These Wicked Obsessions

Name: These Wicked Obsessions
Author: Sophie Quinn

120 pages

Grey
When I got injured months ago, I thought it would be simple.
Rehab, Rest. Back on the ice.
Only that’s not how my life turned out.
No more traveling with my team.
No more drinks with the guys after a win.
No more hockey.
Now I’m stuck at home, bitter and broken, realizing the future I thought I’d have is gone. I know my anger hurts the people around me, but I just don’t care anymore.
About anything.
Then my sister hires Felix. He’s quiet and careful like he’s always walking on glass eggshells. I don’t want him here and I plan to push him away like everyone else.
I don’t need another witness to my worst days.
Felix is a mess from the start. He startles easily. Avoids my questions. He carries fear like a second skin.
Then the puzzle pieces start to fall in place and I don’t like the picture they’re creating.
Slowly my anger starts to soften. The silence feels less empty. More comfortable. My days feel survivable. My loneliness morphing into something else.
My injury stops feeling like a punishment.
These feelings are something I can’t fight. I don’t even want to.
With Oli and Andre’s wedding on the horizon, and Felix’s past refusing to stay buried, everything starts to unravel. The closer we get to happiness, the more it threatens to explode. I don’t know how to fix this, but I meant what I said to him.
No one gets to decide how he lives his life anymore.

Felix
This job isn’t a choice. It’s an escape.
When a caretaking job becomes available I know this is my shot. This job is temporary. Just get enough money to leave this state and disappear for good. It’s too perfect to pass up. A caretaking job in the middle of nowhere with free room and board.
Done.
I need the money and safety.
What I don’t need is a volatile hockey star angry at the world around him.
Grey is rough, stubborn, and terrifying in ways I understand too well.
As the weeks pass, Grey’s anger cracks. What’s underneath his hardened mask is a man mourning the life he used to have. He’s drowning in grief. I see the life he’s lost, and I want to help him rebuild it.
I know what it’s like to shrink yourself to survive.
We form a temporary truce and for the first time in a long time
I feel safe.
Seen.
I want him in ways I never planned, but my past is closing in and threatening the peace we’ve built. The fragile life I’m rebuilding begins to fracture.
I know how this ends. I knew he’d find me.
The only difference is this time I don’t want to run.
I want to fight.
I just don’t know if I can do it at Grey’s side.