierce, focused, and quietly falling apart under all the weight she carried.
He whispered ,"You don't have to open the door ".
And walked away .