See You at the Finish Line (Run, Love, Repeat #1)

26. Adam

I’m concentrating on Paige’s soft footfalls behind me. Neither of us is winded, and the pace is easy and pleasant on the paved path.

There is absolutely no reason for me to twist anything, but of course, I do. My bad knee buckles and the pavement breaks my fall as I feel the sting of scrapes up and down my arms.

I curse under my breath, feeling the heat of embarrassment creeping up the sides of my neck. It appears that falling in front of this woman is inevitable.

“Oh my god, are you alright?”

I’m on my side but feel her come to kneel behind me. When I turn to look at her, her brows are pinched, and her hands hover over me like she doesn’t know where to put them. She can put them wherever she likes.

“It’s my knee,” I say through clenched teeth. It really does hurt, and I can already feel it starting to swell. Shit.

“Can you stand on it? ”

Bracing my hands on the pavement, I push myself up to a seated position, my knees bent in front of me. Sure enough, my left knee is ballooning.

“ACL surgery?” Paige whispers, dragging a finger down the scar on my knee.

I feel her touch everywhere, and images of her in that yoga class flash through my mind. I had a hard-on the whole class and was grateful the instructor didn’t feel the need to correct my posture—he would’ve seen it all.

Like she realizes she’s touching me, Paige yanks her finger away. I want to grab her wrist and pull her back to me. I don’t, of course.

“Yeah, a long time ago.”

“Is that why you stopped playing hockey?” she asks quietly.

I start in surprise. Has she been talking about me at work?

She must see the shock on my face. “Julien gave me a rundown of everyone at the office when I was working on him,” she explains quickly.

I think that’s disappointment I feel sinking into my stomach.

“No, the ACL injury was before that. I tore it when I played rugby in high school.” Her eyes widen and the trace of disappointment in my gut ebbs.

I know what question is coming and don’t want to answer it, so I start to get to my feet. Paige reaches out and takes my elbow. Her hands are so soft on my skin. I’ll thank her job for that one, especially when I imagine those soft hands on other parts of my body.

My cock is paying attention and I cough, mentally scolding him. Now is not the time .

I wince as I try to put weight on my leg.

“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“No, I think it’s just tweaked.”

Paige rolls her eyes, a look Isabel has given me a thousand times when she thinks I’m being stubborn. Her hands leave my arm, and I wobble a bit until I can get my balance.

She puts those hands on her hips and looks at me so sternly. Fuck, she’s so cute when she’s mad. Like I didn’t need another reason to fall for her. Who am I kidding? I’ve already fallen.

“You’d rather risk permanent damage than carve out a bit of time to stop by the hospital?”

I laugh out loud. Americans.

“Going to the ER will take at least five hours, and that’s before I’ve even seen a doctor. We’d probably be there for eight hours. Plus, I’m 90 percent sure it’s nothing, and I don’t want to waste nurses’ and doctors’ time. This is not an emergency.”

“Eight hours?” I can see the shock written plainly on her face.

“If I’m lucky.”

“Damn.”

“Yes, but we won’t be bankrupt if we go, so there’s that.”

Paige snorts. “The taxes here take care of that for you.”

“Very true.”

She looks at me and it’s a battle to keep my eyes on her face. It’s not a hardship—she’s beautiful—but damn the athletic wear is hugging her in all the right places.

Her chest heaves with a big inhale, and I mentally high-five myself for keeping my gaze planted on her face .

“I live close to here,” she says, surprising me yet again. Before I can respond, and I don’t even know how I would, she keeps going. “You can come over and I’ll get you some ice. If the swelling doesn’t go down in an hour, I’m taking you to the hospital, deal?”

Easiest decision ever.

“Deal.”

Paige lives close to the path we were on, so it only takes about fifteen minutes of hauling ass, trying not to put too much weight on my knee. I’m so grateful her building has an elevator—I don’t think I could’ve handled taking the stairs. The confinement of the space on the ride up feels like a cruel joke.

She’s so close but still too far from me as she leans against the opposite wall. I noticed the tattoo right under the ridge of her collarbone underneath her tank top when she arrived at the yoga studio, but I wasn’t able to get a good look at it. Now that I’m closer, it looks like a trio of some kind of flowers. I want to get a closer look.

We make it to the fourth floor and hobble down the hallway. She stops in front of the door marked number nine.

I expect her to open it, but she just stands there.

“Alright, two rules,” she says, her voice firm. “First, no judging me. I didn’t know I’d be having company.” She looks at me to confirm. I nod. “Second, my dog doesn’t love other people in her space. She’s super happy to have people pet her when we’re out in public, but at home she’s a little territorial. ”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give Q her space.”

Something I can’t pinpoint flashes across her face before she turns and unlocks the door. I have to stifle a laugh because there is stuff everywhere. Clothes, shoes, and mugs of all different shapes and sizes are littered about the room. I can tell it’s clean under the clutter because there’s nothing on the floor. It’s piled on every surface in sight.

I want to facepalm myself because I think it’s cute. Just like everything else about her.

“Hey, no judging,” she scolds. I turn to see her pointing a finger at my face and realize the corners of my mouth have tugged up. I erase any emotion and raise my hands.

“Not judging, promise.” She narrows her eyes before tossing her keys in a big bowl-shaped mug on the console.

“Can you make it to the couch or do you need help?”

I don’t need help.

“Help would be good,” I say, not holding back my smile this time as she rolls her eyes and lifts my arm over her shoulders.

Well, this is information I didn’t know I needed. She fits perfectly there, and the urge to pull her down onto the couch with me is nearly overwhelming.

She guides me to sit and moves a pile of clothes off the coffee table, helping me prop my leg onto a fluffy yellow pillow.

“I’ll go get some ice and let Q out,” she says, not meeting my gaze. Are her cheeks pink? She’s probably flushed from the exertion.

I hear her rooting around in the kitchen behind me.

“Do you want a regular ice pack or a Cryo Cuff?” she calls .

“You own a Cryo Cuff?” I ask, not bothering to keep the surprise from my voice.

“A basic one. I also tore my ACL.”

“Does your knee still bother you?”

“Sometimes.” Her voice gets closer again, and I have to stretch my body to turn and look at her.

She rounds the corner, a giant hairy dog on her heels, holding a regular soft ice pack in one hand. In the other is a small blue cooler attached to what looks like a blood pressure cuff with a hose.

“The regular ice pack is fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She disappears again but only for a minute before coming to give me the ice pack and a clean dish towel.

She hovers, looking like she doesn’t know what to do now. Q comes over to sniff me so I put my hand out for her to smell—I wish I had a treat to give her. She backs away and disappears down the hall.

Eventually, Paige plops herself down on the other end of the couch, sitting cross-legged and facing me. She’s still in those damn yoga clothes. What I wouldn’t give to peel them off of her.

I clear my throat. “Thank you.”

She nods, her teeth scraping her bottom lip. Fuck me.

I have to change the subject. Anything will do. Otherwise my other head will be thinking for me and that’s never a good idea.

“My teammate slammed into me in what turned out to be our last playoff game of the season. Knee-to-knee contact. I shattered one knee, and the other was torn to shreds. Even after the surgeries and physio, I couldn’t perform like I used to and wasn’t signed again,” I blurt out.

The weight of it is still suffocating, even after all these years. It’s been at the forefront of my mind since returning to the NHL sphere as a coach.

“I’m so sorry, Adam.” She sounds so sincere I can’t bear to look at her.

Even with the burden of this on my chest, I shrug. I see movement from the corner of my eye and then feel her foot press against my leg.

When I finally meet her gaze, she’s staring at me with an expression I don’t understand. I guess communication needs to start somewhere.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper.

“I don’t know what to think. Everything I know about you, or at least think I know about you, is confusing.”

I’m the one confused now. “What does that mean?”

“It means two years ago I would have thought this was a possibility, you sitting on my couch on a Sunday. Except I would’ve thought we’d be closer. Instead we have this ... distance.” She gestures to the two of us and I know she means more than the space between us on opposite ends of the couch.

I could have reached out to her. I knew how to contact her. We both know I didn’t. And she could have found me online and she didn’t. I don’t know where that leaves us .

Thinking back over every reason I came up with not to contact her, it all seems so trivial now. I feel like an asshole. But I also know that a small part of me didn’t want to disappoint her.

“My dad was happy when I left the NHL.” I can’t take the words back now.

My words make her sit upright, disbelief crossing her features. “What?”

I nod. “He thought that as a pro athlete, I wasn’t contributing to society. So he said it was a blessing in disguise. He told me, ‘If life throws something unexpected at you, the path you were on was probably wrong,’ and I think that stuck with me more than I’d like to admit.”

Paige looks at me, nodding slowly as she pulls her foot away.