I Was Never Yours: The Hockey Star's Regret

NOOR

The first time I wore that dress, I was eighteen and out of my mind.

The second time was my twentieth birthday, in the living room of my best friend's house, which Maren Brandvold had turned into a crime scene of balloons, bad playlists, and forty people I'd only half invited.

Maren and I had been joined at the hip since seventh grade, when she marched up to me in the lunch line and announced we were friends now because I had "excellent handwriting and zero fear." Eight years later, she was still five-foot-two, still loud, and still the only person who could make me laugh until I snorted. The Brandvolds were one of those families that looked unfair. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and gorgeous brown eyes that ran in the family. Maren got the dimples to go with hers. Her older brother got nothing soft to go with his.

"Noor!" Maren shoved through the crowd, glitter on her cheekbones, a plastic cup sloshing in her fist. She had never whispered in her life. "Your present's in my closet. Top shelf, behind the boot box. Go get it before I cry in front of everyone."

"You're already crying."

"I'm hydrating my feelings. Go."

I went. The dress was plum satin, tight across my ribs and hips, with my whole back bare. Did I wear it hoping a certain six-foot-four hockey player would choke on his drink? Please. I wore it because it made me look like a woman with her life together.

The choking was a bonus.

Anders Brandvold, twenty-five, center for the Duluth Wolves, and the reason half the girls at my university owned his jersey, had walked in an hour late in a black sweater with the sleeves shoved up his forearms. He stood a head above everyone, and the room rearranged itself around him without being asked. His eyes found mine across the crowd, brown and unreadable, and stayed a second too long. Then he crossed over, set his big hand on top of my head, and patted it twice.

Pat, pat.

"Happy birthday, kid."

Then he walked away, and I stood there with my scalp tingling like an idiot.

He'd done that since I was twelve and first slept over at his parents' house. I used to think it was the most condescending thing a human being could do. Lately I suspected it was the only way he let himself touch me.

The upstairs hallway was dim and quiet, the party reduced to a heartbeat under the floor. Maren's room was on the left. His was at the end, door open an inch, amber lamplight spilling across the carpet.

I'd have walked right past it.

Then I heard my name.

"Noor..."

It wasn't a call. It was low, rough, and broken in the middle, like it had been dragged out of him. My feet stopped on their own.

I should have kept walking. I know that. But my body had already decided, and I leaned toward the crack.

Anders sat on the edge of the bed, shirt gone, jeans undone, his head tipped back and his throat working. The lamp traced every ridge of his stomach and the old pale scar curving over his ribs. One hand braced his thigh, knuckles white. The other was lower, hidden, moving in a slow, tight rhythm I understood all at once, and the whole room tilted. He moved like he hated himself for it and couldn't stop.

And pinched between two fingers of his other hand was a photograph.

My breath ceased to exist.

I knew that picture. Plum satin, one hip cocked, my chin lifted in a dare. I'd taken it in my bathroom mirror at eighteen and slipped it inside the invitation to his twenty-third birthday dinner. No note, nothing, just a silent I'm not a little girl anymore.

He never said a word. Not at the dinner, not after. He kept patting my head and calling me kid, and I decided the photo had gone straight into the trash with the wrapping paper.

It was creased soft as cloth now. He'd carried it so long the edges had worn white.

His breath hitched. " Fuck, Noor."

My heart was a drum solo. I should have run. Instead I stared at the flex of his forearm, the sweat at his hairline, the muscles of his abdomen drawing tight, my brain, normally a chatty roommate, gone completely silent.

Then my heel shifted, and the floorboard let out a long, treacherous creak.

His head snapped up.

Those brown eyes, dark now and furious, slammed into mine through the gap.

I ran. Or tried to. I'd made it two steps when the door ripped open and a hand closed around my wrist like a cuff.

"Don't move."

"Anders, I—"

Footsteps hit the staircase. Voices, a laugh, someone coming up.

His grip changed. He yanked me inside, kicked the door shut, and spun me against it, one palm planted beside my head. The lock clicked. He shoved the photo in his back pocket and dragged his zipper up in one furious motion.

"What," he said, barely a breath, "do you think you're doing?"

The footsteps passed. A bathroom door slammed. Then there was only his breathing, harsh and warm against my temple, and the smell of cedar and spearmint gum.

I tried to duck under his arm. He closed the gap with his body, and I stopped.

"You want everyone down there to find us like this?"

"I didn't do anything," I whispered.

"Don't." His voice was a low rasp, and something in it made my knees go unreliable. "You wore that dress into my house, on purpose, knowing I'd see it."

"I came up to get Maren's present."

He let out a cold, quiet laugh. No smile. He never gave anyone the whole thing, just a tilt at one corner, as if his face were rationing it. "You saw what was in my hand, Noor."

I swallowed. "Yes."

"For how long?"

"Long enough to know you've been lying to me for two years."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I've been holding the line for two years. You're my sister's best friend. You're a kid who used to eat glue on my porch." His voice dropped. "And tonight you walk in wearing that. "

My eyes betrayed me. They slid down the sculpted wall of his chest, the dip of his hips, the dark trail disappearing beneath his waistband. My mouth went dry.

His fingers closed under my chin and hauled my face up.

"Eyes here." Rough and slow. "Nothing happens between us. Understand?"

"I'm twenty," I said. My voice shook, but I kept it on its feet. "I'm not that little girl anymore."

"You're still Maren's best friend."

So I did the stupidest, bravest thing I'd ever done. I went up on my toes and kissed him.

He turned his head. My mouth landed hot on the corner of his jaw, and he made a sound that wasn't quite a word.

"You've heard the rumors," he said into my hair, softly, the way you'd warn someone about a cliff. "I'm never short of women. I don't do fairy tales. I can't give a girl like you what she's supposed to want."

"I don't want a fairy tale." I made myself meet his eyes. "Right now, I just want you."

Silence.

He searched my face, back and forth, hunting for the lie. I stood there and let him look, my heart punching at my ribs.

"Are you sure?" It was barely audible.

I nodded.

His hand slid up my bare back, warm and slow, and settled at the nape of my neck. His thumb stroked once beneath my ear.

"Say it."

"I'm sure."

Something in his face gave way. He didn't smile. He just leaned down and said against my mouth, so quietly I felt it more than heard it:

"God help me."

And he kissed me.