Novels by Shaiyhah

My fingers hover over the knob and I feel his heat radiating through the wood, like the door itself is alive and waiting. I turn it slowly, slip inside, and ease it shut behind me without a sound.Vincent was standing in the middle of the small room, sleeves rolled to his elbows, top two buttons of his shirt undone. The overhead light is off, only the vanity bulbs glow, throwing shadows under his jaw and along the sharp edge of his collarbone. He looks like he’s been waiting an eternity and five seconds at once, with the same calm, ravenous hunger in his eyes.“You came,” he says, voice low and rough.“I said I would.”He takes one step forward and his mouth crashes into mine before I can speak, before guilt can catch up. The kiss is hard and desperate, tasting faintly of the scotch he must have finished downstairs after everyone went to bed. My hands slide up his chest, fingers twisting into his shirt, pulling him closer even as my brain screams to stop.He backs me against the sink,

Three years.That’s how long I let Vincent ruin me, one stolen moment at a time.It didn’t stay confined to our family home for long. Once we crossed that line, the hunger grew teeth. We became experts at lies, small ones at first, then bigger, more elaborate. He’d tell Laura he had a late client meeting. I’d say I was studying at the library or crashing at a friend’s. We’d meet in places that felt safe because they were anonymous, like cheap motels on the edge of town, his car in deserted parking lots, once even the back room of a bar during a weekday afternoon when no one was looking.Every encounter left me higher and lower than the last.The first year was raw need... we couldn’t get enough. He’d show up at my off-campus apartment with takeout as an excuse, and we’d devour each other instead of the food. He’d push me onto the kitchen counter, scatter my notebooks, hike my skirt up and take me hard and fast while I bit his shoulder to stay quiet. My roommate was usually in class, b

I didn’t sleep that night.Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his mouth on me again, the slow drag of his tongue, the way his fingers had curled inside me, the low growl of satisfaction when I came apart. My body still hummed with it, traitorous and alive in a way it had never been before.By morning, I was a wreck so I stayed in my room as long as I could, pretending to unpack, scrolling mindlessly through my phone... just anything to avoid going downstairs. But the loud rumble in my stomach forced me out.The kitchen smelled like coffee and bacon. Laura was at the island in her old college sweatshirt, hair piled on top of her head, laptop open. Vincent sat beside her, one arm draped casually over the back of her chair, scrolling through something on his tablet.They looked perfect together... Happy. My stomach twisted.“Morning, sleepyhead,” Laura said without looking up. “There’s coffee.”Vincent’s eyes lifted to mine. Just a calm glance like last night had been a dream.I poured

I was nineteen when Vincent first touched me, and I’ve never forgiven myself for letting him.I’d just finished my first semester of college with nineteen credits, two all-nighters a week, and a newfound ability to drink black coffee without flinching. The drive home had been long, rain-slicked highways and holiday traffic crawling north. By the time I pulled into the driveway, every muscle ached, and all I wanted was silence, a shower, and my own bed.But the house felt different the moment I stepped inside. It was a bit too quiet.My parents were away at a weekend conference in the city, some banking retreat Dad couldn’t skip. Laura had texted earlier, “crashing early. Thesis kicked my ass. Vincent’s coming over to help me finish edits. Don’t wait up, baby sis.”I wasn’t even planning to.I dropped my duffel in the foyer, kicked off my wet boots, and headed upstairs. The hallway was dark except for the faint glow under Laura’s door, probably her desk lamp. She’d always been the resp

I searched for the right words. The captain words. The best-friend words. They all felt inadequate. “You’ve never fucked up anything important. Not once. Remember when we were ten and that travel tournament? You stonewalled three penalty shots in the final. Whole team called you Wall Nora for a month.”A small smile tugged at her lips. “You cried when we lost the one before that.”“I did not cry. It was sweat.”“Sure, Ellis. Whatever you say.”The banter felt good but it faded too quick. She leaned against her car, staring at the rink building like it held answers. “It’s not just fucking up on the ice, Jordan. What if I go and it’s… different? What if the program’s too fast, too intense? What if I leave and everything here changes?”Everything here. Meaning the team. The rink. Us.I stepped closer without thinking, close enough that I could see the faint freckles across her nose that only showed up under certain lights. “Then we adapt. Like we always do. New lines, new plays. You make

Jordan The whistle cut through the air like a blade on fresh ice, sharp and final. Coach Rimer stood at center ice, clipboard tucked under one arm, his face the usual mask of mild disappointment mixed with something that might have been calculation. Practice had been brutal today, full contact drills, power play setups, and suicide sprints that left half the team sucking wind by the third round. My legs burned, but it was the good kind of burn, the one that reminded me why I loved this game even when it tried to break me.“Ellis!” Coach barked. “Center the next rush. Let’s see if that A means anything yet.”I nodded, tapping my stick on the ice twice, our team’s old signal for “got it” and skated back to the face-off dot. The guys were scattered across the neutral zone, jerseys soaked with sweat despite the cold. Danny lined up on my wing, grinning like an idiot even though his face was red from the last sprint. Cho took the other side, quiet and focused as always. And back in net, N

Nora The goal crease felt smaller tonight.Not because the net had changed size, same six-by-four rectangle it had always been but because everything else was expanding. The scholarship email sitting unread in my inbox since yesterday. The new drills Coach K had sent over, full of clips from D1 goalies who made it look effortless. And Jordan’s last text still glowing on my lock screen like a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.You’re the best goalie I’ve ever seen.He always said things like that. Simple. Certain. Like the ice itself. But tonight, after two hours of solo work under the dim practice lights, certainty felt like something that belonged to other people.I dropped into a butterfly stance again, pads creaking, and visualized the shooter coming down the wing. Glove high. Blocker ready. Eyes on the puck, not the player. The puck hit my chest protector with a dull thud and bounced away. Another save. Another reminder that muscle memory could only carry me so far when my head

Jordan The thing about getting the A is that it doesn’t feel like you think it will. In my head it was supposed to be this big moment... fireworks, maybe a slow-motion skate under the lights, Coach clapping me on the shoulder while the guys cheered. Reality was quieter. Just Coach’s flat voice in an empty locker room and the sudden weight of responsibility I wasn’t sure I was ready to carry.I drove home with the text thread to Nora still open on my phone. Her excitement had been loud and immediate, the way she gets when something good happens to someone she cares about. It made the whole thing feel more real.But now it was Thursday night, two days later, and the season was starting to feel like more than just hockey. Practices were ramping up. Schedules were tightening. And Nora had been… distant. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Just small things. She stayed later after our joint sessions. Her texts took longer to come back. That thing we do where we can read each other’s si

We sat for probably an hour. At some point he said, 'You want to talk about it?' I said no. He said, 'Okay.' And that was the whole conversation.The thing is, I've had people sit with me before. Priya has sat with me. My parents have. It's not like Jordan invented sitting with someone. But there was something about the way he did it. No agenda. No discomfort with the silence. Just completely, quietly, unreservedly there.I looked at him at some point... sideways, he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at nothing in particular and I thought: oh.Oh, that's what this is.And then I thought: well, that's inconvenient.And then the academy offer came in July and 'inconvenient' became the understatement of my entire life.'Tell me about him,' Priya said. 'Like, actually. Not the best-friend version. The real version.'I looked at the ceiling. 'Why?''Because you never do. You talk about Jordan the teammate and Jordan the friend and Jordan who said a funny thing, but you never actually ta

— Nora —The thing about being a goalie is that everyone thinks it's a lonely position.That's true. Because yes, technically, while the other ten members of your team are out there doing things at the other end of the ice, you're standing at one end all by yourself, trying to be the last line of defense from whatever might shoot at you. So, yeah, sure.But they don't really get that goalies see everything. They have to. While the other players are focused on where the puck is going to go, the goalie has to focus on not only the puck but on the players, the angles, the empty spots, and about fourteen other things all at once. You can see the entire ice rink. The goalie sees everything that's happening even before it happens.Which is helpful when playing hockey.Sometimes, less so off the ice.I was sure of my feelings towards Jordan Ellis somewhere around two years, four months, and some days ago. But what I didn't know is when exactly my feelings had changed, because now I know and