pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – garrett’s friends need medical supervision at two in the morning. luckily, there’s a sleepy nursing student in his bed.
warnings – burn injury, minor first aid, medical mention, late-night wake-up, hockey house chaos, strong language
notes from me – based on an ask that i think i accidentally deleted!!? but thank u babe, this was so so cute 🥹
word count – 1.1k
navigation – masterlist |
The banging starts somewhere deep in the stupid part of the night, loud enough to punch straight through the warm, heavy pocket Garrett’s bed has made around them.
At first, she thinks it’s a dream. Something blunt and repetitive, like a monitor alarm that’s learnt how to use knuckles. She’s face-down in Garrett’s pillow, one leg tangled through his, his arm a solid weight over her waist and his hoodie riding up one bare thigh because she’d lost the will to locate pants.
The room is dark except for the weak spill of hallway light under the door, and Garrett’s chest is warm against her back, rising slow and deep like the rest of the house isn’t actively trying to ruin his sleep.
The banging comes again.
Garrett makes a noise into her hair that’s less language and more threatened violence. “What?”
“G,” Logan calls through the door. “We need, like, medical supervision.”
She feels Garrett go still behind her. Then his hand tightens at her stomach, protective before conscious, which would be cuter if her skull didn’t feel stuffed with wool. “Why?”
“Tuck burnt his hand.”
There’s a pause. Then Tucker, sounding deeply wounded and also very awake, adds, “It’s not that bad.”
Logan says, “It looks like a fucked-up marshmallow.”
“It does not.”
“It kind of does, dude.”
Garrett exhales so hard it moves the hair near her cheek. “Jesus Christ.” He lifts his head from the pillow, voice wrecked with sleep. “Go to the bathroom and run it under cool water.”
“We did,” Logan says.
“For how long?”
Another pause. A bad one. She opens one eye.
Garrett says, flatly, “You ran it under water for twelve seconds, didn’t you?”
Tucker mutters, “It was cold.”
She sighs into the pillow, then pushes herself upright with the grim determination of a woman who’s been summoned by poor first aid. The room tilts gently around her. Garrett’s hoodie hangs off one shoulder, huge and soft and smelling like him, and her hair is probably doing something upsetting.
She blinks at the door. “Come in.”
Garrett turns his head to look at her, curls smashed on one side, face soft and grumpy and faintly amazed. “Baby, you don’t have to–”
“They’re going to put butter on it if we leave them alone.”
The door opens before Garrett can argue, and Logan appears first, wide-eyed and apologetic in sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s inside out. Tucker stands behind him, cradling one hand to his chest, looking both embarrassed and betrayed by the universe.
She pats the edge of the bed. “Sit.”
Tucker sits immediately.
Garrett pushes himself up against the headboard beside her, still half under the sheets, watching as she reaches for Tucker’s wrist.
Her fingers are warm and sleepy, but her voice changes, smoothing out around the edges. “What did you burn it on?”
“Pan handle,” Tucker says. “Dean made grilled cheese.”
She gives him a look. “At two in the morning?”
Logan nods gravely. “Morale was low.”
“Dean’s not allowed to operate heat sources unsupervised.” She turns Tucker’s palm toward the lamp Garrett’s clicked on, squinting through the yellow light. The burn’s red across the base of his fingers, angry but not blistered in the way that makes her stomach drop. “Okay. Not horrific. Painful, though.”
“Thank you,” Tucker says, with feeling. “I said that.”
“You said you were dying,” Logan says.
“I said I could die.”
“Logan,” she says, without looking up, “bathroom. Gauze, if there is any. Non-stick dressing please, I know you have some. No cotton balls. No mystery ointments. No hydrogen peroxide.”
Logan salutes, then immediately points at her. “See, this is why you’re the best.”
“I’m half-asleep and underqualified.”
“Still top three medical professionals I know.”
“You know one.”
He disappears, and she huffs a small laugh, pressing lightly around the burn while Tucker winces. Garrett watches the whole thing from beside her, quiet now.
He watches the way Tucker relaxes because she tells him what she’s doing before she does it. Watches her pull the sleeve of his hoodie down over her own hand when she gets cold and still keep Tucker’s wrist balanced carefully in her palm. Watches her yawn halfway through explaining swelling and still somehow sound like someone worth listening to.
It does something awful to him. Softens him right through the ribs.
Logan returns with gauze, medical tape, and a packet of condoms. She stares at the pile in his hands. Logan looks down. “I panicked.”
Garrett drops his head back against the headboard and laughs once, low and helpless. Tucker, even injured, manages to say, “For my burn, man?”
“I grabbed everything white and rectangular!”
She presses her lips together, fighting a smile badly enough that Garrett sees the exact second she loses. “Okay. Thank you for your broad-spectrum approach.” She takes the gauze and tape, wraps Tucker’s hand loosely, then taps his wrist. “Keep it clean. Cool compress if it hurts. Don’t pop anything if it blisters. If it gets worse, red streaks, swelling, pus, fever, actual badness, you get it checked. Properly. Not by me in Garrett’s bed while I’m wearing one sock.”
Tucker looks at her like she’s hung the moon. “You’re incredible.”
“She is,” Logan says, immediately.
Garrett says nothing, because the words sit too big in his mouth.
She just waves them off, already sinking back against the pillows. “Go away before I start charging.”
Tucker stands, holding his wrapped hand with reverence. “Thanks, seriously.”
“Stop touching hot things.”
“No promises.”
Logan backs toward the door. “Night, Mom.”
Garrett lifts his head. “Do not call her that.”
She snorts, half under the blankets again. “Goodnight, children.”
The door shuts behind them, finally, and the room folds quiet again. Garrett turns the lamp off, but he doesn’t lie down straight away. He just looks at her in the dark, at the messy shape of her in his hoodie, already burrowing back into his pillow like she didn’t just sit up half-dead and make his entire chest feel too small.
“What?” she mumbles.
“Nothing.”
“That’s a bad nothing.”
He slides down beside her and pulls her back into him, careful and warm, mouth pressing into the back of her shoulder through his hoodie. “Good nothing.”
She hums, too tired to fight him. “Your friends are idiots.”
“Yeah,” Garrett murmurs, smiling against her skin. His hand settles over her stomach again, thumb moving once, slow and stupidly fond. “They love you.”
She’s quiet long enough that he thinks she’s fallen asleep. Then, barely there, “Mm. I’m very loveable.”
His chest aches.
“Yeah,” he says softly, into the dark. “You are.”
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꒰ঌ࿐𝓹𝓪𝓲𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓘ce 𝓼kater! 𝓕em! 𝓑leu! 𝓡eader x 𝓖arrett 𝓖raham
꒰ঌ࿐𝓫𝓵𝓾𝓻𝓫 a kiss shouldn't open floodgates, and it most certainly shouldn't lead to whatever you and Garrett Graham were doing right now
꒰ঌ࿐𝓼𝓶𝓾𝓽 ✓
꒰ঌ࿐𝔀𝓬 15,3k
꒰ঌ࿐𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓼 𝓑leu
Garrett did not text you the night he kissed you.
That was probably the only reason he survived until morning.
You told yourself this like it was a moral victory, like the restraint had been yours rather than his, like you had not walked back to your room with your mouth still swollen, your knee still bleeding, and the ghost of his hand burned into the hinge of your jaw. You showered too hot, scrubbed too hard over skin that did not need cleaning, and stared at yourself in the fogged bathroom mirror with the kind of clinical detachment usually reserved for post-fall injury checks.
Lip: tender.
Jaw: faintly red where his fingers had held you.
Knee: superficial scrape.
Hip: worsening.
Pride: catastrophic internal haemorrhage.
You had kissed Garrett Graham.
No. Worse.
You had kissed Garrett Graham and then gone back onto the ice.
Even worse than that, you had landed the jump.
That detail, privately, was what made you angriest. If you had fallen afterwards, if you had ruined the landing, if your body had proven that the kiss had knocked you off axis in a measurable, useful, punishable way, you could have filed the whole thing under mistake and moved on. But no. Your body, traitorous and apparently suicidal, had taken all that rage and heat and humiliating want and turned it into height. Rotation. Clean edge. A landing so sharp you had felt it through your teeth.
You hated him for that.
You hated him because he had been right there behind the boards while it happened, silent for once, watching you skate away like he had put something inside your body and was waiting to see what it did.
You hated him because you had wanted to look back.
You did not. That, at least, you kept.
The next morning, you arrived at the rink with your hair scraped tight enough to hurt and your expression arranged into something that discouraged conversation from three hallways away. Your coach took one look at you and narrowed her eyes.
She gave you the look. The one over the clipboard, a neat little slash of disappointment wrapped in professionalism.
“Warm up properly,” she said, “No triples for the first fifteen.”
You wanted to argue; but you bit your tongue.
That was the difference between your coach and Garrett Graham. With your coach, obedience could be disguised as discipline. With Garrett, everything felt like losing.
You were halfway through edge drills when the hockey team came in.
They were not on the ice yet. Not supposed to be, anyway. Their practice started after your session, but hockey players made it a habit of arriving early and making that fact everyone else’s problem. You heard them before you saw them, the thud of bags, the rolling laughter, the clatter of sticks against the boards as they filtered into the bench area like a badly supervised storm.
Usually, you could ignore background noise. You had trained through worse than laughter. You had trained through your mother taking phone calls at the boards about competitions you had not yet qualified for, through your father dissecting video playback in your peripheral vision, through another girl your age crying quietly in the hallway because she had lost a point on an under-rotation no one in her family would stop talking about.
But this noise had a centre now. You felt Garrett before you saw him.
You were gliding backward along the blue line, arms extended, working the edge deep enough that your blade made that satisfying, controlled bite into the ice, when his voice carried across the rink.
“Morning, princess.”
You did not look at him. You changed edge. Clean. Controlled. Indifferent.
Behind the boards, someone sucked in a breath like they were watching a loaded gun roll across the floor.
Garrett spoke again, “Knee still attached?”
You slowed, only slightly, leg extending so the swift glide turned into a natural slide.
Your coach’s head lifted and it became miniscule harder to feign indifference. Despite that, your eyes remind you, “Unfortunately, so is your mouth.”
The hockey bench went silent.
Then Dean said, “Annnnd- we’re back.”
Your coach looked from you to Garrett and back again with the exhausted calm of a woman who had worked in elite sport long enough to recognise both talent and deeply inconvenient sexual tension when it threatened her schedule.
“Do I need to ask?” she said.
“No,” you replied.
Garrett, at the exact same time, said, “Probably.”
You turned your head.
He was leaning against the boards in a Briar hoodie, hair still damp from whatever pre-practice shower or careless morning ritual had produced him looking like that. His mouth looked normal. Annoyingly normal. Not bruised or wrecked. If you had not felt it against yours, if your own body were not still hoarding the memory like contraband, you might have believed the whole thing had happened to someone else.
His eyes, however, were not normal. His eyes dropped to your mouth for half a second.
You smiled, “Careful, Graham,” you said. “Your team might start thinking you’re easy.”
Garrett’s jaw shifted once, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “You’d know, huh?”
“About standards? Yes. I imagine that’s a foreign concept for you.”
Dean made a choking noise. Logan rubbed a hand over his face. Tucker turned to the ceiling like he was asking God for patience and finding the line busy.
Your coach blew her whistle so sharply everyone flinched, “If the hockey team is finished auditioning for a campus harassment seminar,” she said, voice flat, “my skater is working.”
That should have ended it. But Garrett’s smile did not move off you as you reset your starting position, “Wouldn’t dream of interrupting greatness.”
You pushed off before you could answer. That seemed safer. Also cheaper than hiring a lawyer.
For the next forty minutes, you skated like precision could become violence if sharpened properly. Garrett and his team warmed up off-ice behind the glass, stretching, taping sticks, making themselves unavoidable in the way only large groups of young men could manage. You did not look at them. You did not look at him. You could feel him anyway, which was both humiliating and inconvenient. Your body had developed a Garrett-shaped awareness overnight and now insisted on updating you whenever he shifted, laughed, moved closer to the boards, or said anything in that voice that made irritation crawl under your skin.
When your session ended, you came off the ice flushed and furious for reasons that had almost nothing to do with your skating.
Garrett was waiting near the tunnel.
“Subtle,” you said, snapping your guards over your blades.
“I’m literally standing here.”
“Yes. That’s the issue.”
He leaned one shoulder against the wall, “You always this warm after a shared traumatic event?”
You stood, “Nothing was shared.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Huh,” His eyes went to your mouth again, slower this time, deliberately enough that heat climbed your neck, “That’s weird.”
Your fingers tightened around your blade towel. “What is?”
“I remember sharing.”
You stepped closer so quickly his smile sharpened, like he had been waiting to see whether you would, “You remember wrong.”
“I remember you pretty well.”
“You remember me kissing you because head injuries cause confusion.”
“You shoved me against the boards first.”
“You should have moved.”
“You should have stopped.”
Your mouth opened, nothing came out.
Garrett’s smile changed. It went smaller and more intimate which made something low in your stomach tighten, “That’s what I thought.”
You threw the towel at his chest.
It hit him with a soft, pathetic little slap that ruined any hope of dignity. He caught it before it fell, laughing now, actually laughing, and the sound was so unbearable you nearly lunged for it.
“Give it back.”
“Ask nicely.”
“Get sepsis.”
“Needs work.”
You grabbed for the towel. He lifted it out of reach with insulting ease.
You hated tall men. You hated hockey players. You hated Garrett Graham specifically with the full focus of an Olympic training cycle.
“Graham,” you said, voice deadly calm.
He looked delighted, “That almost sounded like begging.”
You stepped into his space.
The hallway seemed to notice since somewhere behind Garrett, a door cracked open and then immediately shut again.
“You are going to give me my towel,” you said softly, “or I am going to remove one of your fingers with my skate guard.”
His eyes flicked down your face, “Which finger?”
“Whichever one you’re most attached to.”
“Romantic.” He lowered the towel slowly.
You snatched it from him and for one second, your fingers brushed his.
Tiny contact. Stupid contact. Nothing.
Your pulse jumped anyway.
Garrett felt it. Or at least he saw something, because the laughter left his face by degrees. The hallway narrowed again in a terrible way because the two of you stopped performing hatred for too many seconds.
He said, quieter, “You okay?”
This was the one thing you hated more than the insults.
You shoved the towel into your bag, “You ruin everything when you try to be human.”
The softness vanished from his face, “Right,” he said. “My bad.”
“It usually is.”
“Careful, princess.”
You smiled like a wound, “Still waiting for the consequence.”
His gaze dropped, and this time it did not go to your mouth.
It went to your throat. Then back up.
Your breath caught so lightly you could pretend it had not.
“You sure about that?” he asked.
The door behind him opened again. Logan appeared, took one look at the two of you standing too close in the hallway, and said, “Nope.”
He shut the door.
The moment snapped and you stepped back first.
“This is why no one likes hockey,” you said, because retreat required smoke.
“Pretty sure people like hockey.”
“People also like food poisoning if you put it in a jersey.”
“Was that supposed to make sense?”
“To people with literacy, yes.”
He laughed again, but it was rougher now, “You’re exhausting.”
“You’re still here.”
“So are you.”
“I work here.”
“You pay to be here.”
You turned to leave, because if you stayed one second longer, you were either going to scream at him or kiss him again, and only one of those was allowed in hallways with security cameras.
Garrett called after you, “Hey, princess.”
You kept walking.
“Your number.”
You stopped.
Slowly, you looked back, “Excuse me?”
He held up your towel. Your towel. Again. Apparently, in the process of dramatic exit number six thousand, it had fallen out of your half-zipped bag and into the hands of the worst man alive.
Garrett looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“In case you want your stuff returned before next winter.”
“You can hand it to me now.”
“I could.”
“Graham.”
“Number.”
“You are deranged.”
“You dropped it twice in three minutes. I’m starting a lost-and-found service.”
You stared at him.
He stared back, waiting.
It was stupid to give him your number. Objectively stupid. Emotionally catastrophic. Practically unnecessary. You could cross the hallway, retrieve your towel, and walk away. You could leave it. You owned other towels. Many towels. Better towels. Towels that had never been touched by Garrett Graham.
He extended his phone toward you.
The screen was open to a blank contact. His mouth twitched as your confidence wavered, you hated being dared.
You crossed the hall, took the phone, and typed in your number with punishing force. Under the contact name, you wrote:
Do Not Text
Then you handed it back.
Garrett looked down at the screen and smiled, “Accurate,” he said.
“Instructional.”
“If I text you, you’ll block me?”
“If you text me, I’ll block you happily.”
He held your towel out, the fluffy material was slack and damp in his hands- pathetically making fun of you for being the reason that you had just given Garrett Graham your number.
You took it.
This time, your fingers did not touch.
He texted you six hours later.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
knee still attached?
You were at your desk with one leg folded beneath you, hair still damp from your second shower of the day, laptop open to a video of your program paused at the exact frame where your shoulder angle began to betray you. Your phone lit up beside a pile of annotated notes. You looked at the message. Then at the timestamp. Then back at the message.
You should have blocked him.
Instead, you typed.
YOU
tragic that yours is still talking.
You stared at the screen, and in the time it took for the three dots to turn into a message you changed his contact name.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
you free tonight?
Your body reacted before your brain did.Not in some sweeping, romantic, humiliating way but a small tightening somewhere beneath your ribs, a tiny failure of indifference.
YOU
no.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
didn’t ask if you were emotionally available
You deleted three separate replies before settling on,
YOU
die.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
rink. ten minutes.
You stared at it.
Then you turned your phone face down.
You lasted four minutes.
The rink after dark was not empty this time. That was your first mistake, assuming it would be. The building was quieter, yes, reduced to maintenance staff, late-night athletes, a couple of student workers behind the front desk, but not deserted. Not enough for whatever bad idea had brought you there in sweatpants, an oversized knit sweater, and shoes you had not taken the time to tie properly.
Your second mistake was pretending you had not known exactly where Garrett would be.
The storage corridor behind the rink was narrow and badly lit, a place of stacked cones, spare nets, old training equipment, cleaning supplies, and the heavy institutional smell of rubber mats and cold air. It was not sexy nor romantic. It was barely sanitary.
It was, however, private enough to ruin your life.
Garrett was waiting near the equipment room door.
He looked you up and down as you turned the corner, and the air shifted so violently between you that you almost stopped.
Almost.
“Ten minutes,” you said, “Do hockey players not understand time?”
“You came in eight.”
“I walk fast.”
“You missed me.”
You made a noise of such sincere disgust it should have required medical documentation, “I came because I wanted to confirm whether you were always this pathetic or just over text.”
His smile cut through the dim light, “And?”
“Still collecting evidence.”
You turned as if to leave.
Garrett’s hand closed around your wrist. Loose. Easy to break. A question disguised as contact.
You looked down at his hand. Then up at him, “Careful,” you said.
His thumb moved once against your pulse. “Stealing my line now?”
“You can sue for theft.”
“I’ll definitely try.”
“I’m warning you now, I usually win.”
“Yeah?” He stepped closer, “That why you look pissed all the time?”
You leaned in slowly, close enough that his eyes dropped to your mouth before you spoke,“I look pissed because you keep surviving.”
His gaze snapped back to yours.
There it was again. The match. The scrape. The little flare of awful, inevitable heat.
“You could leave,” he said.
“You could stop texting.”
“You answered.”
“You begged.”
“I invited.”
“You’re delusional.”
“You’re here.”
You kissed him because the alternative was agreeing.
Garrett was ready for it this time. His hand let go of your wrist only to catch your waist, hauling you into him with a force that knocked the breath out of your throat and turned it into something humiliating against his mouth. You shoved at his chest on instinct, but the movement only pressed your body harder against his, your fingers twisting in the front of his hoodie while his palm spread low over your back, dragging you close enough that every breath pulled your chest against his.
He laughed into your mouth. You bit his lower lip.
That shut him up only for half a second.
Then Garrett’s grip tightened at your waist and he turned you, walking you backward with his mouth still on yours until your back hit the equipment room door hard enough to rattle the handle. The sound cracked through the corridor.
You both froze.
Your breathing was already uneven. His was too.
Garrett’s forehead hovered close to yours, his mouth red from yours, eyes dark and fixed on your face.
“Door?” he asked.
You hated that he asked. You hated more that your answer came immediately.
“Open it.”
The equipment room was dark, colder than the corridor, the air packed with the smell of rubber and dust and sharpened metal. Garrett backed you inside without turning on the light, one hand catching the door before it could slam. It shut with a click that sounded obscene in the quiet.
For one second, neither of you moved.
Then your hands were on each other again.
It was uglier in the dark. Less controlled. Your fingers dragged at his hoodie, shoved it up enough to get your hands beneath it, your palms finding the hard warmth of his stomach and the little breath he tried to hide when your nails skimmed there. His hands slid under your sweatshirt and found bare skin at your waist, hot palms against you, thumbs pressing into the soft spaces under your ribs like he was trying to memorise the shape of you while still pretending this was only about proving a point.
You made the mistake of gasping when his mouth left yours and moved down your jaw.
He heard it, his mouth paused against your skin
You shoved his shoulder, “Don’t.”
His lips brushed the edge of your jaw when he spoke, “Don’t what?”
“Look pleased with yourself.”
“I am pleased with myself.”
“I can change that.”
He laughed, low and close, and the sound moved through you before you had time to hate it, “You’re welcome to try.”
You grabbed his face and kissed him again, harder this time, but he did not let you keep control for long. He crowded you back against a stack of folded mats, one hand braced beside your head, the other under your sweatshirt, fingers spread over your ribs like he could feel every breath you were trying to hide from him. The mats gave slightly under your shoulder blades. His body did not. He was heat and muscle and infuriating certainty, thigh nudging between yours, the rough seam of his jeans dragging against your leggings until your hips shifted before you could stop them.
Garrett felt it.
His mouth curved against yours.
You pulled back just enough to glare, “Say anything and I’ll leave.”
His hand slid lower, palm firm over your hip, thumb stroking once along the waistband of your leggings, “You won’t.”
“Try me.”
“I am.”
His fingers slipped beneath the waistband.
Your breath caught.
His eyes did not leave yours, “Tell me to stop,” he said.
You hated him. You hated the steadiness in his voice. The control. The fact that he was still asking even while his mouth was red from yours and his hand was under your clothes and your own fingers were tangled so tightly in his hoodie that you might have stretched the fabric. You hated the space he gave you to say no.
You hated that you did not want to.
“If I wanted you to stop,” you said, voice low, “you would know.”
Garrett’s jaw flexed.
Then he kissed you again, and his hand slid lower.
You jerked against him before you could stop yourself, the heel of his palm pressing through fabric at exactly the wrong place, or the right one, depending on whether you asked your pride or your body. Your head hit the mats behind you with a soft thud. Garrett’s other hand shot up to cradle the back of your skull before you could hit again.
The tenderness of the gesture made you furious. So you shoved your hand down between your bodies and cupped him through his jeans.
Garrett’s entire body went still.
“Oh,” you whispered, mean and breathless, “I got you.”
His laugh came out rough, “Don’t get smug, princess.”
“You’re hard in a storage room after one kiss. I think I’m allowed.”
His fingers pressed harder between your thighs.
Your sentence snapped in the middle.
Garrett’s smile returned, “There she is.”
“Fuck you.”
“That the plan?”
You looked at him.
The words hung there too heavily for what this was. This was supposed to be anger. A repeated mistake. A consequence of adrenaline, bad impulse control, and the unfortunate fact that Garrett Graham had a mouth that made you briefly sympathise with people who ruined their lives.
You tightened your hand over him instead of answering.
His eyes fluttered for half a second before he forced them open, as if he refused to give you even the satisfaction of looking away. His hand worked under your leggings with infuriating patience, fingers dragging over you through thin fabric first, not quite enough, just enough to make your stomach pull tight. You moved your hand in answer, slow at first, then firmer when his breath hitched and his forehead dipped toward yours.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” you said.
“Been enjoying myself all day.”
His words brushed your lips. His fingers shifted, finding heat, slickness, the place where your body had apparently decided to humiliate you with enthusiasm. Garrett’s grip on the back of your head tightened, holding you still enough that he could watch your face when he touched you.
“Fuck me,” he muttered.
You smiled despite the heat crawling up your neck, “I thought that was the plan.”
His fingers slid inside you.
Your hand jerked on him.
Both of you stopped breathing.
The room felt suddenly too small, too dark, too airless. The metal shelf pressed cold against your shoulder. His body crowded every other inch of you, his chest rising hard against yours, his mouth open but not quite touching your lips. His fingers moved once, testing, and the sound you made was swallowed by his kiss before it could leave the room.
Garrett groaned against your mouth when your hand found the button of his jeans.
“Door locked?” you breathed.
“No.”
You froze.
His hand immediately stopped. Then he added, with the kind of grin you could feel against your cheek, “But no one comes back here after seven.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You’re still touching me.”
“You’re inside me.”
His smile widened, “So we’re both making choices.”
You tugged sharply at his zipper.
His hips bucked once into your palm, and there was something so satisfying about catching him off guard that you almost forgot to be furious. Almost. You pushed your hand beneath the open waistband of his jeans, wrapping your fingers around him properly, and Garrett’s head dropped to your shoulder with a curse that sounded like it had been dragged out of him by force.
“Oh, Graham,” you murmured, your other hand sliding into his hair and pulling his head back enough to make him look at you, “You’re not very quiet.”
His eyes flashed.
His fingers curled inside you.
Your knees actually buckled.
He caught you, because of course he did, arm locking around your waist and lifting you back against the mats like your body weighed nothing. Your grip tightened around him in retaliation, thumb dragging over the sensitive head until his jaw went slack.
“Careful,” he gritted out.
You smiled, “I thought it was my line now?”
He kissed you so hard your teeth clicked.
After that, everything became hands and breath and the wet, obscene rhythm of touch hidden badly under the rustle of clothes. His fingers worked you open while his palm ground against your clit, and your hand moved over him in tight, slick pulls that made his shoulders lock and his breathing go ragged against your neck. Neither of you undressed. That made it worse somehow. Clothes shoved aside, buttons open, your sweatshirt bunched up under his forearm, his jeans barely low enough, both of you too desperate and too angry and too stubborn to admit this had been inevitable from the second he texted you.
“You close?” he asked, voice rough.
“No.”
He laughed once, “Liar.”
You tightened your grip.
His laugh broke into a curse.
“You first,” you snapped.
He kissed down your neck, teeth scraping lightly under your jaw, fingers pushing deeper, “Competitive even now?”
“Especially now.”
Garrett’s thumb pressed harder.
Your eyes squeezed shut.
“No,” he said, catching your jaw with his free hand, “Look at me.”
You wanted to hit him.
You looked.
That was your mistake.
Because Garrett looked ruined. Hair falling into his eyes, mouth swollen, cheeks flushed with heat, focus locked on your face like he wanted the exact second you lost control more than he wanted his own release. It should have made him look smug. It should have made him easy to hate.
It did not. It made your body go liquid around his fingers.
He felt it and the corner of his mouth lifted.
“Good girl.”
“Don’t-”
Your orgasm cut the word clean in half.
You came silently because you would rather die than make noise where someone might hear, teeth sunk into your lower lip, hand still moving on him out of spite more than coordination as pleasure tore through you in hot, shaking waves. Garrett watched the whole thing, jaw clenched, his fingers slowing only when your hips jerked away from the sensitivity. His hand at your jaw softened for half a second, thumb brushing near your mouth like he was about to say something dangerous.
You pulled harder.
His face went slack.
“There,” you whispered, still breathless, “Less talking.”
Garrett came with his forehead pressed to your shoulder and your name strangled so low into your sweatshirt that you almost missed it.
You both stayed like that for two seconds too long.
Then you shoved him back. The room rushed back in- the smell of rubber, the hum of the overhead light outside the door, the distant slam of a locker somewhere in the building. Garrett stepped away, breathing hard, hands moving to fix his jeans. You tugged your leggings back into place with fingers that only trembled once. The mark on your lower lip stung where you had bitten it. Your wrist ached faintly from the angle.
Garrett looked at you.
You looked at the door, “That was disgusting,” you said.
His laugh came out low and slightly wrecked, “You started it.”
“You texted me.”
“You answered.”
There it was. The phrase landed between you like a new rule.
You lifted your chin, “Don’t do it again.”
Garrett smiled.
You hated him for knowing you were lying.
He did it again two nights later.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
you awake?
You were not.
Or you had not meant to be.
You were in bed with one leg propped on a pillow because your hip had started to ache in a way you did not enjoy thinking about, your laptop open beside you, video paused on the same jump entry you had been analysing for twenty-three minutes without absorbing a single useful thing. Your phone buzzed once against your comforter.
You looked at the message.
Then at the time.
12:41 a.m.
YOU
no.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
typing while asleep. impressive.
YOU
some of us have talents beyond getting shoved into plexiglass.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
come over.
You stared at the screen. Then you stared at the wall. Then at the ceiling.
Then back at the screen. Absolutely not. Not again.
You were not becoming the kind of person who went to a man’s room because he texted two words and your body remembered the storage room before your brain had time to intervene. You were disciplined. Focused. In control. You had early ice tomorrow. You had a body that required sleep, hydration, stretching, and far fewer encounters with six-foot-something hockey players who thought come over counted as communication.
YOU
desperate.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
you coming?
You set the phone down. Picked it back up.
YOU
I have ice in ten hours.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
plenty of time.
That was how you ended up outside Garrett Graham’s door at 1:07 a.m, wearing the clothes you were going to sleep in and enough makeup for you to feel rational along with the expression of a woman arriving at a crime scene she had scheduled.
Garrett opened the door before you knocked.
His eyes moved over you once.
“You look cold.”
“You look stupid.”
“Missed you too.”
“I didn’t miss you.”
“You came to my room at one in the morning.”
“You sent me come over with a full stop like a serial killer. I came to correct your tone.”
He shut the door behind you, “Grammar emergency.”
“Public service.”
“You always this generous?”
“Only with the needy.”
He was on you before the sentence fully finished.
Good.
That was what you needed from him then. No questions, no comments about your hip, no eyes going too observant when you took too long to sit down. Just heat, pressure, the door at your back, his mouth on yours, his hands under your sweater, your fingers dragging through his hair while he made that rough sound against your lips that you had started to think about in places you had no business thinking about Garrett Graham.
His room was exactly what you expected and therefore irritating. Cleaner than it should have been. Hockey gear contained in one corner. Textbooks stacked on the desk. A few photos pinned crookedly near the wall: team pictures, friends, a life arranged around noise and loyalty and casual affection in a way that made your chest feel strange if you looked too long.
So you did not look.
You dragged Garrett’s mouth back to yours and let him walk you toward the bed.
“This is the last time,” you said.
Garrett’s hands were already at your waist, shoving your sweater higher with none of the patience he had pretended to possess in the storage room. His palms skimmed bare skin, fingers pressing into your sides, thumbs dragging up under your ribs until you sucked in a breath against his mouth.
“You said that last time.”
“And I meant it last time.”
“Yeah?” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled you between his knees, looking up at you with his mouth swollen and his hands sliding down to the backs of your thighs, “You always this bad at commitment?”
“You always this bad at shutting up?”
Garrett smiled, “Make me.”
You did.
Your hands found his shoulders, pushing him backward onto the mattress, and Garrett went with a laugh that died the second you climbed over him. The laugh turned into a low groan when you settled over his lap, your knees bracketing his hips, the hard length of him pressing up between your thighs through too many layers of fabric. His hands gripped your hips immediately, fingers digging hard enough to anchor you, and you rolled down once just to watch his face change.
“Oh,” you said softly, “There’s the captain.”
His eyes opened slowly, “You’re getting really attached to that joke.”
“You keep proving it funny.”
He sat up with a quickness that made you gasp, one arm banding around your back, the other hand catching your jaw as he kissed you. A bite of a kiss, all teeth and pressure, his hand sliding into your hair and tightening just enough to tilt your head back when your mouth tried to outpace his.
You ground down again.
Garrett cursed into your mouth.
“Not so chatty now,” you whispered.
His hand slid from your hip to your ass, gripping hard, dragging you against him in a slow, dirty roll that made the seam of your leggings press exactly where it shouldn’t. Your words dissolved into a breath before you could stop them. Garrett felt it and did it again, rougher, his own hips lifting to meet you.
“Careful,” he murmured, lips moving along your jaw, “You almost sounded like you wanted something.”
“I want you to develop a personality.”
“I have one. You hate it.”
“I hate many things.”
“Still in my lap.”
You bit his neck.
He made a sound that went straight through you.
“Jesus.” His hand tightened in your hair, “You always use your mouth as a weapon?”
“Only when men deserve it.”
“And do I?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Garrett laughed once, rough and breathless, then flipped you.
The motion knocked the air from your lungs. One second you were above him; the next, your back was against his mattress, his body between your thighs, your hands pinned loosely above your head by one of his.
Your heart slammed.
Garrett went still for half a second, “Okay?”
The question, quiet and rough, should not have turned you on as much as it did.
You lifted your chin, “You stopped to ask me that?”
His smile came back slowly, “Answer me.”
You pulled once against his grip.
He did not let go.
Your body betrayed you with a shiver making Garrett’s eyes darkened.
“Yes,” you said, “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeated, like he hated you a little.
Then he kissed you down into the mattress.
It should have stayed rough. You wanted it rough. Rough was easier to file away. Rough meant no one had to talk about the photos on his wall or the way his sheets smelled like detergent and him, or the fact that his thumb stroked once over the inside of your wrist before he released your hands.
But Garrett had time here.
That was the problem.
No rink session. No coach. No watch beeping against your wrist, telling you to get up, get dressed, get back to being the person you knew how to be. In his room, he could take your long sleeve off slowly enough that your annoyance started to curdle into something else. He could kiss the bare skin under your collarbone and feel your breath stutter. He could hook his fingers into your waistband and pull your sleep boxers down with a kind of concentrated patience that made you want to kick him.
You did, lightly, catching his hip with your heel.
He looked up from where he had been kissing down your stomach, “Problem?”
“You’re slow.”
“You came here.”
“You texted.”
“You only have three lines?”
His mouth curved against the skin above your hip, “They keep working.”
You started to sit up.
Garrett’s palm flattened over your stomach, pushing you back down. Heat shot through you so fast you hated him for it.
His eyes flicked to yours, “Still okay?”
“Ask me that again and I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not.”
You glared.
He pressed one kiss to the soft skin beneath your navel, low enough that your stomach tightened, “You’re going to stay,” he said, “because you want to see if I’m better with my mouth than I am with my words.”
“You set the bar in hell.”
“Then I’ll exceed expectations.”
He dragged your leggings down your thighs, then your underwear, not with the frantic impatience you expected from him, but slowly, hands smoothing along the backs of your legs, thumbs pressing into muscle like he was taking inventory. You hated how good his hands felt. Hated the way your body sank into the mattress under the heat of them, the way your hip forgot to ache for half a second when his palm curved over it, steady and warm.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you said.
Garrett glanced up from between your thighs, “Like what?”
“Like you’re thinking.”
His mouth twitched, “I know that’s new for you.”
Relief hit so sharply you almost laughed.
There he was.
Thank God.
You shoved at his shoulder with your knee, “Fuck you.”
“That the plan?” he asked, then lowered his mouth before you could answer.
Your head tipped back against the pillow.
He was smug about it. You could feel it in every touch. In the press of his mouth, in the way his fingers dug into your thighs when you tried to close them, in the little laugh he gave when your hand shot into his hair and gripped hard enough that he hissed against you.
But he was also good.
Good in the worst possible way - observant, adaptive, listening to every shift of your hips, every breath you tried to trap behind your teeth, every moment your body lost the argument before your mouth did.
“Garrett,” you snapped, though it came out embarrassingly close to a gasp.
His eyes lifted. You saw the victory on his face and almost sat up out of spite.
He caught your hip with one hand, pressing you down, “What?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me.”
“Then stop making it interesting.”
“You are insufferable.”
His tongue moved in answer.
Your insult became a broken sound.
His hand slid up your stomach, palm flattening over your ribs, holding you down more through pressure than force. You grabbed his wrist, meaning to push him away, but your fingers only wrapped around him while your hips lifted into his mouth. The room was too quiet. Too private. Every sound felt magnified- your breath, his, the wet heat of his mouth, the sheets twisting under your heels, the low groan he made when your thighs tightened around his head.
“Quiet,” you whispered, though you had no idea whether you meant him or yourself.
Garrett laughed against you.
You nearly cursed loud enough for the entire house to hear, “Graham,” you warned.
He stopped. The loss of his mouth was so offensive you almost yanked him back by the hair.
He looked up, lips shiny, eyes dark, “You say my name like you’re mad at it.”
“I am.”
“You always this angry when someone makes you feel good?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
He slid two fingers into you while he said it.
Your back arched off the bed.
Garrett’s hand on your ribs shifted, holding you through the movement as his fingers curled. Your eyes shut, and this time he let them. He kissed the inside of your thigh, softer than anything else he had done, and you hated it so much you could have cried from frustration if your body had not been busy trying to melt around his hand.
“You’re doing it again,” he murmured.
You could barely breathe, “Doing what?”
“Trying not to make noise.”
“I’m considerate.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“You’re annoying.”
“You’re wet.”
Your eyes snapped open. Garrett smiled like he had won the lottery and planned to be awful with the money.
“I hate you,” you said.
“I know.”
Then his mouth was back on you and his fingers were still inside you and you were suddenly not nearly as invested in the argument as you had planned to be.
You came with one hand in his hair and the other twisted in his sheet, jaw clenched hard enough to ache, entire body locking around the rush of it. Garrett worked you through it like he had a point to prove, and by the time the pleasure finally released you, your legs felt boneless and your lungs seemed to have forgotten the order of operations.
He crawled back up your body with an expression you did not care for at all.
You grabbed his face before he could speak and kissed him.
He groaned when your tongue slid against his, tasting yourself on him, and the sound turned something inside you vicious again. Good. Better. You needed vicious. You could work with that.
You pushed at his chest until he rolled onto his back, and this time he let you.
“Generous,” he said, breathless.
“Temporary.”
You straddled his thighs, hands already at his waistband. Garrett watched you with heavy-lidded focus, one arm thrown above his head, the other hand resting on your thigh like he physically could not stop touching you. His thumb moved back and forth against your skin, slow and absent.
The softness of it annoyed you.
So you tugged his sweatpants down. His hand stopped moving.
Your smile came back, “There he is.”
Garrett exhaled sharply, head tipping back when your fingers wrapped around him, “You’re going to run that into the ground.”
“You’re the one making it relevant.”
He tried to laugh, but your hand moved and the sound fell apart.
That, you liked. A lot.
You liked the way Garrett looked with his mouth parted and his throat exposed, his arrogance knocked sideways but not gone, never gone, because even half-ruined he still watched you like he intended to win eventually. You liked the weight of him in your palm, the heat, the way his hips tried to move and then stopped because he was forcing himself to let you set the pace. You liked that when you leaned down and pressed your mouth to the corner of his jaw, his hand flew to your waist like he needed somewhere to put all that control.
“Not so loud, Graham,” you murmured.
His laugh sounded punched out, “You’re unbearable.”
“You invited me.”
“You begged.”
He lifted his head enough to glare.
You dragged your thumb over the tip of him.
His glare vanished.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” you said.
Garrett’s grip on your waist tightened, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you found a weakness.”
Your smile widened, “Did I?”
Garrett sat up so fast you barely had time to react, hand catching the back of your neck and pulling you into a kiss that was all heat and teeth and bruised pride. Your hand stayed between your bodies, still moving, and you felt the moment his concentration fractured. His mouth stuttered against yours. His fingers dug into your waist. His hips lifted once into your touch.
You laughed softly.
Garrett bit your lower lip, “Careful,” he said.
“Threatening me from underneath me?”
“Warning you.”
“About what?”
He looked at you, eyes dark and mouth flushed, “Payback.”
The word landed low in your stomach.
You hated that you were looking forward to it.
By the time he came, you had your mouth near his ear and your hand working him through the last of it, murmuring things you refused to remember in the morning. Garrett broke beautifully. That was the only word for it. Head falling back, jaw slack, your name slipping out of him once in a rough, unguarded sound that made your hand falter.
Only for a second.
But he noticed. Afterward, you both lay there breathing too hard.
The room was warm. His sheets were tangled under your thighs. Your shirt was somewhere on the floor with your shorts, and Garrett’s hand was still resting against your bare waist like he had forgotten to remove it.
For a minute, neither of you spoke.
Then he said, “Stay.”
You froze.
One word.
That was all it took to ruin the room.
You sat up immediately, reaching for your clothes, “Absolutely not.”
Garrett’s hand fell away, “It’s two in the morning.”
“Then I’m already behind schedule.”
“You have ice in ten hours.” His eyebrows had furrowed and you despised the guilt that burned in your throat.
“Now its...” you checked your watch, platinum glinting in the sliver of moonlight that shot through the gaps in his curtains, “8 hours”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
The words came out too sharp.
Garrett’s jaw tightened.
You dragged your shirt on, ignoring the way your body still felt soft and used and warm, ignoring the way his bed looked too easy to crawl back into. Ignoring, most of all, the fact that he had not sounded smug when he said stay.
He had sounded like he meant it.
You stood.
Garrett watched from the bed, hair destroyed, mouth red, expression turning colder by the second, “You always run this fast?”
You smiled because it was easier than whatever else was trying to happen, “From you?”
His face closed.
Good.
Please.
“You’re not that memorable,” you said.
Lie.
Large lie.
Ridiculous lie.
He laughed once, flat and ugly, “Sure, princess.”
There it was.
The word back in its old shape.
You grabbed your coat.
At the door, his voice caught you again, “Text me when you get back.”
You looked over your shoulder, “So you can track whether your hookup made it home alive?”
“So I know you did.”
There it was again.
Humanity. Ruining everything.
You opened the door, “I’m blocking you.”
“You won’t.”
You left.
You did not text him when you got back.
You made it eleven minutes.
Then your phone lit up.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGSif you’re dead I’m keeping your scarf
You stared at it from your bed, makeup half removed, hair a disaster around your face.
YOU
vultures have more class.
His reply came immediately.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGSthere she is
You did not smile.
Absolutely not. You threw your phone onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling until the room stopped feeling like his hands.
By Friday, you were both unbearable.
The rink had started to organise itself around you with military precision. The figure skating girls whispered when Garrett passed. The hockey boys went abruptly silent whenever you entered. The assistant rink manager, a tired grad student named Miles who had once watched you tell Garrett that his skating stride looked like “a lawsuit waiting to happen,” began muttering prayers under his breath whenever the schedule overlapped.
Publicly, Garrett was still your least favourite person.
Privately, he had learned the exact pressure of his thumb against your hip that made your mouth go useless. You had learned that if you kissed the underside of his jaw while your hand was in his hair, he forgot whatever insult he had been about to make. He had learned that you hated being told what to do unless his voice was low and close enough to feel. You had learned that he became dangerously quiet when he was close, like even his arrogance needed a second to kneel.
None of this made you like him.
Liking was too soft a word for the way he had invaded the margins of your life.
You wanted him with the same viciousness that made you repeat a jump until your legs shook. You wanted him resentfully, inconveniently, in fragments of the day where you were supposed to be thinking about competition entries and strength training and whether your right hip was going to become a real problem if you did not start behaving like someone who cared about having a long career.
You wanted him most when he made you angry.
Which was unfortunate, because Garrett Graham seemed determined to make you angry as often as possible.
It happened again before your late afternoon session.
You were early. He was late leaving practice. A predictable disaster.
The team was coming off the ice in a sweaty, loud stream while you waited near the boards, arms folded, dressed for practice with your jacket zipped and your skates unlaced but ready. Garrett was the last one off, still arguing lightly with Coach Jensen about a play, helmet pushed back, hair damp, cheeks flushed. He looked alive in a way that irritated you. Hockey made him brighter. It brought out every awful, competitive, magnetic thing about him and arranged it on his face like proof.
He caught you watching.
His smile started, unfortunately, you looked away too late.
“Princess,” he called.
You kept your voice flat, “Graham.”
“Miss me?”
“Like a stress fracture.”
“Ouch.”
“One can hope.”
He stepped off the ice, removed his helmet, and came closer. Too close, given the number of people around. You could feel the team slowing behind him, watching with the cautious interest of men who had learned to fear shrapnel but still loved explosions.
Garrett lowered his voice, “You free later?”
You stared at him. He had the audacity to look innocent.
You looked past him at the team, then back at him, “Are you asking me that here because your brain fell out during practice, or was that earlier?”
His mouth twitched, “So that’s a yes.”
“That’s a restraining order.”
“Sounds intimate.”
“Sounds legally enforceable.”
Dean groaned behind him, “God, it’s like watching two porcupines flirt.”
You turned your head slowly.
Dean physically hid behind Tucker.
Garrett glanced back, “You people are cowards.”
Tucker pointed at you, “She threatened to castrate you with a skate guard.”
“And yet I’m still here.”
“Yeah,” Logan muttered, “That’s what worries us.”
Your eyes returned to Garrett, “Some of us have actual work to do.”
“Right,” he said, “The sacred art of spinning in circles.”
“The sacred art of not being dragged around on knives by gravity and poor impulse control.”
“You think about me on knives?”
“I think about you near medical bills.”
His grin widened.
You hated him. You hated him so much you let him corner you in the storage corridor eight minutes later.
“Absolutely not,” you said as his mouth found the side of your neck.
“You followed me.”
“You walked in front of me suspiciously.”
“You said, and I quote, move, you oversized traffic cone, and came this way.”
“Exactly. Suspiciously.”
He laughed against your skin, and you had to bite your lower lip so you did not react. Your session started in nine minutes. Nine. You had warm-up to consider. You had a coach who would notice if your mouth looked ruined. You had common sense somewhere, presumably, though it had not checked in recently.
Garrett’s hands slid to your waist.
You shoved his chest, “No.”
He stopped immediately.
That, annoyingly, made you want him more.
His eyes searched yours, “No?”
“No mouth on my neck. I have practice.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, “Specific.”
“Necessary.”
“So where can I put my mouth?”
Your pulse jumped. You hated him.
You looked at your watch, “Seven minutes.”
His expression changed.
There was a particular look Garrett got when presented with a challenge. You had seen it on the ice. At the boards. Across hallways. Under you in his bed. It was focus and arrogance and hunger braided together, bright enough to be dangerous.
“Seven?” he asked.
“Now six.”
He dropped to his knees.
You grabbed his shoulder, “You are such a cliché.”
He looked up, smiling, hands already at your thighs, “And yet.”
“And yet what?”
“You’re still here.”
You were. You stayed with one hand braced on the metal shelving, the other tangled in his hair, biting the inside of your cheek so hard you almost tasted blood while Garrett ruined your life with the kind of efficiency that made your time limit feel like encouragement rather than deterrent. He knew better now. Knew where you were sensitive, knew when to slow down just to make you hate him, knew that if he looked up at you at the wrong moment, you had to turn your face away because something in his attention made the whole thing feel too exposed.
You hated that he knew.
You hated that he learned.
His hands gripped your thighs hard enough to shift you higher against the shelf, one thumb dragging under the edge of your practice skirt, the other pressing into the muscle above your knee like he could keep your whole body exactly where he wanted it. The metal rack bit cold through the thin fabric at your back. His mouth was hot everywhere else. Too hot. Messy in a way he usually wasn’t, lips dragging against you, his breath harsh each time your fingers tightened in his hair.
“Quiet,” he said against you.
“You’re the one talking.”
His laugh vibrated through you.
Your knees nearly went, instinctively you slapped your free hand over your mouth.
Garrett looked up immediately, eyes bright, “Oh, that’s cute.”
You glared over your fingers, “I’m going to kill you.”
“After?”
“During.”
He kissed your inner thigh, slow and deliberate, never exactly where you wanted, close enough to make your hips twitch, “Liar,” he murmured.
Your watch beeped.
You looked down at it, frantic, “Five minutes.”
Garrett’s grip tightened, “Plenty.”
“It is not plenty.”
“For me?” He smiled against your skin, “It is.”
You would have insulted him if his mouth had not moved exactly then.
Your head hit the shelf.
He did not give you time to recover. His mouth worked you like he had a vendetta against your punctuality, his hands dragging your hips closer each time you tried to squirm away from the intensity. You felt obscene. Exposed. Ridiculous. One hand clamped over your own mouth, the other in his hair, jacket half-unzipped, practice skirt shoved up around his wrists while he knelt on the rubber floor in front of you like winning this particular fight required devotion.
“Garrett,” you hissed into your palm.
His eyes lifted.
That was the first mistake.
The second was saying his name at all.
He stilled just enough for you both to hear it echo.
Not Graham.
Not brute.
Not you absolute nightmare.
Garrett.
His fingers flexed against your thighs.
You pulled his hair in warning, “Don’t.”
His voice was rough when he answered, “Don’t what?”
“Make a thing of it.”
For a second, his face did something strange.
Then he smiled, but it was different. Meaner because it had to be, “Wouldn’t dream of it, princess.”
You hated the relief.
You hated that the word helped.
Then his mouth was on you again, and there was no space left for thinking.
You came with your teeth pressed into the heel of your palm, your hips rocking into his grip despite every remaining scrap of dignity trying to evacuate your body. Garrett held you through the tremor, mouth still working slow enough to make you bite back a whine. By the time he stood, your legs felt unreliable and your face was hot with the effort of pretending otherwise.
He looked far too pleased with himself, hair destroyed by your hands, mouth flushed, eyes bright with that terrible winner’s glow.
You shoved at his chest.
He stepped back, laughing under his breath.
“I have three minutes,” you snapped, fixing your skirt with hands that were not entirely steady.
“Need help?”
“I need bleach.”
“For your personality?”
“For the memory of this room.”
“You came here.”
“You texted.”
His eyes dropped deliberately. You followed his gaze.
The front of his sweatpants did absolutely nothing to hide what he wanted.
Oh.
You looked back up slowly, “Oh,” you said, soft and cruel. “Poor thing.”
His jaw flexed, “Don’t start something you don’t have time to finish.”
You stepped closer, your fingers sliding over his waistband, “I always finish.”
His breath caught.
Good.
You pushed him back until he hit the metal shelving with a dull clang, and for once Garrett Graham did not make a single clever comment. He only watched you sink to your knees with the kind of stunned, dark focus that made the whole room feel smaller.
You looked up at him, “Quiet,” you said.
His throat moved.
Then he smiled, wrecked already, “Yes, ma’am.”
You should not have liked that.
You did.
You had three minutes and absolutely no intention of letting him forget a single second of them. Your fingers tugged his waistband low, just enough, because neither of you had the time or sanity for anything else. Garrett’s hand braced on the shelf above him, his other hand hovering near your face like he did not know whether he was allowed to touch you here.
You caught his wrist and put it in your hair.
His fingers tightened instantly.
The first sound he made was too loud.
You pulled back and looked up at him.
Garrett swallowed, “Right. Quiet.”
“Use your captain voice on yourself.”
He huffed a broken laugh, “Fuck you.”
“Not today.”
Then you took him in your mouth and watched his entire personality leave his body.
There was power in it, which you liked. Probably too much. The way his head tipped back, the way his arm flexed above him, biceps straining against the sleeve of his hoodie as his hand tightened on the shelving hard enough to make it creak. The way he tried to keep his hips still and mostly failed. The way his mouth parted, curses trapped behind his teeth because you had told him to be quiet and Garrett Graham, apparently, had a competitive enough streak to treat even that as a challenge.
You moved fast because you meant what you said.
Punctuality was not optional.
Generosity, however, could be efficient.
Garrett’s hand in your hair shook. His fingers were firm, curled near your scalp, careful even when his breathing started to fall apart. It was the restraint that got under your skin. The way he held on without forcing, the way he let you set the pace even though every line of his body looked like control was costing him actual money.
You pulled back once, just enough to breathe.“Still hate me?” you murmured.
His laugh came out shattered, “So much.”
“Good.”
You finished him with the same vicious focus you brought to competition. Fast, clean, precise enough that when he finally broke, he did it with his head tipped back against the shelving and your name caught low in his throat like he had not meant to give you anything that real.
The sound of it hit you somewhere dangerous.
So you did not let yourself think about it. You swallowed, wiped the corner of your mouth with your thumb, and stood.
Garrett stared at you, for once, he had nothing to say.
That almost made the whole terrible idea worth it.
You checked your watch, “Forty seconds,” you said.
He blinked, still dazed.
Then, because he was still Garrett Graham even after having his entire personality temporarily rearranged, he laughed.
“You’re insane.”
“You texted me.”
“You keep saying that like you didn’t sprint here.”
“I walk fast.”
“Sure, princess.”
You stepped in close enough that he shut up.
His mouth was still red. His eyes were still blown dark. Your body still felt loose and hot and stupidly alive. You kissed him once, quick and hard, enough to taste yourself on him and make him follow your mouth when you pulled away.
Then you smiled, “Fix yourself before you traumatise a freshman.”
You left him there.
At your session, you landed everything.
You refused to examine why.
After that, it became a habit.
Not a relationship.
Never that.
Not even an arrangement, because arrangements required acknowledgement and neither of you was interested in naming something that had teeth. It was not dating. It was not seeing each other. It was not any phrase that could be spoken aloud in the presence of rational people.
It was simply this- Garrett Graham kept appearing where he should not be. You kept failing to leave.
In public, nothing changed.
If anything, you got worse.
At the rink, you still insulted him so sharply that his teammates started physically leaving rooms whenever both of you entered them. He still called you princess like he had invented the word to damage your blood pressure. You still told him to eat shit with enough calm that one of the assistant coaches once dropped his clipboard. He still smiled like every insult was a hand on his throat.
The team, collectively, lost their minds.
“You know,” Dean said one afternoon, standing behind Garrett near the vending machine while you tightened your laces on the bench, “I used to think sexual tension was fun.”
You did not look up, “You also think jorts are acceptable in public.”
Dean looked down at his shorts, offended, “These are practical.”
“They are birth control.”
Logan made a sound that could only be described as internal collapse.
Garrett leaned against the vending machine beside Dean, arms folded, watching you with that familiar little edge at his mouth, “You spend a lot of time thinking about Dean’s sex life?”
“I spend as little time as biologically possible thinking about all of yours.”
“That why you’re blushing?”
You looked up.
You were not blushing. You refused to be blushing.
“Heat response,” you said, “The body reacts poorly to contaminants.”
Dean’s gaze bounced between you and Garrett, then narrowed.
“Oh my God,” he said slowly.
Garrett did not look at him, ”No.”
“You-”
“No.”
“You two have either finally murdered each other or-”
Garrett turned his head, “Finish that sentence and I’ll make you skate suicides until you see your ancestors.”
Dean’s mouth snapped shut.
You smiled down at your laces.
Tucker, passing with a protein shake, muttered, “I’m too pretty to die in whatever this is.”
You still hated Garrett in hallways.
You simply also let him put his mouth on you in locked rooms.
Tuesday night was his dorm again.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
still hate me?
You stared at it for nearly a full minute.
YOU
more every day.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
prove it.
Arrogant.
Unbearable.
Predictable.
You changed your bra before you left. You hated yourself for that.
Garrett opened the door with a grin already on his face, like he knew. Like he could see the lace through your sweater by sheer audacity.
“Really?” he said.
You stepped inside and shoved him back by the chest before he could say anything else, “You sent prove it like a man who’s never experienced consequences.”
His hands landed at your waist automatically, big and warm through your sweater, “And here you are. Consequence-shaped.”
“I’m here to humble you.”
“Yeah?” His eyes dropped to your mouth, “Been waiting for that.”
You kissed him before he could smile.
Garrett’s hands tightened, dragging you further into the room while his foot kicked the door shut behind you. The room spun in fragments - desk, bed, the soft glow of his lamp, the dark shape of his hockey bag near the closet - then his mouth was on yours and his hands were pushing your coat off your shoulders, and everything else blurred into heat.
You shoved his zip-up off. He tugged your sweater up. You both got stuck for one humiliating second with your elbow caught in the sleeve and your mouth still trying to stay attached to his, which made Garrett laugh and you bite his lip hard enough that his laugh turned into a curse.
“You are so fucking mean,” he muttered.
“You invited me.”
“You begged.”
“You changed clothes.”
Your whole body went still. Garrett’s grin was immediate.
You narrowed your eyes, “Careful.”
His gaze dropped to the bra he had only half-exposed by pushing your sweater up, the lace visible under the fabric, your skin warming beneath the weight of his attention.
“Oh, princess,” he said, voice going lower,“You did.”
“I own clothes.”
“You chose those.”
“You’re delusional.”
“You wanted me to see.”
You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close, “I wanted you to shut up.”
His mouth brushed yours, “Then make me.”
You did.
For a while, that was all the room was, your mouth on his, his hands dragging your sweater over your head properly this time, the fabric hitting the floor somewhere near his desk while Garrett made a sound through his teeth at the sight of you.
“Jesus.”
You smiled despite yourself, “Tragic. I was hoping for literacy.”
His hand slid around your back, fingers finding the clasp with disgusting competence,“I can multitask.”
“You can barely speak.”
“Your fault.”
“Take accountability.”
Garrett’s lips moved down your throat, “Make me.”
There it was again.
The stupid phrase.
The one that had become less of a dare and more of a door.
You pushed him toward the bed.
He sat when the backs of his knees hit the mattress, looking up at you with flushed cheeks and hungry eyes, his hands closing around the backs of your thighs as you stepped between his knees. His palms dragged slowly up, lifting the hem of your little shorts with them, fingers pressing into the skin beneath like he liked the proof that you were solid.
“Who would’ve thought?” you murmured, tracing your thumb over his lower lip, “Garrett Graham, quiet for once.”
His teeth caught your thumb lightly.
Your stomach flipped.
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“About how many times you pretended to hate me while wearing this under your clothes.”
You huffed a laugh against his mouth as his hands moved higher, “Who says I’m pretending?”
“I do.” His thumbs dipped under your shorts and hooked into the waistband of your underwear, tugging the lace slightly higher, pressing it against you just enough to make your grip tighten in his hair, “Because your body keeps snitching.”
You tried to maintain your composure.
It was difficult with his hands under your shorts and his mouth hovering at your stomach, lips brushing the soft skin above your waistband while he looked up at you from beneath his lashes like he knew exactly how annoying he was.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” you said.
“Been enjoying myself all fuckin’ week.” His fingers tightened on the lace, “Can you blame me?”
“Yes.”
His mouth pressed over your hip through the thin fabric, and your breath caught despite every effort to strangle it. Garrett smiled against you.
You pushed at his shoulder, “Don’t look smug when you’re literally sitting below me.”
He tilted his head back, eyes bright, “You like me below you?”
The words hit.
You hated that they did.
You sank one hand into his hair and pulled, “I like you quiet.”
His eyes darkened, “Then use my mouth.”
The room went hot.
For one second, neither of you moved.
Then you shoved him backward onto the bed and crawled over him, and Garrett laughed like you had made his entire night before your mouth met his again and shut him up properly. The kiss was filthy from the start, no warm-up, no careful descent, tongues and teeth and hands that could not decide whether they wanted to grip or shove or hold. Your shorts stayed bunched together. His hand slid, palm hot over your ass, dragging you down against him until you felt exactly how much he had been enjoying himself.
You ground down once.
Garrett’s head tipped back.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
“Oh,” you whispered, “So there is a mute button.”
His eyes snapped open. You smiled.
Then his hand slid sharply between your thighs.
Your smile vanished.
“Interesting,” he said.
“Don’t.”
“What? Point out that you’re soaked?”
You slapped a hand over his mouth.
Garrett’s eyes lit up. The bastard looked delighted.
His fingers moved beneath you, knuckles dragging against the damp fabric of your underwear, pressing exactly where the lace had already been pulled tight. Your hips twitched against his hand. You hated that you were straddling him because it meant he felt it happen. Felt the tiny involuntary movement, the heat, the way your thighs tensed around his hips.
His tongue touched your palm.
You yanked your hand away, “Are you twelve?”
He grinned, “You put it there.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You’re wet.”
“You’re annoying.”
“You’re grinding on my hand.”
You looked down.
Horrifying.
You stopped immediately.
Garrett laughed and sat up, arm wrapping around your back to keep you in his lap. His mouth found your neck, kissing just under your jaw, careful not to mark because you had already threatened his life about it, but not careful enough to be merciful. His fingers slipped past the lace at last, and the first direct touch made you gasp against his hair.
“There she is,” he murmured.
“I hate that.”
“You hate a lot of things.”
“You’re top of the list.”
“Flattered.”
His fingers circled slowly, learning nothing because he had already learned too much, and you dropped your forehead against his shoulder with a sound that should have been swallowed more successfully. Garrett’s other hand moved up your back, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades, holding you to him while he touched you with that unbearable mix of patience and arrogance.
You reached between you, because if he was going to make you fall apart on his lap, he was not doing it alone. Garrett’s breath caught when your hand slid over him through his sweatpants.
The sound felt better than it should have.
You smiled against his neck, “Careful. You almost sounded like you wanted something.”
His fingers pressed harder and your smile snapped apart.
“I do,” he said, voice rough.
Your hand stilled for half a second.
His head lifted, making the room shift into something too sincere, too dangerous for the fact your heart was beating against your chest hard enough for you to hear it in your ears.
You shoved him back against the pillows and tugged at his waistband, “Then be useful.”
Something in his face closed and opened again, so fast you might have missed it if you were not already watching him too closely.
Then he smiled, “Bossy.”
“Observant.”
He lifted his hips to help you pull his sweatpants down, and the shift made his fingers drag inside you, sudden and precise, enough to make your hand fly out to brace against his chest.
“Garrett.”
His name left your mouth before you could stop it.
He went very still. So did you.
For a second, the only sound in the room was both of you breathing.
His eyes moved over your face, “Say it again,” he said.
You swallowed, “No.”
His smile was slow and dark, “No?”
“I said no, Graham.”
His fingers started moving again.
Your nails dug into his chest.
“Say it again,” he repeated, softer this time, which was worse.
You leaned down and kissed him instead, because kissing him was easier than giving him things. Your hand wrapped around him properly, and Garrett’s demand dissolved into a groan against your mouth. Good. Better. That you could handle. His fingers moved inside you while your hand worked him in the tight space between your bodies, and the whole thing became desperate too quickly, both of you half-dressed and pressed together on his bed, your shorts wrung into one tightly around your hips, his sweatpants barely low enough, his free hand gripping your waist hard enough to steady you as you rocked into his touch.
“You’re shaking,” he breathed.
“From rage.”
He laughed, but it broke when your thumb moved over him, “Still?”
“Always.”
“Good.”
He kissed you harder, fingers curling, palm grinding against your clit with each push until the room thinned down to the rhythm of your hand and his, your bodies moving like an argument both of you kept losing. He dragged his mouth down to your chest, kissing over the lace still covering you, teeth catching lightly over one nipple through the fabric. Your grip tightened around him.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
“You’re loud.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You invited me.”
“You begged.”
You both said it at the same time.
Then both stopped. Garrett laughed, breathless and stunned, and you hated that your mouth curved against his before you could stop it.
That was the problem, really. Not the sex. Not the hatred. Not even the fact that he touched you like he was actively trying to win a war. The problem was that he could make you almost laugh while doing it.
Absolutely unacceptable.
You tightened your hand, and Garrett’s laugh snapped into a curse.
Much better.
By the time you came, your face was buried in his neck and Garrett’s hand was firm between your shoulder blades, holding you there like he could keep the sound of you close to his skin. He followed a minute later, hips lifting into your palm, his hand tightening on your waist as he murmured your name like a secret he did not mean to tell.
Afterward, you stayed in his lap for exactly three seconds too long.
Then you moved. Garrett let you.
You fixed your underwear. He fixed his sweatpants. You found your sweater on the floor. He sat on the bed with his elbows on his knees, hair wrecked, eyes on you.
“You’re leaving,” he said.
“Observation skills. Very good.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“Then stop using question tone.”
His mouth twitched, but it did not become a smile, “You could stay.”
There it was again.
The word.
Stay.
You pulled your sweater over your head, “You could learn to count. We’re all full of potential.”
Garrett looked down, laughing once without humour.
You hated that.
You hated that the sound made something in your stomach twist, because you had done it on purpose. You had made the softness go away and then disliked the absence.
A deeply inconvenient development.
“Text me when you’re back,” he said.
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop making me need to.”
Your throat tightened, and to ignore it- you grabbed your coat, “Goodnight, Graham.”
“Goodnight, princess.”
It sounded mean again.
You told yourself that was better.
The first time you had sex with him, properly, you almost convinced yourself it would fix things.
That was stupid.
Sex almost never fixed anything. You knew that in the same way you knew most obvious truths- theoretically, academically, with the irritated detachment of someone who had not expected to need the information personally.
Sex did not make people less complicated. It did not strip attraction down into something cleaner. It did not turn Garrett Graham back into an irritant you could manage with eye rolls and insults.
If anything, sex made it worse.
He texted you after a game.
Not immediately. Garrett, despite being the most irritating person you had ever met, seemed to understand timing when it came to making you insane. You knew Briar had won because everyone knew when Briar won. The hockey team made joy everyone else’s problem. You had left the rink before the game ended, pretending you had no interest in whether Garrett’s line performed well, then checked the score on your phone three times like a woman suffering an unexplained neurological episode.
At 11:38, your phone lit up.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
still hate me?
You stared at the message.
YOU
did you win?
The reply took longer than usual.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
you checked.
You considered throwing your phone into traffic.
YOU
I checked whether campus would be unbearable tomorrow.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
we won.
YOU
unfortunate.
CONCUSSION WITH LEGS
come say that to my face.
You did.
This time, he was still riding the game.
You could feel it the second he opened his door. There was a different energy in him after winning, something electric and loose under his skin. His hair was damp from the shower, face still flushed, a fading scrape near his jaw, a bruise blooming along one cheekbone like proof that pain looked good on some people in ways nature should have banned.
He looked at you.
You looked at the bruise, “Someone hit you.”
“Astute.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“Probably.”
You stepped closer, eyes still on his face, “Did it hurt?”
His mouth twitched, “You worried?”
“No. I’m curious about whether they did it correctly.”
Garrett’s hand caught your waist and pulled you inside, “You want to check?”
“Do I look like your sports med?”
“You look like trouble.”
“Derivative.”
“Accurate.”
The door shut behind you.
This kiss was different.
Not softer.But faster. Hungrier. Garrett’s win was still in his body, and your irritation at caring about it was still in yours. He kissed you against the door with his hands on your hips, lifting you slightly so you had to go onto your toes, his mouth rough enough to make the bruise on his cheek brush yours. You hissed when your teeth caught his cut lip.
Garrett laughed, “Careful.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“So?”
“So don’t get it on me.”
His smile was sharp, “Worried I’ll leave evidence?”
“I’m worried it’s contagious.”
“Winning?”
“Stupidity.”
He kissed you again before you could say anything else, and this time you tasted blood, faint and metallic, under the heat of him. It should not have made your knees weak. It did.
Garrett’s hands dragged down to your thighs, lifting. You hated that you jumped when he guided you, hated that your legs wrapped around his waist like they had been waiting for instruction. He walked you to the bed without breaking the kiss, your back hitting the mattress with enough force to bounce, his body following yours down, one knee braced between your legs, one hand already pushing your shirt up.
“You’re impossible,” he said against your mouth.
“You invited me.”
“You keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Coming when I ask.”
You dragged your nails down his back hard enough that his hips dropped into yours. He groaned.
“There,” you whispered, “Now we’re both embarrassed.”
Garrett lifted his head, his eyes were dark.
You had exactly one second to enjoy the reaction before he grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head. Your body went still. His did too. There was the pause again. The check. The question in his eyes before it could become one in his mouth. You pulled once against his grip. He held. Heat went through you so fast your stomach tightened.
“Still okay?” he asked.
You swallowed, “If you say that every time, I’m billing you for emotional labour.”
His mouth twitched, “Answer me.”
“Yes.”
His grip tightened slightly, “Yes what?”
“Yes, I’m okay.”
“Good.”
Then his mouth was back on yours, and the rest of the night lost its edges.
Garrett took your clothes off with none of the rushed desperation from the storage room. That should have made it easier. It did not. He peeled your shirt over your head, kissed the skin it uncovered, dragged your leggings down your legs with his mouth following the path of his hands. When his palm passed over your sore hip, he slowed.
Barely.
But enough that you noticed.
“Don’t,” you said.
His eyes lifted, “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to be careful.”
“That’s worse.”
Something flickered in his face, then his mouth twisted into the shape you understood, “Right. I’ll be reckless with the injured athlete. Great plan.”
You kicked lightly at his shoulder, “You’re learning.”
“From the best.”
He dragged his mouth up the inside of your thigh before you could decide whether to be offended.
He got you open with his tongue first, because apparently Garrett Graham had decided confidence was not enough and competence was necessary too. He ate you out with the same focused arrogance he brought to a power play- watching, adjusting, learning the quickest route to your surrender and then taking it apart slowly just to prove he could. You tried to hold still. Failed. Tried to stay quiet. Failed worse. His hands held your thighs open, thumbs pressed firm into muscle, and every time you tugged his hair, he groaned against you like it did as much to him as it did to you.
“Garrett,” you gasped.
His eyes lifted.
“No,” you warned, already too close, “Don’t look at me like that.”
He pulled back just enough to speak, mouth wet, voice rough, “Then stop making it hard.”
“Your concentration is lacking.”
He smiled. Then slid two fingers into you and curled them exactly right. Your head dropped back against the pillow.
“Seems fine to me,” he said.
You came on his mouth with a hand clamped over your own lips, hips rocking into his grip, the pleasure hitting so hard it left your body loose and furious beneath him. Garrett did not stop until you pushed at his forehead and called him a narcissistic public health risk.
He laughed into your thigh.
Then crawled back up your body, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at you like he had won something he wanted to keep.
You hated that look. You wanted it closer. So you pulled him down and kissed him.
He tasted like you. Your stomach twisted.
Garrett groaned when your hand slid down his stomach, into the loose waistband of his sweatpants. He was hard, hot, heavy in your palm, and the sound he made when you wrapped your fingers around him was so unguarded that your chest did something you refused to name.
“Still cocky?” you whispered.
His mouth brushed yours, “Always.”
You stroked him once.
His forehead dropped to yours, “Mostly,” he amended.
That almost made you laugh. He caught your wrist before you could make him come like that.
“No.”
“No?”
“If I’m fucking you tonight,” he said, voice low, “I’m not wasting it in your hand.”
The words hit so low you forgot to breathe. His expression shifted, “Unless that’s not what you want.”
You stared at him.
The room was warm. His sheets were tangled under your body. His mouth was red from you, his bruise darkening along his cheekbone, his body above yours and still, somehow, giving you space to back out.
You hated him for being decent. You hated him more for being patient.
“I want it,” you said.
His jaw flexed, “Say it properly.”
You lifted your chin, “I want you to fuck me.”
Garrett’s eyes went dark, “Jesus Christ.”
He moved fast after that. Condom from the drawer. Sweatpants shoved down. Your legs guided around his waist with hands that were firm but not careless. He paused when he lined himself up, eyes returning to yours one last time.
You nearly snapped at him not to ask. He did not, just looked.
You nodded once, and he pushed in slowly. With each inch both of you held more and more of your breath. It was not the first time you had done this. It was not even your first time with him, not really, not after the storage room and his bed and every awful, hungry thing you had already let happen.
But it felt like a line anyway.
The stretch was slow, deep, your body still sensitive from his mouth, your hands digging into his shoulders as he gave you inch after inch until there was nowhere left for either of you to pretend this had not become something with weight.
Garrett’s forehead dropped to yours.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
You closed your eyes.
“No,” he said, voice tight. “Look at me.”
You did. That was another mistake. He looked wrecked. Jaw clenched, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed on yours with a focus so complete it felt like exposure.
“You good?” he asked.
You swallowed, “Yes.”
His hips pulled back. Then rolled forward. Your grip tightened. He did it again, slower, deeper, watching your face like he could read the whole answer there, “Still hate me?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
His mouth curved, “Liar.”
You clenched around him.
His smile vanished, “Oh, fuck,” hips snapping forward harder.
Your breath broke.
The rhythm turned ugly after that. Harder, deeper, the kind that made insults dissolve into breath. He fucked you like he was still riding the game, like every hit he had taken on the ice had become something he needed to put somewhere, like your body was the only place dangerous enough to hold him. You dragged your nails down his back, and he groaned into your mouth, hips driving into yours until the bed knocked softly against the wall.
“Quiet,” he rasped.
“You’re the one-”
Your words collapsed when he thrust deeper, “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”
You hated him. You loved it.
No.
No.
You did not think that word. You could not think of that word. In an attempt to smother the mis-step, you grabbed his jaw and kissed him hard enough to make his cut lip split again. Garrett hissed, then laughed, the sound breaking when you tightened your legs around him.
“You like me bleeding?”
“I like you silent.”
“Then you’re doing a terrible job.”
He slid one hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit with devastating accuracy. Your head fell back. Garrett followed, mouth at your throat, but did not mark you. He remembered. Of course he did. That made you angrier than if he had forgotten.
“Garrett.”
His hips faltered at his name.
You felt it. You heard it too, the rough little sound he made against your skin.
Dangerous.
So you said, “Don’t get sentimental.”
He lifted his head, eyes hard, “Don’t give me anything to be sentimental about.”
“Then stop asking for it.”
“I’m not asking.”
“No?” Your voice shook despite you, “What do you call this?”
He slowed, hips moving deep and steady now, every thrust dragging through you with enough precision to make your thoughts scatter and enough tenderness to make you furious.
“I call this you being scared,” he said.
Your chest tightened.
You hated him.
You hated that he had found the right nerve without even meaning to.
You kissed him so he would stop talking. For once, he let you.
For a few minutes, there was nothing but heat. The slide of skin, the twist of sheets beneath your shoulders, his breath rough in your ear, your fingers in his hair, his hand working between your thighs until your body began tightening around him again.
“You’re close,” he said.
“No.”
“Still a bad liar.”
You dug your nails into his back.
He hissed, then pressed his forehead to yours, “Come for me,” he said, “Come on. I’ve got you.”
That did it.
I’ve got you.
You came with your mouth open against his, body locking around him, pleasure breaking through you in waves so hot and sharp your vision went white at the edges. Garrett groaned, hips losing rhythm as he fucked you through it, his hand leaving your clit to grip your hip like he needed the anchor.
“Fuck,” he gasped, “Fuck, princess-”
You clenched again. His control broke.
He buried himself deep and came with his face pressed into your neck, a rough, almost helpless sound dragged out of him as his body tensed over yours. Afterward, neither of you moved. His weight was over you, carefully held back enough not to crush you. His breath warm against your skin.
Your hand still resting in his hair. His thumb moving once over your hip. Gentle and unthinking. You hated unthinking softness it was harder to defend against.
Garrett lifted his head eventually, eyes softer than they should have been, “You okay?”
You nodded. He did not move away but you should have told him to.
Instead, you said, “Your face is bruised.”
His mouth twitched, “Astute.”
“It’s ugly.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m generous.”
“You checked the score.”
You looked away, his fingers touched your chin, turning you back, “Hey.”
There it was again. Humanity. The thing that ruined everything.
You sat up too fast. Garrett pulled back immediately, giving you room. That somehow made it worse.
“I have to go,” you said.
His face changed. The softness did not vanish this time, it curdled, “You always do.”
You reached for your clothes. “Yes. I’m very busy.”
“At midnight?”
“I have training.”
“You have avoidance issues.”
You stopped with your shirt in your hands. Slowly, you looked at him, “Careful.”
He laughed once, not kindly, “That's your line now?”
“It has always been my line.”
“No,” Garrett said, sitting up, “Your line is leaving before anything can touch you.”
Your face went cold, “There is no anything.”
He watched you, then said, quietly, “Sure.”
“You wanted sex. You got it.”
The second you said it, you knew it landed.
Not visibly, not in any grand way. Garrett did not flinch. He did not raise his voice. He did not give you the satisfaction of a reaction large enough to turn into a fight. He just went very still, and for reasons you did not care to examine, that was worse.
“Yeah,” he said, “I guess I did.”
You should have taken it back. You did not know how.
You put your clothes on in sharp, efficient movements. Garrett stayed on the bed, sheets low around his waist, mouth bruised from yours, eyes unreadable. At the door, you paused, hand on the knob, waiting for him to say something cruel enough to make this easy.
He did not.
So you said it for him, “Don’t text me tomorrow.”
Garrett looked at you from the bed, “Wouldn’t dream of it, princess.”
It hurt, which was infuriating because you had been the one to sharpen it. You left anyway.
That night, you dreamed about landing wrong. The dream was old. Familiar. One you had been having since you were twelve and learned that the body could be both instrument and enemy. In the dream, you were always in the air too long. Too high, too slow, suspended in that impossible second where you knew the rotation had failed but gravity had not punished you yet.
Then the impact came.
You woke before it, heart slamming, sheets twisted around your legs.
The next morning, your phone stayed silent.
So did his.
At the rink, Garrett passed you in the corridor with the team, bag over his shoulder, face unreadable. He did not slow. Did not smile. Did not call you princess. His eyes did not drop to your mouth, your throat, your hip, any of the places he had learned too well.
Nothing.
You had asked for nothing.
He gave it to you. It should have been a relief. Dean, trailing behind him, took one look at your face and physically moved to the other side of Logan.
Coward.
Garrett was almost past when you looked at him and said, “Lose a fight with a dictionary, Graham?”
He stopped.
Slowly, he turned. The whole hallway held its breath. His eyes met yours. For one second, there was nothing public about it. No audience. No joke. No easy heat. Just the two of you standing in the wreckage of a night neither of you wanted to name.
Then his mouth curved, there was no warmth in it.
“Careful,” he said, “You almost sounded like you missed me.”
Something inside you unclenched so violently it almost hurt.
Relief.
God.
You were relieved he was cruel again.
You lifted your chin, “I missed the peace.”
“You texted me at three in the morning.”
“Medical research.”
“On what?”
“How low my standards can go under sleep deprivation.”
His smile sharpened. The team, collectively, began breathing again.
Dean whispered, “Thank God. The divorce was scaring me.”
Garrett did not look away from you, “You busy tonight?”
You should have said yes.
You should have said no.
You should have said literally anything that would have made you sound like someone in control of her own life.
Instead, you smiled, “Depends,” you said. “Are you going to be less boring?”
His eyes dropped to your mouth. “I can try,” he said.
You walked past him, shoulder brushing his arm like the first day in the hallway, like the first contact had started a chain reaction neither of you had been smart enough to stop.
“Try harder,” you said.
And when his phone lit up that night at 12:43 a.m. with a message from you that said rink, no punctuation, no softness, no apology, Garrett Graham smiled at the screen like a man receiving a threat he had every intention of answering.
By the time he arrived, you were already waiting in the darkened corridor behind the storage room, arms folded, hair loose, mouth unsmiling.
He stopped in front of you. Neither of you spoke. You looked at his mouth, he looked at yours.
Then he said, “Still hate me?”
You smiled, “More every day.”
Garrett stepped closer, hands finding your waist like an argument he had memorised, “Good,” he said. And kissed you like he believed you.
I have been obsessed with Off Campus and I’ve been trying to find oneshots or blurbs with the reader being a tennis player because I love tennis and love playing it, but I’ve found none so I was wondering if you can write if that’s possible. Also, can it be Garrett Graham x reader please. I love your writing! I hope you have a great day/evening/night.
I'm sorry for the late updates y'all. I'll post more, I promise!
You Were the Best Thing That's Ever Been Mine
Pairing: Garrett Graham x Reader
Warnings: Angst, break up (worry not, it ends in fluff!), coarse language.
Word Count: 2.6 k
Summary: She chose the future she couldn't afford to lose, only to lose the boy she couldn't bear to live without. Will life give her a second chance?
A/N: Pictures from Pinterest, credits to owners! Dividers from @/thecutestgrotto
Masterlist
It was done. The crowd roared as she scored the point that would make her the champion. She could feel the energy of their roars in her bones as she realised that she had done it. Her lungs burned with exertion and she could feel sweat tracing paths down her body. Every muscle felt heavy now that it was over and the adrenaline was wearing off. She had done it!
As she stood at the center of the court, the reality of the victory washing over her in waves, Y/N felt like it was all surreal. She was the champion. The tournament had marked the culmination of the academic year and the final match had ended in her favour.
Y/N’s year was defined by grueling 5:00 AM practices and preparations along with her equally demanding degree. Her social life was almost non-existent at that point. But it all paid off and as that reality sunk in, her eyes filled with tears.
At the award ceremony, she accepted the gold medal, the weight of it in her palm grounding her. The coldness of its surface was a stark contrast to the heat radiating from her hand. Pressing it against her chest Y/N closed her eyes for a second to let the victory sink in. And yet, even in that moment of triumph, a strange hollowness bloomed in her gut. The applause , the cameras, everything suddenly felt like a performance. Her eyes flickered instinctively toward the front row and scanned the faces of those who had come to watch the most important tournament of her year. Her gaze darted to the spot where he should have been. Or, where he used to be. Garrett Graham. Her boyf– well, ex-boyfriend.
The seat where he used to sit was now occupied by someone she had never seen before. Even though Y/N felt like she had won the tournament, even the happiness felt distant. The trophy was hers and her future was secure. She almost had everything she wanted. Almost. Because, as the realisation settled in that Garrett wasn't there to share the win, the victory felt less meaningful. She had fought so hard to keep her world from unraveling at the seams. She had won every battle on the court only to lose the one person who had been her anchor. The silence of their breakup had pulled them into separate tides.
Her eyes searched and searched for his face in the crowd but he was nowhere to be found.
Did he hate her that much that he didn't even show up for the finals? Maybe he did. After all, she was the one who had made him believe she couldn't handle a relationship. She couldn't even blame him for hating her anymore, because she hated herself, too.
Even though they were broken up, a small part of her had still hoped he would come, that he would be there in the stands, cheering her on, just one last time. Maybe she'd made sure he'd never want to be anywhere she was again. And maybe she deserved that. The hurt felt like an ugly monster sinking its teeth into her heart. She couldn't stay there any longer. Needing to be alone, Y/N walked back to her locker room, swinging her tennis bag onto her shoulder right after the award ceremony ended. The gold medal was tucked safely into the front pocket. Every congratulation felt like being pricked with needles, but she politely took them all with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
Finally reaching the locker room, she kicked the door shut behind her. She didn't even make it to the bench. She slid down the door, her back hitting the cold metal. Tears streaming down her face, she pulled the gold medal out, staring at it through blurred vision. It was beautiful. It was a testament to years of her dedication, but she had never felt more heartbroken.
As the tears fell, the silence of the locker room brought back the ghosts. It brought back the memory of the last time she had felt his arms around her, and the conversation that had ruined everything they had built and the love she had lost.
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The air was thick with tension. She hated it when they fought like this. Which wasn't often, but she hated to be on the receiving end of his disappointment. Garrett paced the room, carding his fingers through his hair in frustration.
“I’m just saying, Y/N, it’s not about the sport. I'm talking about us. Sometimes, I feel like I’m dating a ghost. I’m dating someone who’s always at practice, always in the library, always exhausted, always somewhere else.”
Y/N sat at the kitchen table, her laptop open, a stack of notes spread out. She was exhausted with everything.
“I told you, Garrett, I have a match on Friday. I have to be in the training room by six. You are an athlete too, you know how it is.”
“If you can’t make time for a dinner, or a movie, or just sharing a few moments with me, what is the point?” The thing was that Garrett didn't say it with malice, but it cut deeper because of how tired he sounded.
“And like you said, I'm an athlete too. I too have practice and classes and I still make time for you, don't I? Why is it so hard for you to prioritise me?”
The words hung in the air. It was weighted with a logic that she couldn't refute without revealing her biggest secret. She couldn't tell him that his scholarship was a safety net for him, whereas if she didn't win, she would lose her tuition, and her future. To Y/N, this was survival, but she was not gonna let him know that. Why, you might ask. It was because she refused to let Garrett see her as someone who was struggling. Her pride was the only thing she had left that wasn't tied to a bank account or a ranking. So she stayed silent, even though she felt her throat closing up. If she tried to explain the desperation, she knew she would start crying and she didn't want to let him see that side of her.
“See? This is exactly what I mean. You just shut down. You don’t tell me what’s going on, you just act like I’m an inconvenience to your schedule or whatever.” Garrett said, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He looked sad.
“I’m not acting like you’re an inconvenience, I’m just trying to keep my head above water, Garrett. I don’t have the luxury of being carefree,” she whispered, trying so hard not to let him hear the tremor in her voice.
“Carefree? That's what you think my life is? Wow. I’m just asking for a partner, Y/N. I’m asking for a girlfriend who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with her. If that’s too much to ask, then maybe we shouldn't be doing this at all.” he said, the words surprising him in the process as well.
Y/N’s eyes widened in shock. She couldn't even form a coherent thought. She had waited for him to take it back. She waited for him to see the panic in her eyes, to soften, or to at least to realise he was asking for things she physically couldn't give. But he was just as proud as she was. Maybe he was waiting for her to fight for him, and she was waiting for him to understand her silence.
“If that’s how you feel, then maybe you’re right.” she said after what felt like an eternity.
The look on his face as she said that to him, that flash of shock followed immediately by a hardening of his expression, was a memory she would carry for the rest of her life. Nodding at her with tear filled eyes, Garrett grabbed his coat, looked at her one last time with a mixture of hurt and disbelief, and walked out of the apartment.
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Flinching at the memory, Y/N whimpered. She was still sitting on the floor of the locker room. Remembering it was like rubbing salt into a fresh wound. And now, with everything else finally falling into place, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had lost one of the most important people in her life. Before he was her boyfriend, he had been one of her closest friends. He was someone who had stood by her through everything. He was a constant source of comfort and support. And now he was gone for good and she had no one to blame but herself.
She stood up, her legs wobbly, and moved toward the shower stalls. She needed to wash away the feeling of being an impostor in her own victory. As she reached for her towel, she heard the locker room door open. Y/N spun around expecting a teammate or her coach. But what she saw instead was him. Garrett Graham. In all his glory.
Garrett stood in the doorway. The hockey hoodie he was wearing was pulled low and his eyes were red, like he was crying too. He looked at her tear-streaked face, though his own was unreadable.
“You… you came” she whispered. Her voice was barely audible.
Garrett didn't answer right away. He closed the distance between them until he was standing just a few feet away. His gaze dropped to the medal, then back to her face. “I wasn't going to come. I really wasn't.”
He ran a hand through his hair. It was a nervous gesture. “But then Allie came over with Dean and she asked me why I wasn't going. I told her it wasn't my place anymore.”
He swallowed hard but his eyes never left hers. “She asked me if I knew why you had been pushing yourself so hard this year.”
Y/N felt her stomach drop. Allie told him?
“I told her it was because you wanted to win.” His jaw tightened but Y/N could see the shame flashing across his features. “ but she just looked at me like I was the biggest idiot she'd ever met. And I was. And then she told me about your scholarship.”
Silence settled between them. Y/N didn't know what to say and Garrett didn't know how to continue the conversation. After a moment of silence, she said quietly,
“She wasn't supposed to tell you.”
“I know. She only told me after I kept insisting that you had chosen tennis over me. She couldn't listen to me say that anymore.” his voice cracked.
Y/N lowered her gaze to the floor, suddenly not knowing how to look at him.
“I didn't know. God, bab– Y/N... I swear I didn't know.”
He sniffled.
“I didn't know that every practice was not just practice, or that every tournament determined whether you'd still be able to afford to stay here. I didn't know that while I was asking you to make more time for me, you were trying to make sure you even had a future to come back to.”
Tears welled in his eyes.
“I thought you were choosing tennis over me. But you weren't choosing between me and tennis at all, were you?” He laughed bitterly, shaking his head.
“You were choosing whether you got to stay at Briar.”
“I wanted to tell you,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
“So many times. Every single time we fought, I wanted to tell you. But I couldn't.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as though trying to hold the pieces together.
“Why?”
“Because I didn't want you to look at me any differently. I didn't want you to see me as someone who couldn't afford to be here without a scholarship. I didn't want you to stay with me because you pitied me. I've spent my whole life trying to prove that I deserved to be here. That I earned my place. The thought of you looking at me and seeing someone who needed saving was just unbearable.” She shook her head.
Garrett closed the remaining distance between them, holding her close to him and hugging her tightly.
“I have never pitied you. In fact, I've only admired you since the day I met you.”
She looked up at him.
“I was just too caught up in feeling lonely to realise that you were drowning.”
His words were laced with regret.
“I should've asked why. Instead, I kept asking you for more. I made you feel like you had to choose, and for that, I'm so so sorry.” He blinked away the tears gathering in his eyes.
“I looked for you today. I knew you wouldn't be there, but I still looked anyway.” Y/N confessed softly and Garrett's eyes fluttered shut for a brief second.
“I was there. I just couldn't bring myself to sit where I used to. So I sat all the way at the back.” A sad smile tugged at his lips. A line tear made its way down his cheek, but she wiped it away with the pad of her thumb. He looked at her,
“I’m not here to ask for forgiveness, because I don’t think I deserve it. I’m here because I couldn't stay away from the girl who showed me what love looks like. I shouldn't have put you on the spot or demanded answers from you like that. I'm so sorry, baby. Do you forgive me?”
Y/N felt a fresh wave of tears, but these were different. They were the first flicker of hope she’d felt in months. She saw the honesty in his eyes. She nodded,
“Yes, and I'm sorry too, for making you feel like you were not a priority. I love you more than I love myself. I wouldn't forgive myself if I had lost y–”
She couldn't even complete the sentence before a sob took over. Garrett was quick to wipe her tears and kiss her forehead in an attempt to calm her down,
“Hey, hey…none of that, baby. It's all in the past, yeah? We're okay, yeah? I'm not going anywhere.”
After she had calmed down, he pulled away from her, his gaze drifting towards the medal on the table. Picking it up, he slipped the it over her head,
“Would you just look at that? My girl's the fucking Champion!”
She gave him a bashful smile and he pulled her in till their lips were almost touching.
“I’m so proud of you,” he breathed against her lips, closing the distance with a kiss that wordlessly conveyed every emotion he felt. They kissed and kissed until it was physically impossible for them to breathe, but he didn't let her go out of his grasp.
“God, I have missed you so much it physically hurts.”
He kissed her again like he had been starving for months. As his hands moved to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him, Y/N felt like nothing else mattered anymore. Everything faded into the background. There was only the warmth of his skin and the beating of his heart beneath her hand. With devotion in his gaze, he looked at her,
“Will you let me show you how much I love you? Let me spend tonight proving what words never could?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
She smiled, her answer written in the way she closed the distance between them.
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⌗ pairing — garrett graham x coach's daughter fem!reader
⌗ synopsis — The hockey coach's daughter challenges team captain Garrett Graham's arrogant world after discovering his secrets. Amidst false appearances and a forbidden attraction, their initial hostility ignites into an uncontrollable fire that threatens to break every rule on campus.
⌗ author’s note — This story features high-tension seduction dynamics, psychological power plays, and a strict forbidden-romance subversion within a competitive university setting.
The Briar men’s locker room was a total mess of hormones, smelling like stale sweat, cheap deodorant, and whatever pop track Logan had blasting at full volume—the kind that vibrates right through your teeth. Just the usual after two hours of Coach Jensen screaming at us on the ice. But I wasn't listening to Logan, nor to Tucker complaining about his economics homework, nor to the rookies pulling stupid pranks back in the showers.
My eyes were locked onto my phone screen as I sat on the wooden bench, still in my hockey pants, shirtless, feeling the sweat turn cold against my back and giving me chills.
A text had just come in from Hannah.
Hannah: Kohl was in the library hallway when I walked past. He stared right at the wallpaper you set on my phone. I think it worked, Graham. Looked like he wanted to swallow his own teeth.
A smug smirk tugged at my mouth—the kind I get when I know I'm the one pulling the strings. The plan was moving perfectly. Hannah Wells got Justin Kohl’s attention, and in exchange, she was helping me pass my ethics class so I wouldn't lose the team captaincy. A clean, perfect deal. No feelings involved.
Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself until I looked up and saw her walk past the open locker room door.
Her. Coach Jensen’s daughter.
She was wearing tight jeans, her usual beat-up boots, and a massive Briar University hoodie that I was positive belonged to her dad, mostly because it drowned her, hiding her hands completely inside the sleeves. Her hair was pulled up in a high, messy ponytail—the kind done in a rush without even looking in a mirror—and she was clutching a leather binder tight against her chest. She didn't look inside. She never looked into the locker room. She walked with that insufferable confidence of someone who grew up around a hockey rink, knowing damn well that half the idiots changing in there would break their necks just to get her to look their way for two seconds.
I locked my phone with a sharp click, tossed it onto my gear bag, and stood up so fast the wooden bench groaned under my weight.
"Hey, Graham! Where the hell are you going? Jensen said to review the Michigan game tapes!" Logan shouted from across the room, throwing a clean towel at my head.
I caught it midair, draped it around my neck to wipe the sweat off my chest, and didn't even bother looking for a shirt.
"Got something to do, Logan. Go ahead without me, I’ll catch up with you guys in the strategy room," I tossed back over my shoulder, stepping out into the hallway before he could start asking questions.
The hallway of the Briar arena was freezing, all gray concrete, smelling like that damp humidity that lives near frozen ice. My rubber slides slapped loudly against the floor, echoing off the walls. I spotted her about twenty meters ahead, walking toward the side exit—the one leading out to the faculty parking lot.
"Hey!" I called out, my voice coming out louder and more demanding than I meant it to. "Wait up!"
She didn't stop dead in her tracks. She just slowed her pace, letting out a long sigh that turned into a tiny puff of vapor in the chilly hallway, and then turned around slowly. When her eyes locked onto mine, I felt that familiar kick to the stomach. A mix of annoyance and something heavier, thicker—something that burned inside me every time she looked at me like I was a grease smudge on the ice.
"Lose something, Graham?" she asked, crossing her arms over the binder. Her tone was sharp, the kind that cuts like a skate blade. "Because if you're looking for my dad, he’s in his office going over how disastrous your third-line check was today."
I took a couple more steps, closing the gap until I was standing less than a meter away from her. She was a good head shorter than me, forcing me to tilt my head down, but her posture didn't give an inch. She didn't back down. She never did.
"I’m not looking for your dad," I said, dropping my voice, letting the tension settle between us. "I was looking for you."
She let out a dry, humorless laugh. Her eyes flicked down to my bare chest for a split second before snapping right back to my face, one eyebrow raised.
"Oh, really? How strange. I figured you'd be too busy hiding in the hallways of the arts building, planning your next romantic scene with Hannah Wells."
The muscles in my jaw tightened. There it was again. The low blow.
Damn it. I was supposed to be the king of provocation on this campus, the guy who always gets the last word, and she disarmed me with a single sentence. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Three days ago, Hannah and I had been arguing about the details of our "fake dating" arrangement in a deserted hallway of the arts building, and right when I mentioned that the whole point was to make Justin Kohl die of jealousy, I heard footsteps. When I looked around the corner, all I caught was the back of her giant hoodie disappearing around the bend.
"You overheard us." It wasn't a question.
"I have ears, Graham. And the concrete in this place echoes like a damn cave," she shot back, taking a sharp step forward, crowding my space. "It’s pathetic, you know? The great Garrett Graham, the invincible captain, the guy whose whole personality is 'I don't have time for girls because hockey is my only wife.' Turns out you're just using some poor girl for grades and putting on a whole theater act. What's the matter? Are you terrified of failing ethics, or are you just scared my dad will rip the C off your jersey the second he finds out you're a total fraud?"
Every word was a precision strike to my pride, but what actually made my jaw clench wasn't the stuff about the grades. It was the fact that she looked at me and genuinely saw a manipulator. A guy who chewed people up and spat them out.
I stepped closer, cutting the distance until I was completely invading her personal space, forcing her to tilt her chin up just to keep looking me in the eye. I could smell her perfume—something soft, like vanilla mixed with the crisp winter air outside. It was a frustratingly clean scent that had absolutely no business being in a gritty arena hallway.
"You don't know a damn thing about what you're talking about," I said, my voice dropping to a rough, quiet grit. "You don't know anything about me, Jensen. You think because you've spent your entire life sitting up in those bleachers watching guys pass by, you've got the whole roster figured out. You think you have me figured out."
"I have you perfectly figured out, Garrett," she countered. Hearing my actual name slip past her lips made my pulse hit a ridiculous, erratic rhythm. "You’re the golden boy. You get whatever you want with a smile and a wink. But that cheap charm doesn't work on me. I know exactly the kind of game you're playing, and I’m not interested in being part of your audience."
She spun on her heel to walk away, but my body moved before my brain could even register the thought. I reached out and caught her by the forearm, just above the thick sleeve of her dad's hoodie. I didn't squeeze—I just held her there, feeling the sudden heat of her skin through the fabric.
She froze instantly. She stared down at my hand on her arm like it was a physical threat, then snapped her gaze up to mine, her eyes blazing with genuine fury.
"Let go of me," she warned, her voice dangerously low.
"Not until you actually listen to me," I said, a strange, suffocating desperation tightening in my chest. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to yell at her that Hannah meant nothing, that it was just a business deal, that the only reason I couldn't focus on the ice today—the only reason my third-line checks were an absolute trainwreck—was because I'd spent half of practice scanning the upper bleachers looking for her silhouette. "The thing with Hannah... it’s not what you think. I’m not using her. It’s a mutual agreement."
"I couldn't care less what it is," she snapped, wrenching her arm back with enough force to break my grip. She took two steps away, breathing heavily, a sharp flush of anger creeping up her cheeks. "Do whatever you want with your classes and your fake little dating contracts, Graham. But stay the hell away from me. I don't need your drama messing with the team’s focus, and I definitely don't need it ruining my dad's season. Is that clear?"
I wanted to pull her back. I wanted to smash through that stupid, stubborn wall she kept between us and let the whole place burn down if it meant she’d stop looking at me with that utter contempt. She was driving me losing-my-mind insane. She was the coach’s daughter, the ultimate off-limits zone, the girl who despised the ground I walked on. And I was supposed to be Garrett fucking Graham.
"Perfectly clear, Jensen," I said, forcing a cocky, careless smirk onto my face, sliding the usual mask back over my eyes before she could see the dent she'd made. "But watch your step. Sometimes, the people who spend the most time watching the ice from the sidelines are the first ones to slip."
She shot me one last dagger-filled look, turned around, and marched toward the heavy exit door, shoving it open so hard the metal slammed shut with a deafening crash that echoed down the corridor.
I was left standing there alone in the freezing hallway, breathing in the cold air, my fists still clenched at my sides.
My phone started vibrating hard against my thigh. I pulled it out of my sweatpants pocket. It wasn't Hannah. It was the team group chat.
[GROUP CHAT: THE ICE GODS]
Logan: Graham, old man Jensen is in a dog shit mood. If you don't get your ass over here in two minutes to review these tapes, he’s going to make us skate suicides until we puke tomorrow morning.
Tucker: Move it, captain. He’s already down two coffees and he's starting to log penalty stats from today.
Garrett: On my way. Had a setback in the hall.
Dean: Setback? Does this setback have long legs and a skirt, or what?
Garrett: Shut up, Di Laurentis. Walking down now.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, but before turning toward the strategy room, I stared at the heavy metal door she’d just disappeared through.
This wasn't over. She thought she had me pegged, thought she was completely immune to me. But if hockey had taught me anything, it was that the hardest games to play are always the ones most worth winning.
The Briar cafeteria at noon was the closest thing to a Roman coliseum, only with gray plastic food trays and the heavy, greasy smell of yesterday’s reheated pizza. The din was deafening—a chaotic wall of shouting, laughing, and silverware clattering against tables. At the center table, marking their territory as usual, sat the hockey team. Logan was busy inhaling a double cheeseburger while gesturing like a madman, telling some freshman girl how he almost got tossed from the last game in Boston. Tucker was squinting at a stack of economics notes, muttering under his breath, and I... I was supposed to be paying attention to whatever Hannah Wells was saying to me.
Hannah was sitting right next to me, her Ethics notebook propped open between us. She was pointing at some dry, boring paragraph on utilitarianism, but my brain absolutely refused to process the words.
"Look, Graham, if the professor asks you about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, you just have to bring up Jeremy Bentham and... Are you even listening to me?" Hannah stopped tapping her pen against the paper and locked a sharp, analytical gaze onto me—the kind that feels like she's reading your mind.
"Yeah, clear. Bentham. Greatest happiness. Got it," I droned from memory, forcing a relaxed, careless smile as I draped my arm over the back of her chair.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Justin Kohl walk into the cafeteria. He carries his guitar in his arms, scanning the room for someone. When his eyes landed on us together, his jaw clenched so hard I honestly thought his teeth might crack. Hannah noticed it too. She immediately leaned a little closer into my space, letting out a soft, practiced laugh designed to make her look like a girl hopelessly in love.
"Perfect," Hannah whispered, keeping her smile glued on for the invisible cameras. "Kohl is watching. Put your hand on my shoulder, Graham. Make it look real."
I played my part in the deal. I slid my hand over her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze that anyone looking from afar would swear was an intimate gesture. It was an easy game, a damn script we both knew how to run flawlessly.
Until I saw her.
She was just three tables away, sitting completely by herself, headphones plugged in and buried alive under a massive commercial psychology textbook. She had a steaming mug of coffee to her side and hadn't even bothered to glance at the little show Hannah and I were putting on. But I couldn't look away from her. She had her hair down today, cascading in dark waves over her shoulders, and she was mindlessly chewing on the cap of her pen, her forehead creased in total concentration as she read.
Suddenly, as if she could actually feel the weight of my stare, she snapped her head up. Her eyes slammed straight into mine. She saw my hand on Hannah’s shoulder. She saw how close we were. But instead of looking away shyly or showing a flicker of anger, she just leveled a look of absolute, icy disdain at me. A look that clearly said: You are so predictable, it’s pathetic. Then, she went right back to her book as if I were made of glass.
I felt a sudden, freezing hollow in my stomach, followed by a surge of frustration so intense I almost yanked my hand off Hannah's shoulder.
"Graham, you froze," Hannah noted, giving me a weird look. "Are you okay? You’re gripping my shoulder a little tight."
"My bad," I muttered, pulling my hand back and rubbing the back of my neck. "Just... got distracted. I need a coffee."
I didn't even get a chance to stand up before my phone buzzed hard in my sweatpants pocket. I pulled it out expecting a text from Logan about the afternoon schedule, but it was an unsaved number. Still, I recognized the venom in the tone instantly.
Unknown Number: My dad is looking for you to sign the weight room permits before 1:00 PM. He’s in his office. Don’t be late, Graham. I don’t have the energy to deal with him whining about how his star captain doesn’t know how to read a damn clock.
A real smile broke across my face for the first time all day. I reread the text twice. So the coach’s little princess was actually taking the trouble to text me? I figured her dad had just made her do it since she had access to the team's database, but that little sting at the end was entirely her own formulation.
Quickly, I saved the number under "Jensen (Danger)" and typed out a reply.
Garrett: Wow, Jensen. I didn't know you were my personal secretary now. I’m flattered you’re keeping such close tabs on me.
I kept my eyes glued to the screen, tracking her table from across the room. I watched her pull her phone out of her hoodie pocket. Her expression didn't change, but her fingers flew across the screen with pure, unadulterated fury.
Jensen (Danger): In your dreams, Graham. My dad told me to email you, but I know you don’t check your inbox because you’re too busy feeding your own ego. Just do your job and sign the papers.
Garrett: I’m in the cafeteria. If you want them signed so badly, why don't you bring them over yourself? I’m right here with Hannah. You can join us if you want, we don't bite.
I watched her look up from her phone, scan the crowded room until she found me, and glare daggers across the space. She shoved her phone away, packed her books with a violent thud, slung her backpack over one shoulder, and stood up. She marched straight toward my table. For a second, my heart took a stupid, wild leap in my chest; I actually thought she was coming over to cause a scene.
But she was smarter than that. She brushed right past our table without stopping, but just as she passed behind my chair, she leaned down slightly—just enough for her voice to cut through the cafeteria noise right into my ear.
"Keep playing at being the perfect boyfriend, Garrett," she whispered, her voice a deadly mix of sweet and poisonous. "But remember that on the ice, when you get distracted by the audience, you're the one who ends up on the floor."
Before I could answer, before I could even spin around to face her, she had already swept through the cafeteria’s double doors, leaving behind the faint scent of vanilla and a thick tension that burned my skin.
"What the hell was that?" Logan asked, having completely abandoned his conversation with the freshman girl to stare at me, his eyes wide as saucers. "Did the old man's daughter just threaten you? Dude, you’re dead. If Coach Jensen finds out you’re messing around with his daughter, he’s going to make you skate until your feet bleed."
"I’m not messing around with her, Logan," I said, though my voice sounded rougher, thicker than usual.
I looked down at my phone screen one last time before getting up from the table. I didn't give a shit what Logan said, I didn't give a shit about the danger, and I didn't give a shit about the team rules. She thought this was some superficial game, thought I was just the enemy. But I was willing to break every single rule at Briar just to make her see that the chaos in my chest was real.
Garrett: The coach doesn't scare me, Jensen. And neither do you. See you at the rink this afternoon. Try not to miss practice, I like having an audience.
I walked toward the coach's office with my pulse racing, knowing damn well I was walking straight into the lion's den. But for the first time all season, hockey wasn't the only thing making me feel alive.
The air inside the Briar rink felt thicker than usual. Cold mist billowed from our mouths with every heavy breath as Coach Jensen paced back and forth along the boards, his whistle clamped between his teeth and a tactical clipboard in hand.
"Graham! If you turn the puck over to Tucker on the blue line again, I’m going to have you clean the zamboni with a toothbrush!" the old man roared, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty stadium.
"Got it, Chief!" I yelled back, leaning over with my hands on my knees just to drag some air into my lungs.
I wiped my glove across my forehead to clear the sweat, feeling my thighs burning from the sheer exertion. But physical pain wasn't what had me completely scattered today. It was the sharp, metallic echo of footsteps climbing up the metal bleachers.
I looked up. There she was.
She had taken a seat in the third row, right behind our bench. She was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket that gave her this incredibly commanding aura—the kind of girl who dominates a room without even trying. She had a digital tablet balanced on her lap and a stylus tucked between her fingers; my brain registered instantly that she was helping her dad track our afternoon performance stats. She didn't look at me right away, but I knew damn well she could feel my eyes locked onto her.
"Alright, idiots, move! Power play simulation, five on four!" Jensen ordered, blowing his whistle hard. "Graham, you’re at the dot! I want to see some actual aggression!"
I snapped my visor down, adjusted my grip on my stick, and skated out to center ice. The adrenaline hit me like a physical punch, but this time it wasn't just for the sport. It was that primitive, stupid urge to show off. To force her to look up from that damn screen and accept that, on this ice, I was the one in charge.
The puck dropped. The play kicked off at a mile a minute. Logan fed me a clean pass down the left flank, I spun past a rookie defenseman's check with a quick twitch of my hips, and lined myself up for the net. I could hear the guys yelling, bodies slamming against the boards, the raw roar of steel blades cutting into the ice. I was just about to release the shot when, for a fraction of a second, I made the absolute worst mistake a hockey player can make.
I looked up at the stands.
She was watching me. Her face was dead serious, tense, her eyes tracking my every move.
That split-second distraction was all it took. Tucker appeared out of nowhere like a runaway freight train and caught me with his shoulder right in the solar plexus. The impact knocked every last bit of air clean out of my lungs. I went flying backward, my body slamming hard against the Plexiglas, right in front of where she was sitting.
The sound of the crash against the acrylic was deafening. I dropped to my knees on the ice, my stick clattering away, desperately trying to find my breath as a sharp, blinding pain shot up my spine.
"Wake up, captain!" Tucker mocked from down the ice, skating backward with a smug grin. "You went to sleep out there!"
"Graham! To the bench! Five minutes out for daydreaming!" Coach Jensen yelled, completely losing his patience. "Move it!"
I stood up with difficulty, swallowing both my pride and the pain. I skated over to the bench, yanked the gate open, and threw myself onto the wooden seat. I ripped my helmet off, tossing it to the floor, and ran a hand through my sweat-soaked hair, cursing bitterly under my breath.
"That hurt, didn't it?" a soft, slow, and terribly mocking voice came from above, right behind my back.
I turned around slowly. She had leaned over the bleacher railing, coming within inches of me. Her face was lit up with a self-assured smile that made my blood run hot.
"Don't worry about me, Jensen. I’ve taken much worse hits than that," I replied, my voice raspy and breathless, holding her gaze with everything I had.
"Oh, I don't doubt your endurance, Graham," she retorted, resting her chin in her hand, looking down at me with those challenging eyes. "But it’s highly entertaining to see the great Briar captain bite the dust just because he can't keep his eyes on the puck. What happened? Were you looking for your fan club in the stands? Or were you busy thinking a romantic text to send Hannah after practice?"
I stepped closer, bracing my hands against the top of the wooden boards, forcing the proximity between us. I could smell the crisp freshness of her skin—that subtle, clean scent that had absolutely no business being in the cold, gritty environment of the rink.
"I was looking for a very specific gaze, Jensen. And it turns out I found it," I said, dropping my voice to a low murmur so her dad, who was at the far end of the ice, couldn't hear us. "You know perfectly well why I got distracted."
Her eyebrows knitted slightly, and her smirk wavered for a fraction of a second. A flash of something she couldn't hide—maybe surprise, maybe the exact same suffocating tension that was killing me—crossed her eyes.
"You’re a cocky idiot," she whispered, but her voice didn't sound nearly as confident anymore.
"Maybe," I admitted, never breaking eye contact with her lips. "But I’m the idiot you can't seem to stop watching. Why are you logging my stats on that tablet if I bore you so much? I’ve seen the way your eyes follow me every single time I cross the blue line."
She snapped upright as if my words had carried an electric current. Her face flushed with a light, sudden blush that she tried to hide immediately by clearing her throat and pulling her mask of indifference back into place.
"I log your mistakes, Graham. Which, by the way, are skyrocketing today," she shot back cuttingly, holding up the tablet like a shield. "My dad needs to know who he has to bench for the next game if you keep playing like a lovesick rookie."
I was dying to leap over that railing. I was dying to grab her by the waist, pull her flush against my body, and prove to her that the only chaos in my head went by one name: hers. I wanted to set fire to her pride, her damn barriers, and her father’s stupid rules.
"Graham! Back in! And you better use your eyes for the game this time!" Jensen’s shout shattered the bubble between us.
I pulled my helmet back on, but before jumping back onto the ice, I looked at her one last time over my shoulder.
"Don't leave before I’m done, Jensen," I warned her with a dangerous smile. "The show is just getting started."
She rolled her eyes, but she didn't move an inch from her seat.
The rest of practice, I played like an absolute animal. I scored three goals, leveled Logan with a check that left him groaning on the ice for two minutes, and didn't lose my focus again. But every single time the puck hit the back of the net, my eyes sought out that third row. And she was always there, pretending to look at her screen, but with her fingers completely frozen over the keyboard.
When we finally walked into the locker room, my phone was already vibrating on the wooden bench. I pulled it out while the guys around me were shouting and celebrating the brutal intensity of the workout.
Jensen (Danger): Three goals don't erase the ridiculous display you put on against the Plexiglas, Graham. But I admit your technique for crashing has style.
I smiled, feeling like my heart was going to burst right out of my chest.
Garrett: I’m glad to know you were counting my goals, gorgeous. Are you going to the party at the hockey house tonight, or are you staying home to review my "mistakes"?
Three agonizingly long minutes passed before the screen lit up again.
Jensen (Danger): I have nothing better to do than watch you get drunk with Beau. Maybe I'll go. Someone has to make sure you don't crack your head open before Friday.
I locked the phone with a grin that Dean noticed immediately.
"Dude, that face is terrifying," Dean said, tossing a clean t-shirt at me. "Care to tell us what’s got you looking so stupid today?"
"Nothing, Dean," I said, standing up to head toward the showers. "Just that tonight is going to be a hell of a night."
The hockey house was an absolute zoo on Friday nights. The trap music was blasting so loud it made the upstairs windows rattle in their frames, the scent of cheap beer and smoke hung heavy in the air, and the entire downstairs floor was covered in a sticky layer of spilled drinks that nobody gave a shit about. Half the campus was crammed inside, celebrating a victory we hadn't even played for yet.
I was standing by the kitchen counter with a red plastic cup in my hand, my left arm draped lazily over Hannah’s shoulders. She was laughing at something Tucker was saying about his history professor, playing her part to absolute perfection. To anyone walking past, we were the undisputed couple of the year.
Except I wasn't really there.
My eyes scanned the entrance every single time the heavy front door swung open. I’d been doing the exact same thing for an hour—ignoring conversations, responding in mindless monosyllables, and feeling a restless impatience scratching at the inside of my ribs.
"Graham, seriously, tone it down a bit," Hannah whispered close to my ear, taking advantage of the second Tucker turned around to grab another beer from the fridge. "You’re staring at the door like you’re waiting for the NHL commissioner himself to walk in. Kohl is across the living room watching us, and you look like a stone-faced security guard."
"My bad," I muttered, taking a swig of my drink, which I couldn't even identify at this point. "It’s just... suffocatingly hot in here."
"Yeah, sure. Hot." Hannah rolled her eyes with a knowing smirk. "Or maybe it’s because a certain dark-eyed girl just walked through the front door."
My body reacted before my mind could even process the words. I snapped my head toward the main entrance.
Damn it.
There she was. And the entire world seemed to go dead silent, despite the heavy bass literally vibrating through the walls. She wasn't wearing her dad’s giant hoodie or her usual training gear tonight. Instead, she had on a pair of tight black leather pants that hugged every single curve of her legs and a matching crop top that exposed a sliver of her bronzed skin. Her hair was completely down, cascading over her shoulders in perfect waves, and her lips were painted a dark, dangerous red that made me grip my plastic cup until the plastic cracked.
She walked in with a couple of girls from her department, but within three steps of crossing the threshold, her gaze swept the crowded room until her eyes locked dead onto mine. She saw my arm pulled around Hannah. She saw the proximity. Her lips curled into that tiny, icy line of superiority that drove me absolutely insane, and then she immediately turned her back to the kitchen, disappearing into the crowd toward the makeshift dance floor in the living room.
"Graham, go get her before you have a damn heart attack right here," Hannah said, gently nudging my arm off her shoulders. "We’ve officially met our jealousy quota with Kohl for the next twenty minutes. Go."
I didn't need her to tell me twice. I slammed my cup onto the counter and shoved my way through the sea of dancing, shouting bodies. My mind was completely clouded. All I could see was the dark outline of her hair moving through the crowd.
I caught up to her just in the narrow hallway connecting the living room to the upstairs staircase—a slightly darker, less packed corner of the house.
"Jensen," I called out, my voice coming out lower and rougher than usual over the thumping music.
She paused and turned around slowly, leaning her back against the wooden paneling of the hallway wall. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking me up and down with a slow deliberation that made my skin burn. She held a cup of beer in her hand, though she had barely touched it.
"Wow, the captain left his queen all alone in the kitchen," she said, her voice practically dripping with the raw irony that drove me crazy. "What a terrible boyfriend you are, Graham. I thought your little contract required you to be glued to her side twenty-four hours a day."
"You know perfectly well that Hannah and I are nothing," I shot back, taking a sharp step forward and invading her personal space immediately. The vanilla scent of her perfume hit me like a physical wave, mixing with the adrenaline of having her this close in the shadows of the hallway. "Stop using that as a shield."
"It’s not a shield, it’s reality," she retorted, holding my gaze without backing down a single millimeter. Her eyes gleamed under the dim hallway light. "You go around faking a whole life, Garrett. You fake that you care about your classes, you fake having the perfect girlfriend, you fake being the king of the world. But it’s all just a damn theater act so nobody sees what’s actually underneath."
Her words hit me straight in the center of my chest—right where I kept all the heavy shit: the fear of letting my father down, the crushing pressure of the captaincy, the weight of all of Briar on my shoulders. She read me like an open book, and it terrified me just as much as it fascinated me.
"You want to know what’s underneath, Jensen?" I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous, rough whisper. I took another step, pinning her within inches of my chest. I could feel the heat radiating from her skin, see the rapid, uneven rise and fall of her chest. "You want to know the only real thing in this damn house right now? This."
I slammed both hands onto the wall, right on either side of her head, cornering her completely. She caught her breath sharply, her eyes widening a fraction as she realized the overwhelming proximity of my body. I was so close that if I lowered my chin just a tiny bit, my lips would brush hers.
"You’re drunk, Graham," she whispered, but her voice faltered, losing all the sharp venom it had a moment ago.
"I’ve barely had a sip," I replied, never taking my eyes off her red lips. "I’m soberer than I've ever been. And I am fucking tired of this game. Tired of you looking at me like I’m the enemy, tired of you thinking I’m just some brainless idiot on skates."
"You are," she said, though the insult completely lacked any real force. Her hands, which had been tightly crossed, now rested their palms softly against my bare chest beneath my open jacket—as if trying to maintain a physical distance, yet her fingers twitched, lightly bunching the fabric of my shirt.
"If it were up to me, Jensen..." My voice cracked slightly, the desperation finally winning the battle against my stubborn pride. "If it were up to me, I’d throw away the captaincy, the deal with Hannah, your father’s rules, and all of fucking Briar. I would set the whole damn world on fire if it meant you’d believe me. If it meant you’d look at me like I’m the only man in this room. Because you are driving me completely out of my mind. Get out of my head once and for all."
She froze completely, staring up at me with a raw mixture of vulnerability and awe that I had never seen on her face before. The mask of the coach’s cold, untouchable daughter shattered entirely, exposing the girl who felt the exact same heavy electricity I did. Her lips parted slightly, letting out a shaky, warm breath that brushed right against my chin.
I couldn't hold back anymore. The distance of a few inches felt like an endless abyss I needed to destroy.
I lowered my head and kissed her.
It was a violent, hungry collision, packed with all the built-up frustration, anger, and desire we had been hoarding for months on the ice rinks and in the university hallways. I expected her to push me away, to slap me, to yell at me to get lost. But instead, the beer in her hand hit the floor with a dull, wet thud as her hands flew up my chest to tangle tightly into the hair at the back of my neck, pulling me harder against her.
She let out a muffled, breathless moan against my lips when my free hand slid down to her waist, crushing her against my body, lifting her slightly to flush her completely against me. The kiss turned deeper, darker—an absolute wildfire threatening to burn the entire hockey house down to the ground. There were no rules, no coaches, no Hannah, and no games to worry about. It was just her and me, destroying months of manufactured hatred in a single second of pure combustion.
We parted by a fraction of a millimeter, both breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together, lips burning. She stared at me with eyes clouded by desire, but also with a sudden, sharp spark of panic as reality rushed back into the room.
Before either of us could utter a single syllable, the sound of heavy footsteps and a loud voice echoed from the beginning of the hall.
"Hey, Graham! Old man Jensen is blowing up your phone like crazy, says it’s urgent about the game on—" Logan’s voice cut off dead in its tracks as he rounded the corner and saw us.
Logan stood there with his mouth wide open, staring at my hands still locked tightly around his coach’s daughter’s waist, and then at her face, which had gone completely pale.
"Oh... shit," Logan whispered, taking a slow step backward into the dark. "Earth, swallow me whole."
pairing – garrett graham x reader
summary – garrett graham can ignore almost anything at practice. a low glucose alert from dexcom is not one of them.
warnings – diabetic reader, hypoglycemia/low glucose episode, dexcom follow alert, mild medical stress, established relationship
notes from me – as requested!! sorry this took a little while – i had to research to make sure it was accurate lmao! let me know if i got anything wrong <3
word count – 4k
navigation – masterlist |
Garrett’s phone goes off halfway through bag skate, which is about as close to a death wish as technology can get inside a hockey rink. It cuts through the scrape of blades and the hard, ugly rhythm of twenty exhausted guys trying not to throw up on fresh ice, a sharp little alarm from the bench where everyone’s phones are piled with water bottles and tape and somebody’s abandoned hoodie.
Usually, Garrett ignores his phone at practice. Usually, there’s no reason to stop in the middle of a drill unless someone is actively bleeding, concussed, or Coach Jensen has decided to experiment with psychological warfare again.
But Garrett knows that sound. He turns his head so fast the edge of his skate catches a little too hard on the ice. Tucker nearly clips him from behind and swears, loud and breathless, but Garrett’s already skating toward the bench with his pulse shifting in a way that has nothing to do with the suicides they’ve been running for the last twenty minutes.
“Graham,” Coach barks, because concern for his girlfriend’s pancreas doesn’t fall within approved training interruptions.
Garrett grabs his phone, glove half off with his teeth because the stupid thing won’t unlock with cold fingers and sweat and the universe personally fucking with him.
The Dexcom Follow notification sits bright on the screen, clinical and calm in the way medical apps always are, like they’re not announcing information designed to put a hook straight through his chest.
LOW GLUCOSE ALERT.
He stares at the number beneath it, then at the downward arrow, then swipes into their messages so quickly he almost fumbles the phone into the stick rack.
Garrett: baby. eat something
Garrett: now please
Garrett: your dexcom’s yelling at me
The little delivered line appears. Nothing else. He waits three seconds. Four. Five. The ice keeps making noise behind him, bodies turning, sticks tapping, Coach’s whistle cutting once through the air so sharply it makes Garrett’s shoulders tense before his brain catches up.
He types again.
Garrett: hey
Garrett: answer me
Still nothing.
“Graham,” Coach calls again, closer this time, irritated but not fully pissed yet. Garrett can feel the whole team’s attention starting to swing toward him in little pieces, because he doesn’t do this. He doesn’t check out mid-practice. He doesn’t stand at the bench breathing hard with one glove off and his hair damp at his temples, staring at his phone like it’s threatened him.
He looks up. “Sorry– my girlfriend– her blood sugar’s low.”
It comes out blunt. Too blunt, maybe, because Coach’s face shifts a little. He jerks his chin toward the locker room. “Text her. Then get back out here if she’s fine.”
Garrett nods once and steps off the ice enough to call her. It rings so long that every second feels stupidly personal.
By the fifth ring, he’s already seeing her dorm room in his head with unpleasant clarity: the lamp on, laptop burning her eyes out, notes everywhere, highlighter uncapped on the comforter, some coffee she definitely shouldn’t be drinking instead of eating, her tucked into one of his hoodies like that counts as a balanced meal.
He can picture her Dexcom stuck to the back of her arm, doing its job, screaming into his phone because she's once again decided that studying until her brain leaks out of her ears is a reasonable use of a human body.
She answers on the sixth ring. “Hi,” she says, tiny and slow, like the word has been wrapped in cotton before leaving her mouth.
Garrett’s chest tightens so hard he nearly gets angry from the relief alone. “Baby.”
“Mhm?”
“Did you get the alert?”
There’s a pause. A soft rustle. Then, distantly, like she has turned her head toward her own phone and found it personally disappointing, she says, “Oh.”
Garrett closes his eyes for half a second. “Yeah. Oh. Eat something.”
“I was gonna.”
“You were not gonna. You didn’t even know it went off.”
“I knew,” she says, with absolutely no conviction and the faint offended dignity of a girl who’s been caught being medically unserious in her own home. “I was just… looking at it.”
“At what?”
“My phone.”
“You just found your phone.”
Another pause. Then, smaller, “Maybe.”
Garrett presses the heel of his hand to one eye and breathes out. Behind him, the team is still skating. Someone laughs. A puck hits the boards hard enough to make the glass jump. The whole rink smells like ice and sweat and rubber and old adrenaline, and all he wants, suddenly and viciously, is to be in her stupid little dorm room putting sugar in her hand himself.
“Okay,” he says, forcing his voice down because she gets embarrassed when people fuss too loudly and because snapping at her when her brain is running on fumes would make him the kind of asshole he’d like to punch. “Do you have your hypo stuff?”
“Mm.”
“Words, baby.”
She sighs. “Yes.”
“What do you have?”
“Lollies.”
“Where?”
“My drawer.”
“Which drawer?”
“The drawer drawer.”
Despite himself, a laugh punches out of him, short and disbelieving. “Jesus Christ. The drawer drawer. Very helpful.”
She makes a small sound, half whine, half laugh, and he can hear how thin it is. How tired. How not fully her. “Don’t be mean. I’m low.”
“I’m aware, since your robot tattled on you.” He shifts his phone to the other ear and looks toward Coach, who is watching him now with a patience Garrett suspects has a hard expiry. “Get the lollies. Right now.”
She whines softly. “I’m comfy.”
“Baby.”
“I know.”
He huffs. “Move.”
She grumbles something under her breath that sounds a lot like bossy hockey bitch, and Garrett would enjoy that more if he wasn’t currently imagining her trying to walk across her room with low blood sugar and the coordination of a newborn deer.
There’s a shuffle, then a thump soft enough to be a drawer and not a person, thank fuck. Plastic crinkles near the speaker.
“Got them,” she says.
“Good. Eat some.”
She groans softly. “How many?”
“Enough for fifteen grams.”
Another silence.
Garrett looks at the ceiling. “The packet, baby. Read the packet.”
“I’m doing it,” she mutters, and then the line fills with the sticky little sounds of a packet being opened badly by someone whose fingers are probably trembling. Garrett hears one fall, hit the desk, roll somewhere. She sighs like it has betrayed her.
“Don’t chase it,” he says immediately.
“I wasn’t gonna.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I’m eating the other ones.”
“Good girl.”
It slips out before he thinks better of it, softer than the rest, and the line goes quiet in that particular way that means she’s heard it and tucked it somewhere warm even through the fog in her head.
Coach blows the whistle again. Garrett’s whole body twitches. “Stay on the phone with me,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Bossy.”
“Yeah. Eat.”
She does. He listens. It should be boring, standing half-off the ice while his girlfriend chews gummy lollies into the phone like a mildly annoyed possum.
It’s, objectively, not a romantic moment. There’s nothing cinematic about glucose tabs or jelly snakes or Garrett Graham in full gear with one glove hanging from his teeth, telling a girl in a dorm room to keep chewing while his coach considers whether love is worth disrupting defensive drills.
Still, his hand stays tight around the phone until the Dexcom number nudges up a little and her voice starts coming back from wherever the low had dragged it. Enough that when she says, “You’re breathing like Darth Vader,” there’s a faint smile in it.
“Because I’m at practice.”
“Hot.”
“You’re hypoglycemic.”
“So sexy that you know that word.”
He laughs then, low and relieved in a way he tries not to let her hear too clearly. “Recheck in fifteen.”
“I know.”
“Text me the number.”
“I know, Garrett.”
That sounds more like her, annoyed and soft and there. It loosens something under his ribs by a degree. He looks back at Coach again, then at the ice, then at his phone. He should go back. She’s eaten. She’s talking. The number’s not beautiful, but it’s moving.
This is the whole point of the app, technically, to know and respond and then not act like every alert is a national emergency. She has diabetes. She handles this all the time. She has handled it before him, will keep handling it after every practice, every class, every exam week, every stupid stretch of time where Garrett cannot physically be within arm’s reach putting food in her mouth.
That’s the rational version. The other version is that his girlfriend answered the phone sounding small and floaty and alone, and now every cell in his body is pointing toward her dorm. “Alright,” he says. “I’m coming over after practice.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Garrett.”
“I’m coming over after practice.”
She sighs, but it turns into a little pleased hum at the end, the kind she probably doesn’t know she makes when she’s too tired to pretend she doesn’t want him. “Fine.”
“Text me in fifteen.”
“Mhm.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“And eat actual food if you can.”
She huffs. “Bossy hockey bitch.”
“There she is,” he says, smiling despite himself. “Text me.”
She does, fifteen minutes later, while he’s back on the ice and only pretending not to check his phone every time he gets within ten feet of the bench. The number's come up. Safe enough that the ugly tight thing in his chest finally stops trying to chew through bone.
She adds a blurry photo of the lolly packet on her desk like evidence in a trial, one thumb half covering the lens.
Garrett: proud of you
Garrett: even though you eat like a raccoon during finals week.
Her reply comes after a minute.
raccoons are resilient
Garrett grins down at his phone so hard Logan skates past and says, “Dude, you’re disgusting.”
Garrett flips him off and gets back to practice.
By the time he gets to her dorm, his hair is still damp from the locker room shower and the collar of his hoodie smells faintly like clean soap and rink, which he's been told is not a scent so much as a warning.
He has his backpack slung over one shoulder, two granola bars from the vending machine shoved into the front pocket because he panicked after practice, and a bottle of orange juice he stole from Tucker, who had looked at him once and decided not to ask questions.
She opens the door before he can knock a second time. For one second, Garrett just looks at her. She’s in his Briar hoodie, obviously, because at some point every item of clothing he owns has become part of her little emotional support system.
The sleeves hang over her hands. Her hair's a mess, half pulled up and half surrendered around her face, and there’s a faint crease on her cheek from what looks like a notebook spiral. Her eyes are a little heavy still, sleepy around the edges, her whole body soft and slower than usual as she blinks up at him from the doorway.
“Hi,” she says.
Garrett’s mouth does something stupid before he can stop it. Fond and worried and annoyed, all at once. “Hi.”
“I ate.”
“Yeah?”
She nods, very seriously, then steps backward to let him in. “I ate the lollies. And half a protein bar.”
“Half?”
“It tasted like shit.”
“Protein bars usually taste like that.”
He shuts the door behind him and drops his bag by her desk, already scanning the room in a way he knows makes him look insane and cannot quite bring himself to stop.
Lolly packet open on the desk. Water bottle half full. Textbooks spread across the bed like she’s been trying to summon a degree through paper-based witchcraft. Laptop still open, screen dimmed. The air smells like highlighter ink, laundry detergent, and the sour little remains of coffee gone cold.
He turns back to her. “What’s your number now?”
She points vaguely toward her phone. “Better.”
“That’s not a number.”
“It’s a vibe.”
He raises his brows at her. “Your blood sugar is not a vibe, baby.”
“It kind of is, actually.”
“Phone.”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s no real heat in it, and hands him the phone. He checks because she lets him. Because they’ve had this conversation before, clumsy at first and then easier.
The line between care and hovering. The difference between him helping and him acting like diabetes is a thing that happened to him because he loves her. He still gets it wrong sometimes. He knows that. His worry has bad manners when it gets scared.
But she’d added him to Dexcom Follow herself, sitting cross-legged on his bed with her phone in one hand and his in the other, saying, “Okay, this is not permission to become extra annoying,” while he’d promised, with a straight face, to be only normal amounts of annoying.
Now he looks at the number and the arrow, watches the trend flatten out, and hands it back with a nod. “Better.”
“Told you.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re a medical genius.”
“I am, actually.”
“You also forgot to eat.”
She makes a face and immediately looks away, which tells on her more than any confession would have. “I didn’t forget.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift.
“I… delayed,” she says, which is such a committed piece of academic bullshit that he almost respects it.
“You delayed food.”
“Temporarily.”
“Until your blood sugar dropped and an app screamed at your boyfriend during practice.”
She pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over her hands and rubs at one eye with the cuff. “When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“Because it was stupid.”
“Garrett.”
“Baby.”
She looks up at him then, and the argument thins out before either of them can turn it into one. There’s still a little tremor in her fingers when she lowers her hand. Barely there, but enough. Enough that all the teasing in his mouth rearranges itself into something quieter.
He steps closer. “You scared me.”
Her face shifts, the soft defensive tilt of her mouth giving way to something smaller, less arranged. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not saying it so you’ll feel bad.” His hand comes up to the side of her neck, thumb resting under her jaw, checking because he can’t help himself, touching because that’s the only language his worry knows how to speak without turning sharp. Her skin is warm. A little clammy still at the edge of her hairline. “I just– don’t do that shit alone if you’re dropping, okay? Text me back. Eat first, be stubborn after.”
Her mouth twitches faintly. “That order seems unfair to my brand.”
“Your brand needs snacks.”
“My brand is very mysterious.”
“Your brand is half a bag of gummy worms and a hoodie you stole from me.”
She leans forward then, slowly, until her forehead lands against the middle of his chest. A soft, tired little surrender into the nearest solid thing, which happens to be him.
Garrett’s hand slides automatically around the back of her head, fingers spreading into her hair, and the rest of him goes quiet around her.
“Still feel weird?” he asks.
“A little,” she says, voice muffled into his hoodie. “Mostly tired now.”
“That happens?”
“Mhm. Sometimes after.” She shifts closer, cheek turning against his chest. “And I stayed up too late. And had coffee. And forgot dinner.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “Figured.”
He can picture her last night at two in the morning, hunched over notes, telling herself one more chapter, one more diagram, one more lecture recording, the whole slippery student lie of just a bit longer until suddenly the body that’s been politely asking for basic maintenance starts knocking things over to get attention.
She does that sometimes. Gets so focused the rest of her becomes an inconvenience. Food, sleep, water, all of it demoted beneath whatever exam or paper or assignment has started living behind her eyes.
Garrett hates it in a way that feels embarrassingly tender. He likes her focused. Likes her smart mouth and her colour-coded notes and the little frown she gets when she’s trying to force information into her brain. But he hates the part where she forgets she’s not a machine built for academic suffering and caffeine.
“Bed,” he says.
She tilts her head back just enough to look at him, chin still pressed to his chest. “You’re very annoying when you’re worried.”
“I’m very annoying all the time. You knew that going in.”
“Yeah,” she says, and the tiny smile that comes with it makes something in his ribs unclench. “I did.”
He gets her onto the bed with the kind of careful bossiness she complains about but obeys when she feels like this, all heavy limbs and delayed reactions and stubborn little noises made purely for the dignity of it.
He clears the textbooks first, stacking them onto her desk badly enough that she makes a wounded sound from behind him. “That’s not the system.”
“What system?”
“My system.”
He ignores that and pulls back the blanket. She climbs in, still wearing his hoodie, still with the sleeves eaten over her hands, and watches him from the pillows with that floaty, softened look that would be cute if it didn’t also make the protective part of his brain start dragging furniture in front of doors.
He finds the other half of the violent protein bar and holds it up. “More shit?”
She groans. “Please don’t make me.”
“You need something longer-lasting, right?”
“I had half.”
“Baby.”
She groans. “I hate when you use the reasonable voice.”
“Because it works?”
“Because you sound like Tucker.”
“That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.”
She smiles properly then, small but real, and reaches for the bar with great personal suffering. “Fine. But I’m doing this under protest.”
“Noted.”
She takes two bites and chews with the expression of someone enduring a great injury. Garrett sits on the edge of the mattress and watches her because he’s become the sort of guy who monitors protein bar consumption with the intensity of a playoff game.
If Dean saw him now, Garrett would never hear the end of it. If Logan saw him, he would make a face and call it love in the most annoying possible tone. Tucker would probably approve, which remains devastating.
When she’s done enough that he decides not to bully the rest of it into her, Garrett sets the wrapper on the nightstand and kicks off his shoes. She lifts the blanket immediately, wordless, like she has been waiting for the exact second his hands are free.
“Oh, now you want me,” he says.
She gives him a look from under heavy eyelids. “I always want you.”
She attaches herself to him before he’s even fully settled, curling into his side with her cheek over his chest and one knee sliding over his thigh under the blanket. It’s clingier than usual, or maybe just less disguised.
Her hand sneaks under the hem of his hoodie, palm finding the warm skin over his ribs like she has been assigned a location and intends to remain there.
Garrett lets out a slow breath and wraps his arm around her, hand spreading between her shoulder blades. For a while, he just rubs up and down her back in the quiet, steady rhythm he knows she likes, over the thick cotton of his hoodie and the delicate line of her spine beneath it.
Her room feels softer now with the lamp low and the laptop finally shut, the whole anxious mess of studying pushed to the edges for at least twenty minutes. Outside the door, someone laughs down the hall. Campus keeps moving with absolutely no respect for the fact that Garrett Graham’s just aged six years over a glucose alert.
He kisses her hair. “Feeling better?”
She nods against him, slow. “Mhm.”
“Less weird?”
“Less weird.” Her fingers flex once against his ribs. “Just sleepy.”
“That’s okay.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I know.” His hand keeps moving. Shoulder to waist. Waist to shoulder. Again. “Just text me back next time.”
“I will.”
“And keep stuff by your bed.”
“I do.”
“Stuff you can reach without going on an expedition to the drawer drawer.”
A tiny laugh shakes against him. “The drawer drawer was perfectly clear.”
He smiles into her hair despite himself. “You’re lucky you’re cute when your brain’s offline.”
“My brain’s online.”
“Baby, you called me a bossy hockey bitch and then argued that blood sugar is a vibe.”
“It is a vibe.”
He tips his head back against the wall and lets himself laugh quietly, relief finally loosening properly through him now that she’s warm and fed and heavy against his side. “You’re impossible.”
She hums, pleased by that for reasons that are between her and whatever sugar is currently making its way through her bloodstream. “You love me.”
“Somehow.”
She pinches his side without lifting her head, weak but accurate. “Mean.”
He catches her hand under his hoodie and holds it there, thumb moving over her knuckles where they rest against his skin. “Yeah,” he says, softer. “I love you.”
After a second, she tilts her face enough to press a kiss to his chest through the hoodie. It’s barely a kiss. More a warm little contact. A thank you she’s too tired and too proud to make formal.
“Love you too,” she mumbles.
Garrett looks down at the top of her head, at the messy spill of hair over his arm, at the Dexcom app still open on her phone on the nightstand, the graph inching back into safer territory one small dot at a time.
His body still has the leftover adrenaline in it, the rink alarm echoing faintly somewhere behind his ribs, the ugly little flash of her not answering when he called. But here she is, tucked into him like she has no plans to be anywhere else, breathing warm against his chest, one hand under his hoodie and the other curled into the blanket.
So he stays. Practice can keep its exhaustion. His homework can rot. The rest of campus can do whatever people do when they’re not pinned beneath a sleepy diabetic girlfriend with a talent for making his whole chest feel like it has been bruised open in the best possible way.
He rubs her back until her breathing goes heavier. Every few minutes, his eyes flick to her phone. The number steadies. Climbs. Holds. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was still keeping.
Then, very softly, mostly because she’s almost asleep and because he likes saying things when she’s too tired to make fun of him properly, he murmurs, “Gonna start packing snacks in my hockey bag like a dad.”
Her mouth curves faintly against him. “Hot.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. Dilf behaviour.”
Garrett freezes, then looks down at her. “Don’t call me that when you’re half asleep after a medical incident.”
She laughs once, tiny and muffled and pleased with herself, and curls closer.
He shakes his head, smiling despite every effort not to. “Jesus Christ.”
“Snacks are hot,” she whispers.
“Go to sleep.”
“Bossy.”
He kisses her head again, slower this time, and settles his hand warm at the centre of her back. Her breathing has evened out, her body gone loose and trusting against his, the last of the low-blood-sugar fog giving way to real sleep.
Garrett stays awake a little longer anyway, watching the graph, listening to the hallway quiet down, feeling her heartbeat through the layers between them.
When the number stays steady, he finally sets her phone facedown, tucks the blanket higher over her shoulder, and lets his eyes close with his mouth pressed to her hair.
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pairing – garrett graham x figure skater!reader
summary – figure skating should not look like that, garrett decides. it also shouldn't involve another guy dropping his girlfriend.
warnings – figure skating injury, failed lift, pain, brief panic, jealousy, protective behaviour, strong language
notes from me – based on a couple of requests that i combined!! i hope u enjoy babes!!
word count – 4.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The problem, Garrett thinks, is that figure skating shouldn't look like that.
It looks too good. It looks like somebody took all the brutal, ugly, body-destroying parts of being an athlete and then had the nerve to cover them in clean lines and soft music and a little white practice skirt that keeps flicking up every time she turns.
It looks like balance and force and trust all disguised as something delicate enough that the idiots sitting beside him have started making wounded animal noises every time she glides past the boards.
Which is, obviously, not helping.
“She’s kind of insane, dude,” Logan says from Garrett’s left, elbows planted on his knees, chin tipped up toward the ice with the open, helpless awe of a man watching someone do something he understands is hard, but absolutely cannot personally replicate without dying.
Garrett doesn't look at him. Garrett is busy being mature. Calm. Supportive. A boyfriend who understands that his girlfriend is a collegiate athlete with a partner and a routine and years of training that existed before him and will continue to exist regardless of whether or not Garrett Graham’s lower intestine has decided to twist itself into a knot every time another man puts both hands on her waist.
“Yeah,” he says, flatly. “She’s good.”
Dean snorts from the other side of Tucker. “She’s good,” he repeats. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Garrett’s jaw works once. Out on the ice, she pushes backward into a clean, sweeping curve, one arm extended, the other caught in Avery’s hand.
Avery. Stupid fucking name.
Garrett has nothing against the guy as a person, technically, except for the obvious crimes of being tall, male, decent on skates, and currently in possession of his girlfriend’s hand while she looks like that.
He's probably fine. He'd introduced himself with a friendly enough smile, had called Garrett man in the harmless athlete way, had been polite to her, had checked the lift timing twice, hadn't done a single thing wrong besides existing in a category Garrett has recently decided is aggressive.
“She’s better than good,” Tucker says, because Tucker is nice and honest and willing to throw gasoline onto a very controlled, very internal fire. “That edge thing she did before? That was wild.”
“It’s called a bracket,” Garrett says automatically.
All three of them turn to look at him.
He keeps staring forward. “What?”
Dean’s grin arrives slowly, the way bad weather rolls in. “Sorry, Professor Blades. Didn’t know we were dealing with a scholar.”
“She tells me stuff.”
“Oh, I bet she does.”
Garrett finally cuts his eyes over. “You wanna finish that thought?”
Dean lifts both hands, delighted. “Nope. Not at all.”
Logan leans forward a little more, squinting through the glass. “Is this the guy you hate?”
“I don’t hate him.”
“You called him Pairs Boy for, like, two weeks.”
“That’s not hate. That’s identification.”
Tucker makes a low sound that is either agreement or an attempt not to laugh directly in his captain’s face. “He seems okay.”
“He’s fine,” Garrett says, and because the universe is committed to ruining him, this is the exact moment Avery’s hands settle firmly at her waist.
It's choreography. It's positioning. It's the same neutral athletic contact Garrett himself has done a thousand times on the ice, shoulder checks and glove taps and hands braced briefly on teammates during drills, bodies moving in proximity because sports are, unfortunately, made of bodies.
Avery’s fingers spread at her ribs and Garrett’s brain, which has survived championship pressure, Phil Graham, playoff overtime, and Dean Di Laurentis explaining the plot of a reality show with no women wearing full shirts, immediately becomes a smoking hole in the ground.
Dean sees his face and actually laughs. “Oh my God,” he says. “You’re gonna chip a tooth.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to challenge him to a duel.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You know he has to touch her, right?” Logan asks, which is such an obviously Logan thing to say that Garrett considers shoving him off the bench on principle. “Like, that’s the sport.”
Garrett turns his head very slowly. “Thank you, John. I had no idea.”
Logan grins. “Just checking.”
On the ice, she and Avery pick up speed.
That shuts them all up for a few seconds. Even Dean stops being Dean long enough to watch properly, because the room changes when she moves like this.
It isn’t the careful, slow, rehab-framed skating Garrett first learned with her, those early mornings when every lap felt like something fragile being carried across a room full of sharp corners.
This is different. This is closer to what she must have been before the injury took a bite out of her life and made her body something she had to negotiate with instead of command.
She’s still not reckless. Garrett can see the slight caution in her landings if he looks for it, the tiny guarded shift in the knee, the way she checks her weight for half a breath before trusting it fully.
He knows her well enough now to read the places other people would only call graceful. But she’s fast. Controlled. Her face has gone focused in that quiet, inward way that makes everyone else on the rink feel briefly less important.
Her hair is twisted back, pieces coming loose at the sides from exertion, cheeks pink from cold and work, mouth parted around her breath. The skirt moves around her thighs, pale against the black of her tights, and every time she extends a leg behind her the line of her body looks so clean it makes Garrett’s chest do something weird and unpleasantly sincere.
She's incredible. That's the other problem. The bigger one, maybe. Jealousy is stupid, and he knows it. The part underneath is worse.
The part where he watches her fly across the ice with another person’s timing stitched into hers and feels, not excluded, but confronted by the fact that there are whole languages of her body he's only just beginning to learn.
Avery lifts one arm. She takes it. They turn together, close enough now that their shoulders almost brush, her hand sliding to his forearm, his other hand at the back of her waist as he guides her through the entry into a spin.
Garrett’s fingers curl against the edge of the bench.
Dean, of course, whispers, “Thoughts and prayers.”
“I will bench you.”
“We’re not even playing.”
“I’ll find a way.”
Tucker’s mouth twitches. “You know she can see you through the glass, and you keep making that face.”
That, unfortunately, makes Garrett straighten his expression through sheer force of will. It's one thing to be jealous in the privacy of his own horrible little skull. It's another to have her look over and catch him visibly sulking because her skating partner is doing skating partner things during skating partner practice.
She would get that soft, amused little crease between her brows. She would try not to laugh because she’s nice, and then she would laugh anyway because she's less nice when she feels safe, which is one of his favourite things about her.
Out on the ice, the music shifts. Avery says something too low to hear, and she nods once.
Garrett recognises the setup before he knows the name of it. The lift is one they've been talking about all week. In careful little fragments she gives him when they’re lying in his bed or sitting in the dining hall with her knee tucked against his under the table.
Avery keeps rushing the entry. My timing feels off. It’s fine, it’s just annoying. Cam said I’m cleared for it, so don’t do your face. No, not that face. Garrett.
He does his face now without meaning to.
Avery’s hands settle. She bends her knees slightly, finding the rhythm. She looks tiny beside him for one ridiculous second, which Garrett knows isn't fair because she's not fragile, she's made of muscle and skill and sharp, quiet stubbornness, but then Avery’s hands are around her waist and she’s stepping into the lift and Garrett’s entire body goes tense in immediate, full-system objection.
“Jesus,” Logan mutters, not joking now.
For one second, it works. Avery lifts her cleanly, and she rises above the ice in this stunning, impossible line, one leg extended, arms reaching like the whole cold room has opened under her.
Even Garrett, in the middle of hating every single element of this, feels the breath leave him. She looks unreal up there, like every hard thing she's ever done to herself has learned how to look effortless for four seconds at a time.
Then the timing goes wrong.
It's fast enough that Garrett almost doesn’t understand it until his body has already moved. Avery’s grip shifts. Her hip drops half an inch. One blade catches air wrong, then ice, then panic flickers across Avery’s face in a way Garrett sees with awful clarity through the boards.
He tries to save it. Garrett will give him that later, maybe. The guy tries. His arms clamp, one hand catching at her side, but the lift has already fallen out of itself.
She hits the ice hard. Her shoulder takes too much of it, then her hip, the sound of her body striking the surface sharp enough to cut through the rink, and she slides several feet before stopping near the circle with one leg bent under her and one arm curled instinctively against her chest.
For half a second nobody moves, then Avery's on his knees beside her, white-faced. “Oh my God. Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Garrett's already over the boards.
He doesn't remember deciding to move. One second he's sitting with the boys, the next his skates hit the ice, and he's crossing the rink with the kind of speed that makes somebody behind him swear. The cold air tears at his face. His stomach has dropped so far through the floor it feels like it’s somewhere under the zamboni bay.
She's moving by the time he reaches her, which helps and also doesn't help at all. She’s rolled slightly onto her back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open around a low, annoyed groan that's very much alive and very much in pain.
“Fuck,” she says, small and furious. “Ow.”
Garrett drops beside her so fast his knees bite cold through the fabric of his sweats. “Hey. Hey, baby.” His hands hover for one tight second because everything in him wants to touch and check and gather, and the athlete in him knows better than to start hauling someone up after a fall like that just because his heart has decided to behave like an idiot. “Look at me. You good?”
Her eyes open. They find him, which helps more than anything else has so far. The first breath she takes after that is shaky, but it comes with a little grimace that's nearly a smile if someone is generous and afraid enough.
“Hi,” she says, like this is a normal location for him to appear.
His laugh comes out once, breathless and not remotely amused. “Hi. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Yeah.” She blinks hard and shifts her shoulder, immediately regretting it if the way her face pinches means anything. “Same.”
Avery's still crouched on the other side of her, hands hovering with the horror of a man who's just dropped another human being and may never psychologically recover. “Dude, I’m so sorry. I had it and then I– I don’t know, my grip slipped or the entry was–”
She turns her head toward him, eyes sharpening through the pain. “You told me you had it.”
“I thought I did,” Avery says, miserable. “I swear to God, I thought I did. I’m so sorry.”
This is a deeply inconvenient combination and he has no interest in processing it while his girlfriend is still on the ice looking small and pissed off and hurt enough that her fingers have curled tight against the front of her own practice jacket.
“Can you move everything?” Garrett asks, voice lower now, controlled in the way it gets when it has no other choice.
She gives him a look, faintly offended even from the ice. “Everything?”
“Don’t be cute.”
“I’m not being cute. I’m on the floor.”
“You’re on the ice.”
She rolls her eyes. “That feels like a technicality.”
Behind him, there's the scrape and scatter of hockey skates as the boys come closer but not too close. Tucker’s voice arrives first, careful in a way Garrett appreciates even while wanting everyone to shut up. “She good?”
“Give her a sec,” Garrett says without looking back.
“I’m good,” she calls, and then winces immediately because calling anything anywhere has apparently pulled at her shoulder. “Ow. Okay. Medium good.”
Logan makes a strangled sound from near the boards. “Medium good is not good.”
She lifts her uninjured hand in a weak thumbs-up anyway, because she would rather die than have a group of hockey players start treating her like a tragic little rink casualty. “All good.”
Dean, quietly but with feeling, says, “That was a fucking wipeout.”
Garrett shoots him a look over his shoulder.
Dean lifts both hands.
Garrett turns back to her. His palm has found her knee by then, not the bad one, not the one with all the old history in it, the other knee through the smooth chill of her tights. “Can you sit up?”
She nods once. “Yeah. Just… slow.”
“Okay.” He slides one hand behind her upper back, careful to avoid the shoulder she landed on, the other catching her hand. “Use me.”
Avery shifts like he wants to help too, and Garrett feels something ugly and immediate move through him before he can civilise it. She must feel it too, because her fingers tighten around Garrett’s and she says, softly but clearly, “I've got Garrett.”
It shouldn't feel as good as it does, considering the circumstances. Garrett doesn't smile, because he's not a monster. But something in his chest unlocks by one hot, stupid notch anyway.
Avery sits back at once, nodding too fast. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Garrett helps her upright with as little jostling as possible. Even so, her breath catches when her body comes vertical, a sharp little inhale through her teeth that goes straight under his ribs and turns his voice gentler by force.
“I know,” he murmurs, close enough that only she gets it. “I know. Easy.”
Her forehead nearly touches his shoulder for half a second. Not fully leaning, because they're still in the middle of the rink and there are people watching and she has pride in places that don't always serve her. But her weight tips toward him, just enough for his hand to firm at her back.
“Grazed,” she says after a second. “Hip and shoulder, I think. Maybe elbow. Nothing dramatic.”
Garrett looks at the angry red scrape already showing near the edge of her sleeve where the fabric has ridden up. “That looks dramatic.”
“It’s not.”
“You say that about everything.”
“I’m very brave.”
“You’re very concussed if you think I’m not taking you to the medic.”
“I’m not concussed.” She blinks up at him, and there's enough irritation in her face now that some of the worst fear unclenches in his spine. “My head didn’t hit.”
“Good. Great. Love that. Still getting checked.”
She exhales, then nods, giving in faster than he expected, which tells him it hurts more than she wants to say. “Yeah. Okay. Fuck, it hurts. What the hell.”
Avery makes a wounded sound. “I’m so sorry.”
She looks back at him, and the edge in her face softens slightly, not enough to let him off the hook completely but enough to keep him alive. “I know. I know you didn’t mean to.”
“I didn’t. I swear. I just–”
“But don’t tell me you have it if you don’t have it,” she says, quieter now. “I would’ve bailed out sooner.”
Avery’s face goes worse. “Yeah. No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
Garrett’s hand has settled more securely at her waist now, partly because she's upright and partly because his body has decided that if Avery’s hands can be there for choreography then Garrett’s hands can be there for literally all other reasons, including medical evacuation and personal sanity.
“Can you stand?” he asks.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Use me,” he says again.
This time, she does. Fully. One hand grips his forearm, the other hooks around the back of his shoulder, and Garrett rises with her slowly, keeping his stance solid beneath them both.
Her skates scrape once, finding balance. Pain flashes across her face and disappears fast, tucked away with the efficient misery of someone who has been trained too well in performing fine.
He doesn’t call her on it in front of everyone. He only bends his head close to hers and murmurs, “Don’t do that.”
Her eyes flick to him. “Do what?”
“Act fine for my idiot friends.”
That gets the smallest laugh out of her. It costs her. He sees that too.
“I’m fine-ish,” she says.
“Fine-ish gets you benched.”
“I already hate this relationship.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” she agrees, and the smile, tiny as it is, makes his chest hurt. “I don’t.”
They start toward the boards slowly, her weight tucked carefully into his side. Garrett matches her pace without making a production of it, one arm around her waist, his other hand ready in front of her in case she wobbles.
It's the slowest he's ever crossed this rink while this angry. Somewhere behind them, Avery's still apologising to the coach who's come over with a clipboard and the pinched expression of a woman already mentally rewriting half a practice schedule.
The hockey boys part like they're witnessing royalty or an injured woodland creature with blades strapped to its feet.
“You okay?” Tucker asks when they get near enough, his face open and genuinely concerned.
She nods, giving them another thumbs-up that is less convincing now but still valiant. “All good.”
Logan’s eyes drop to her shoulder and back up, wince already forming. “That was insane.”
“Very helpful review,” she says, breath catching at the end but her mouth quirking anyway.
Dean points at her, solemn. “I would like to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I did not know your sport was trying to murder you guys like that.”
She looks at him for half a second, then actually laughs, soft and pained. “What did you think was happening?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Sparkles. Vibes.”
Garrett would laugh if he weren’t currently busy hating the fact that she's leaning heavier against him with every inch they get off the ice. Instead he hooks his arm more firmly around her and guides her through the little gate to the bench area.
The second she sits, the composure slips by a degree. Her shoulders drop first, then her jaw loosens, then her eyes shut for one breath too long as if sitting down has given the pain permission to arrive properly.
“Yeah,” he says, already crouching in front of her. “Okay. Skates off.”
Her eyes open. “You don’t have to.”
“Baby.”
“I can do it.”
“I know you can.” He looks up at her from where he’s already reaching for the laces. “I’m doing it anyway.”
She stares at him for a second, then her face gives in first, softening around the mouth in a way that still seems to surprise her when it happens in public. “Okay.”
Garrett unties her skates carefully, working the damp laces loose with fingers that are still colder than he expected them to be. Her tights are scraped at one hip, a pale line of ice burn visible beneath the torn fabric, and the sight makes his jaw tighten all over again.
From somewhere above them, Dean says, “G, buddy, you look like you’re about to commit a rink crime.”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that today.”
Logan leans one hip against the boards, trying and failing not to grin now that the immediate terror has passed. “You know, for a guy who doesn’t hate Avery, you did kind of look like you were about to bodycheck a figure skater.”
“I still might.”
She snorts, then immediately presses her lips together and lifts one hand to her shoulder. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”
Garrett looks up fast. “Stop moving.”
“I laughed, Garrett. I didn’t run a marathon.”
Garrett slides one skate off and sets it beside the bench, then starts on the other.
His hands are gentle, but his mood isn’t, and she clearly knows it because she nudges his stomach lightly with the toe of her sock. “Don’t be mad.”
He glances up. “At you?”
“No.” Her eyes flick briefly toward the ice, where Avery's still standing with both hands on top of his head, looking like guilt has physically aged him. “At him.”
Garrett follows her gaze, then looks back down at the laces because his face has not yet been cleared for public use. “I hate that guy.”
She giggles, quick and helpless, then winces so sharply his hands stop. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” he says, standing at once. “Okay. No more giggling. Sit still.”
“You’re so bossy.”
He can't bite back his smirk. “You like it when I’m bossy.”
Dean makes a choking sound. Tucker immediately says, “Nope. We’re all walking away.”
“We’re in skates,” Logan says.
“Then glide away, bro.”
Her cheeks have gone pink, partly from pain and partly, Garrett suspects with a grim little flicker of satisfaction, from him. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m a little funny.”
“You’re jealous and annoying.”
“I’m emotionally injured.”
That gets her again, a tiny laugh she tries to swallow and mostly fails, one hand going carefully to her ribs as if holding herself still will make humour less dangerous. Garrett shakes his head, but his mouth betrays him.
“Seriously,” she says, quieter now, once the boys have drifted a few feet away under the very weak pretence of giving them privacy. “He didn’t mean to drop me.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I can know something and still want to punch it.”
Her eyes warm at the edges. “Very evolved.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You were watching like you wanted to climb through the glass even before I fell.”
Garrett peels off her second skate and sets it beside the first. “Was not.”
“Garrett.”
He looks up at her. She’s sitting there with one socked foot slightly tucked under the bench, practice jacket unzipped at the throat, hair escaping its bun in soft, sweaty pieces.
Her face is still a little pale under the pink of exertion, and there's a scrape blooming angry at her elbow now, and somehow she's looking at him with this small, fond amusement like his jealousy is ridiculous and known and maybe, God help him, a little liked.
He sighs. “Fine. Maybe I wasn't enjoying the... artistic integrity of the waist-grabbing.”
Her mouth curves. “The artistic integrity?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s part of the choreography.”
“I’m aware.”
“You know that?”
“I can understand waist contact.”
“Can you?”
“No,” he says. “But I’m being brave.”
Her laugh comes out softer this time, careful, and she reaches with her good hand to brush the back of her fingers over his cheek. It’s small. Barely anything. But doing it here, in front of the rink and the boys and Avery still looking like he might throw himself into traffic, makes something stupid and warm move under his ribs.
“My brave hockey boy,” she says, very quietly, almost teasing but not only.
Garrett catches her hand before she can pull it away and presses his mouth to her knuckles. “Don’t be cute. I’m mad at you.”
She blinks, amused. “At me?”
“For getting dropped.”
“I’ll try not to be so inconsiderate next time.”
“Good.”
“Maybe I’ll schedule the fall.”
“That’d help.”
She smiles, then it fades when she shifts her shoulder again, pain moving through her face in a duller, heavier wave. Garrett’s body reacts before his thoughts do. He straightens, one hand going carefully to the back of her head, thumb near her temple.
“Hey,” he says, softer. “No more jokes. Where’s it hurt worst?”
She exhales through her nose. “Shoulder. Hip. Elbow’s just gross.”
“Head?”
“No.”
“Neck?”
“Nope.”
“Knee?”
She pauses, and his stomach drops. Then she shakes her head. “No. Scared it for a second, but no. It’s okay.”
He believes her because she knows that part of her body too well to lie casually about it. Still, his thumb moves once near her hairline, and her eyes flicker as if the touch has landed somewhere bigger than the question.
“Okay,” he says. “We’re going to the medic.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. You think I’m sending you with Pairs Boy?”
Her mouth twitches. “He has a name.”
“I’ve chosen not to use it.”
“It’s Avery.”
“Mm.”
“Garrett.”
“What?”
“Say his name.”
He looks at her for one long second. “Fine. We’re not sending you with Avocado.”
She stares at him, then has to press her lips together so hard it nearly ruins him. “That's not his name.”
He shrugs. “Agree to disagree.”
Tucker steps forward at once, practical as ever. “Want me to grab your bag?”
She looks up at him, surprised by the immediate offer, then nods. “Please. It’s the black one near the far bench.”
“Got it.”
Dean points vaguely toward the hallway. “You want, like, ice? Not rink ice. Regular ice. Medical ice.”
She gives him a small, pained smile. “That would actually be good.”
Dean nods with great seriousness, thrilled to have been assigned a useful task instead of just standing there making jokes around mild trauma. “I can do that.”
Logan looks between them all. “What do I do?”
Garrett says, “Nothing.”
She says, at the same time, “Maybe tell Avery I’m not dead.”
Logan points at her. “On it.”
Garrett helps her stand, this time in sneakers because Tucker has reappeared with her bag and Garrett has made quick work of getting her feet into something that doesn’t involve blades.
She leans into him more openly now, one arm around his waist, her head tipping for one second against his shoulder when she thinks the boys aren't looking. Garrett doesn't tell her they definitely are. He only tightens his arm around her and lets her have the illusion.
As they start toward the hall, Avery calls her name from the ice, still pale, still stricken. “Seriously, I’m sorry. I’ll– I’ll text you later, okay? Or call. Whatever. Just… I’m sorry.”
She turns as much as her shoulder allows, Garrett’s arm still keeping her close. “It’s okay,” she says, then amends with a wince and a little honesty, “It’s not okay, actually, but we’ll talk later.”
Avery nods fast. “Yeah. Yeah, totally.”
Garrett feels her hand press once into his side, a warning without looking at him. Behave.
He looks at Avery and gives the tightest nod known to man. Avery, wisely, accepts that as mercy.
“You’re really jealous,” she says, softly enough that it isn’t quite an accusation.
Garrett lets out a breath and looks down at his hand. “Yeah.”
“It’s kind of stupid.”
“I know.”
“You know I have to do partner work.”
“I know that too.”
“And Avery isn’t–”
“I know,” he says again, then looks up at her properly because she deserves that much, even if it is embarrassing and he would rather be hit by a slow-moving Zamboni than have Dean hear any of it. “I know. It’s not about him. Not really.”
Her expression shifts, the teasing thinning into something gentler.
Garrett drags a hand through his hair. “I just hate watching somebody else be the one who catches you.” His mouth twists because that sounds bigger than he meant it to, but it's out now. “And then he didn’t.”
Her face goes very still.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “That was–”
“No,” she says. “No, I get it.”
“You do?”
She nods once, slow. “I like that you want to be the one who catches me.”
Garrett stares at her.
Her cheeks colour almost immediately, but she holds his gaze anyway, shy and sore and sitting in terrible fluorescent lighting with a scraped elbow and ice melt dampening one side of her tights, and somehow she has the nerve to look at him like that. Like he's something she trusts even when the day has literally dropped her onto a rink.
Then, because she clearly cannot survive sincerity for more than seven seconds without offering herself an exit, she adds, “Even if you’re being a psycho about waist contact.”
Garrett laughs, low and helpless. “I’m not being a psycho.”
“You called him Avocado.”
“Yeah, well.” He lifts his head, mouth curving despite himself. “He dropped my girlfriend.”
She softens again at the word. My girlfriend still does that to her sometimes, which Garrett has noticed and absolutely files away like a criminal. Her fingers squeeze his.
“Your girlfriend is okay,” she says.
“Your boyfriend is not.”
“Poor thing.”
“Thank you.”
“You should get him looked at.”
“Too late.”
She smiles then, small and lovely and a little wincing at the edges, and Garrett ducks his head just enough to kiss her. It’s careful because of the shoulder, because of the hallway, because the boys could come back any second with ice and concern and eleven jokes between them.
But it’s still enough. His mouth presses to hers once, warm and grounding, and she exhales into it like the day has finally found a softer place to land.
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pairing – garrett graham x reader
summary – garrett graham shows up with sex on his mind and gets introduced to a six-month-old in a duck onesie instead.
warnings – established relationship, fluff, garrett holding a baby, domestic softness, suggestive opening, teasing
notes from me – just a little blurb based on this ask!! someone give garrett graham a baby immediately.
word count – 3.8k
navigation – masterlist | taglist
The thing about Garrett Graham showing up at her apartment with sex clearly, tragically, heroically on his mind was that he didn’t know how to be subtle about it.
He thought he did. He thought turning up in grey sweats and a Briar hockey hoodie with his curls still damp from a shower and that one shoulder leaned into her doorframe counted as casual.
He thought the lazy grin, the lowered voice, the slow drag of his eyes down her body before he even got a full hello out, were all normal boyfriend behaviours and not, in fact, the sort of entrance that made her immediately aware of every inch of her own skin beneath leggings and an old sweatshirt with spit-up already drying near the shoulder.
He had texted twenty minutes ago. you home?
She had said yes.
He had sent back, good.
Which, in Garrett language, meant one of two things. Either he was hungry and about to arrive with enough takeout for three people, or he was in one of those post-practice moods where his body had not quite left the ice yet and all that leftover adrenaline needed somewhere to go.
Judging by the way he looked at her when she opened the door, hair messy, mouth curved, one hand already reaching for her waist like the rest of the evening had been mutually agreed upon by fate and grey sweatpants, it was very much the second.
“Hey, baby,” he said, warm and low, stepping inside before she could fully decide whether to warn him.
“Hi,” she said, and shifted the baby higher on her hip.
Garrett’s hand stopped halfway to her waist. His eyes dropped. For one perfect second, the great Garrett Graham, Briar’s captain, top-line centre, walking highlight reel, man who could read a defender’s shoulder from half a rink away and decide how to ruin his life in under two seconds, stared at the tiny six-month-old baby in her arms with the blank, careful horror of someone who had walked into an exam for the wrong subject.
The baby stared back. She had one fist shoved in her mouth, cheeks round and flushed from her bottle, dark lashes blinking slow and judgmental like she, too, had expected better situational awareness from him.
Garrett’s gaze flicked from the baby to her face. Then back to the baby. Then back to her. “Uh,” he said.
She bit the inside of her cheek.
His brows pulled together. “Did I… miss something?”
That broke her. A laugh came out before she could make it pretty, bright and helpless enough that Pippa startled, then smiled around her wet little fist like laughter was a game she had just invented and expected royalties from.
“No, idiot.” She bounced the baby once when Pippa’s legs kicked happily against her stomach. “This is my niece. Pippa.”
Garrett blinked. “Your niece.”
“Yes.”
“Right.” He nodded too many times, visibly reorganising the entire evening in his head. The door clicked shut behind him with his heel. “Yeah. Obviously. I knew that.”
“You absolutely didn’t.”
“I did.” His eyes dropped to Pippa again, his mouth doing something strange, not quite a grin yet, like he was afraid any sudden facial expression might commit him to childcare. “I just didn’t know she was gonna be… here.”
“She lives a very busy life.”
“Looks like it.” He leaned a little closer, cautious in a way she had literally never seen from him. Garrett Graham had taken hits from men built like refrigerators and grinned blood off his teeth. But faced with one damp, sleepy baby in a yellow onesie covered in tiny ducks, he suddenly looked like he was approaching an unexploded device. “Hi, Pippa,” he said, voice dropping into this awkward, overly polite register. “Nice to… meet you.”
Pippa took her fist out of her mouth with a soft pop and blew a bubble at him.
Garrett’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah. Cool.”
She laughed again, softer this time, because he looked so stupidly sincere about the whole thing. “Garrett, she’s a baby.”
“Okay, sorry I’m being respectful.” He shot her a look, then glanced back at Pippa, who had started patting her own chest with one open palm like she was applauding the conversation. “I don’t know her yet. I’m making a good first impression.”
“You came over to hook up and now you’re networking with an infant.”
“I’m versatile.”
“You’re scared.”
His head snapped up. “I’m not scared.”
“Babe.”
“I’m not.” He straightened a little, like the accusation had challenged his captaincy. “I’m just being careful. She’s tiny.”
Pippa made a happy little shriek at the exact same moment, startling herself so badly her eyes went huge. Garrett froze. She immediately shoved her fist back into her mouth and drooled down her wrist with the calm recovery of someone who had no idea she had just almost sent a six-foot-two hockey player into cardiac arrest.
Her whole chest went warm. Garrett standing in her entryway, still built for sex and hockey, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands because there was a baby in the room and the baby was looking at him like he might be interesting if he proved himself.
She shifted Pippa higher, the baby’s warm little body settling against her side, one socked foot digging into her thigh. “My sister’s anniversary dinner ran late. She asked if I could take her for a few hours.”
Garrett nodded, still watching Pippa like she might evolve in real time. “Right. Cool. Yeah. That’s cool.”
“You can go, you know,” she said, amused, because it was easier than admitting how weirdly sweet he looked standing there trying to adjust. “I know this probably isn’t what you had planned.”
His eyes lifted to hers at once, and the grin finally arrived, crooked and familiar and much easier to recognise. “Depends. Is she gonna be here the whole time?”
She stared at him. He lifted both hands. “I meant for hanging out. Jesus. Don’t look at me like that.”
“You had exactly one thought when you walked in.”
“I’m a man of focus.”
“You’re a man of grey sweatpants and bad timing.”
His grin widened. “You noticed the sweatpants.”
“I have eyes.”
He sucked at his bottom lip. “Good ones.”
“Don’t flirt with me in front of my niece.”
“She doesn’t know.”
Pippa squealed again, louder this time, and slapped her hand against the front of her sweatshirt hard enough to leave a damp little print.
Garrett looked at her. “Okay, maybe she knows.”
“She’s very advanced.”
“Clearly.”
She moved toward the living room, and Garrett followed, slower than usual, his bag dropped near the door, hands shoved into the front pocket of his hoodie like he did not trust them unsupervised. Her apartment had been fully taken over in the last hour by things that were not hers.
A soft blanket on the rug. A half-collapsed baby gym with dangling animals in colours nature had never intended. A bottle cooling on the coffee table. A diaper bag open on the couch, packed with enough wipes, tiny clothes, and unidentified pastel objects to suggest Pippa was planning a weekend away rather than a three-hour visit.
Garrett stopped beside the play mat and looked down at it. “She comes with gear.”
“She does.”
Pippa watched him over her fist, drool shining on her chin. Garrett watched her back. His mouth twitched. “She’s kind of staring me down.”
“She’s deciding if she likes you.”
“Important process. I respect it.”
“She usually likes everyone.”
His head turned toward her, offended. “Don’t say that. I wanna earn it.”
That got her again, the laugh catching lower this time, softer around the edges. She set Pippa down carefully on the blanket, one hand supporting the back of her head until she was settled on her tummy. Pippa made a small grunt of effort, immediately kicked both legs, and then began the serious business of trying to eat a cloth giraffe.
Garrett crouched beside the mat, forearms resting loosely on his knees, the size of him absurd next to all that baby softness. Big hands. Broad shoulders. Hoodie stretched over muscle. Hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked like someone had dropped a golden retriever into a nursery and told it to act natural.
Pippa lifted her head, saw him closer, and smiled so wide her whole face folded into it. Garrett went still. “Oh,” he said, quieter.
She felt the sound more than heard it, tucked under the faint hum of the dishwasher and the cartoonish crinkle of the giraffe toy. His face had changed. His eyes had gone a little softer, caught on this tiny person who had decided that he wasn’t a threat and maybe even funny-looking enough to enjoy.
“She smiled at me,” he said.
“She did.”
“Like, on purpose?”
“Probably.”
“Okay.” He nodded, trying very hard to look normal about this development and failing badly. “Yeah. She’s smart.”
“She likes the ceiling fan too, so don’t get cocky.”
Pippa drooled onto the giraffe. Garrett pointed. “Is that… fine?”
“That’s fine.”
“She’s eating it.”
“She’s gumming it. It’s made for babies.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the giraffe again, then at Pippa. “Carry on, then.”
She lasted maybe eight more minutes before Pippa decided the play mat was a cruel prison and began making the small, offended little sounds that meant she wanted to be upright, involved, and possibly worshipped.
She picked her up first, mostly on instinct, rubbing a hand over Pippa’s back while the baby huffed against her shoulder, warm cheek pressed to the collar of her sweatshirt. Garrett watched from the couch, elbows on his knees now, all that earlier awkwardness hidden under interest he was clearly trying to pretend was casual.
“You wanna hold her?”
The question hit him like a puck to the sternum. His eyes lifted. “Me?”
“No, the other enormous hockey captain in my living room.”
He looked at Pippa, then at his own hands, like he was reassessing whether thumbs were enough. “I mean. Yeah. I can.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I didn’t say I don’t want to.”
“You look like I just asked you to defuse a bomb.”
“That’s dramatic.” He sat up straighter, shoulders squaring. “Give me the baby.”
She paused. “Never say it like that again.”
He rolled his eyes, but there was a nervous edge under it that made her smile before she could stop herself. “Okay, fine. May I please hold Pippa, the baby, respectfully?”
“Better.” She stepped between his knees and shifted Pippa carefully in her arms. “Okay, put your arm like this.”
Garrett’s hands came up, big and hesitant. He had beautiful hands, which was an annoying thing to think right now, but also true. Hands that knew sticks and steering wheels and the back of her neck in the dark. Hands that could be careless with his own body but were suddenly so careful around Pippa that her throat did something strange.
“Support her head,” she said softly, guiding his palm under the baby’s neck. “Yeah. Like that. And this arm under her bum. There you go.”
Pippa transferred over in a warm, squirming little bundle, and Garrett’s whole body went rigid. Alert. The way he got before a faceoff, only if the puck had chubby thighs and one sock sliding off.
“Oh my God,” he said under his breath.
She laughed, one hand still hovering near Pippa’s back. “You’re fine.”
“She’s moving.”
“She does that.”
“Cool. Great.” Garrett stared down at the baby now nestled against the crook of his arm, his voice lowering like volume itself could destabilise her. “Hey, Pippa. We’re good, right? You and me?”
Pippa stared up at him, serious for one second, then reached out with one damp fist and grabbed the string of his hoodie.
Garrett looked at her. “Strong grip.”
“She likes strings.”
“She can’t have it if it’s dangerous, right?”
“Right.”
He immediately tucked the other string away with his free hand, jaw set in concentration. “No choking hazards. I know that.”
“Look at you.”
He glanced up at her, smugness making a brave return despite the fact that he was still holding Pippa like she was made of glass and university liability. “Told you I got this.”
“You’re sweating.”
“I’m post-practice.”
He carefully adjusted Pippa higher, the movement clumsy for half a second before his instincts caught up and his hold settled into something sturdier. The baby’s cheek turned into his hoodie. Her little fist stayed locked around the fabric near his chest, and Garrett looked down at her with such focused, faintly stunned attention that the joke waiting on her tongue dissolved before it could leave her mouth.
Pippa made a sleepy sound and rubbed her face into his chest.
Garrett’s eyes lifted to hers, quieter now. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. She cleared her throat. “She likes you.”
His mouth curved. “Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
“Smart girl.”
“She also likes licking table legs.”
“Still smart.”
She shook her head, smiling, and sat beside him on the couch, close enough that her thigh pressed into his. Garrett didn’t move away. If anything, he tilted slightly toward her, careful not to jostle Pippa, letting the baby’s weight settle between them like something neither of them had expected and both of them were, in their own ways, trying not to overreact to.
The TV was on low, some episode of a show neither of them was watching moving blue light across the room. The apartment smelled faintly like baby lotion and Garrett’s soap and the pasta she’d eaten standing at the counter before Pippa’s bottle because babysitting had made time weird and dinner had become whatever she could fork into her mouth while bouncing a tiny person with opinions.
Somewhere outside, a car rolled down the street with music thudding faintly through closed windows. Normal stuff. Little stuff. The kind of evening that would not have felt dangerous at all if Garrett didn’t look so unexpectedly right with a baby tucked into his arm.
She hated that, a little. The sweetness of it. The way it slipped under her skin without asking. Garrett glanced over and caught her staring.
His grin appeared immediately, soft and unbearable. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
“I’m just watching you panic.”
“I’m not panicking. I’m thriving.”
She laughed and leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, careful of Pippa between them. Garrett’s cheek tipped down for half a second, brushing the top of her hair. It was so absent, so automatic, that it made her chest tighten more than if he’d said something sweet on purpose.
Pippa’s eyelids started to droop. Her fist loosened in Garrett’s hoodie, fingers uncurling one by one. He noticed before she did. “She’s doing something.”
“She’s getting sleepy.”
His voice dropped even lower. “Oh.”
“You can breathe, babe.”
“I am breathing.”
Pippa sighed then, a full-body little sound that ended with her mouth falling slightly open against Garrett’s chest. Garrett went still again, but differently this time. Less fear. More wonder trying very hard not to show up as wonder because he was still a twenty-one-year-old hockey player in grey sweats who had come over intending to get laid and had instead been promoted, temporarily, to furniture for a sleeping infant.
His hand shifted carefully over Pippa’s back, one broad palm almost covering the whole of her. He rubbed once, slow, then looked at her for confirmation.
She nodded. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His mouth softened. He looked back down at the baby. “She’s tiny.”
“She’s actually chunky for her age.”
“She’s tiny,” he repeated, like this wasn’t up for debate, and there was something in his voice that made her stop teasing.
For a second, she wondered if he was thinking about his own family. Sometimes, when something gentle entered the room too suddenly, she could see the way he didn’t quite know where to put his hands around it. Like softness needed instructions. Like if he held it wrong, someone might blow a whistle somewhere only he could hear.
So she didn’t say anything too big. She only reached over and fixed Pippa’s fallen sock, tugging it back over one tiny heel, and let her fingers brush Garrett’s thigh on the way back. “You’re doing good,” she said.
His eyes came to her face. For once, he didn’t grin immediately. “Yeah?”
“Mhm. Natural.”
That made him huff. “Liar.”
“A little,” she admitted, smiling. “But you’re cute, and very brave.”
“I know.” His grin came back, smaller now. “Might put it on my résumé. Can hold one baby under supervision.”
She scoffed softly. “Barely.”
“Successfully.”
“For seven minutes.”
“Still undefeated.”
She laughed softly, and Pippa stirred against him, face scrunching. Both of them froze. The baby sighed and settled again. Garrett exhaled through his nose, triumphant and silent, like he’d just won a championship in not waking up infants. She had to press her lips together to keep from laughing again.
He looked at her, eyes bright. “Did you see that?”
“I saw.”
“Handled.”
“You did.”
“Captain material.”
She leaned into him a little more, her shoulder tucked against his arm, the warmth of him spreading through the old sweatshirt she was wearing. His body was still keyed underneath the stillness, all coiled athlete forced into gentleness, but his breathing had slowed.
Pippa’s small back rose and fell beneath his hand. The room seemed to soften around the three of them, domestic in a way she didn’t want to name because naming it would make it too real and maybe too much.
Garrett was quiet for a while. He didn’t rush to fill the space with some joke about her baby-trapping him or ask if this meant his original plans were permanently cancelled or make one of the million stupid comments he could have made to rescue himself from looking soft. He just held Pippa and let his thumb move, once, twice, barely there over the baby’s back. Then, very quietly, he said, “She smells good.”
She looked at him.
He glanced back. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking something.”
She smiled, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I was thinking you just discovered babies smell nice.”
“Well, I didn’t know.” He looked down again, faintly defensive. “I don’t hang out with a lot of babies.”
“Your loss.”
“Clearly. Pippa and I are boys now.”
“She’s a girl.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
He nudged her knee with his. “Don’t start.”
She smiled down at Pippa, asleep against the big Briar captain like this was a perfectly reasonable place for a nap. Her cheek was squished into the soft cotton of Garrett’s hoodie, one hand curled near his collar, one sock already trying to escape again. Garrett followed her gaze and, with great seriousness, adjusted the sock before it could fall.
Her stomach did something deeply stupid. His eyes flicked to her face, and the grin that spread this time was slow. Warm. A little cocky around the edges, because Garrett Graham could hold a baby for ten minutes and immediately become insufferable about it.
“What?” he asked.
“You look very pleased with yourself.”
“I am.”
“Because you’re holding a sleeping baby?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
“You were shaking when I handed her to you.”
“Yeah, and now look at me.” He nodded down at Pippa with all the confidence of a man who had survived one diaper-free interaction and was ready to write a parenting manual. “Growth.”
“She’s asleep. That’s mostly her doing.”
“Team effort.”
“Sure.”
His grin widened, then softened again when Pippa moved, tiny mouth working against the fabric of his hoodie. Garrett’s eyes dropped, and his hand stilled until she settled. He looked ridiculous. Gorgeous and too big for the couch and smug over the smallest possible achievement, with a baby asleep in his arms and his original plans for the night lying somewhere dead in the entryway beside his gym bag.
She leaned up and kissed the corner of his jaw.
Garrett’s eyes cut to hers, interested immediately despite Pippa, because he was still Garrett and there were some instincts not even a sleeping infant could fully neutralise. “Careful.”
She smiled against his skin. “What?”
“You start kissing me while I’m holding a baby, and I can’t do anything about it.”
“That’s tragic for you.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s one kiss.”
“Yeah, that’s how it starts.”
She laughed under her breath, and Pippa didn’t wake this time, only snuggled closer into Garrett’s chest like she had decided he was acceptable and possibly permanent.
Garrett watched her for a second, then looked back at the girl beside him, his mouth softer than his voice when he spoke. “So,” he said. “How long until your sister gets back?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Garrett.”
“What?” He looked almost offended, except his grin was doing too much damage. “I’m asking because I care about Pippa’s schedule.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“I’m deeply invested in her routine.”
“Her routine is bottle, nap, diaper, maybe scream at a lamp for no reason.”
“Sounds like Dean.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder to muffle the laugh, and Garrett smiled down at her, his hand still steady over Pippa’s back. For a while, they stayed like that. Pippa asleep. Garrett pretending not to be proud. Her tucked into his side with one hand resting lightly on his thigh, feeling the warmth of his body, the slow rhythm of his breathing, the tiny rise and fall of the baby between them. The evening hadn’t gone where he wanted. Not even close.
But when her phone buzzed twenty minutes later with a text from her sister saying they were on their way, Garrett looked down at Pippa, then at her, and frowned. “Already?”
She stared at him.
He shrugged, defensive. “What? We were hanging out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“You like her.”
“She likes me.”
“She’s asleep.”
“Exactly. Trust.”
She smiled so hard she had to look away. His knee knocked gently into hers, and when she looked back, he was watching her with that soft, stupid, dangerous warmth that always made her feel like she’d missed a step coming down stairs.
“What?” she asked, quieter.
He shook his head once, eyes dropping briefly to Pippa before coming back to her. “Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
“Yeah,” he said, and leaned in carefully, Pippa still asleep between them, to kiss her once. Soft. Quick. Warm enough to make her toes curl against the edge of the rug. “But you like it.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling when he pulled back, and Garrett, holding her sleeping niece like he’d been trusted with the Stanley Cup and maybe something more important, looked far too pleased to be proven right.
