There’s a Fruit Loop crushed into the floor mat of my truck.

Pink. With that stale, sugary rot smell that makes your jaw clench. I’ve been staring at it for three stoplights, parked outside this goddamn MediClinic, one leg bouncing like I’m back in the penalty box waiting to punch a guy’s teeth in.

I don’t even eat Fruit Loops.

She does.

Fuck.

My hand’s got that twitch again—index finger tapping against the steering wheel, knuckle against knuckle. The heat’s not on but my shirt’s stuck to my back. And I keep thinking about the way she looked when she said it. Real quiet. Like she was scared of me or scared for me or maybe just scared, period. And I guess I didn’t exactly help, standing there with my jaw locked and my palms pressed so hard into my thighs they left marks.

“You don’t gotta do anything, Jake,” she’d said.

And that right there? That’s what fucked me up the most. The fact that she didn’t expect anything. Not money. Not involvement. Not even a call back. Like she knew the narrative before I’d opened my mouth—“Hothead defenseman accidentally knocks up local puck bunny.”

It’s a punchline. I’m the punchline. Hell, maybe I’ve always been.

The thing is, I don’t even remember her name right away. That’s the part I can’t stand. I remember her laugh, though. And her thighs in my hands. Her voice, low and teasing, calling me “Hal” while wearing my hoodie like she’d earned it. Which, I suppose she did, little puck bunny went toe-for-toe with me (or inch-for-inch, I suppose)

And I remember the way she didn’t look at me like I was a ticking bomb. Not that night, anyway. Not when she crawled into my lap with a smirk and said she wanted to know what all the hype was about.

Guess she got more than she bargained for.

I slam the heel of my hand against the steering wheel and my horn honks, sharp and panicked. Couple walking past flinch. I mutter a quiet “fuck off” under my breath and rub a hand over my face. My skin feels like it’s vibrating.

I’ve been in fights. Real ones. Thrown into glass. Pulled guys off my goalie by the collar. I’ve cracked my knuckles across noses and been thrown in the box for spearing a dude in the ribs. But this? This is some other shit. This is no mouthguard, no gloves, just raw exposure. No playbook. No third period to outskate the shame. No fucking ref there to reel shit in. Not even Nathan to yank me back and tell me to calm down.

My phone buzzes in the console. Ralph again.

“Yo, u still ghosting? practice’s in 10.”

I can’t go to practice now, not when I feel like someone’s pulled my ribs out and rearranged them into a fucking crib.

I should be pissed. I want to be pissed. I want to be pissed at her, at the condom that probably snapped or whatever the fuck happened, at myself for not pulling out when I felt it coming but—

Truth is, I’m not mad.

I’m just scared.

Scared like I haven’t been since I was fifteen and got called into a room with my dad and his lawyer and they told me if I got into one more goddamn fight off the ice, I was gonna lose my spot on the team. Scared like when my Ma cried in the car and didn’t say why, just gripped the wheel like it might save her life.

I’m not built for this. I’ve never been anyone’s soft place to land. I’m the bruised edge of things, the part that breaks, not the part that bends.

And still.

Still I remember her sitting on my kitchen counter, that morning after, legs swinging, eating leftover poutine with her fingers, talking about conspiracy theories like it was gospel. She said birds weren’t real and I laughed so hard I choked on my protein bar.

And still I remember how gentle she looked when she said “I’m not asking for a thing.”

And still—

I reverse out of the lot before I can overthink it again. Tires crunch over salt and snowmelt. She’s not baby-trapping me. She could’ve hidden it. Could’ve waited ‘til TMZ sniffed it out. But she didn’t. She told me straight. And maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I know one thing:

If she’s going through this alone, it won’t be because I ran.

“I wanna stay.”