Afterglow

By: Ruby Rana

Fletcher
Nine years as a center on the Ottawa Regents and I’ve got nearly nothing to show for it. Sure, we won a few championships, but not recently. My teammates don’t seem to be bothered by the fear that we’ve peaked. They’re still leaders in the league and off the ice, and have adoring wives and beautiful children to come home to.

Me? I’m a failure to launch in both my career and love life.

These days, all I’m good at is getting lost in a book and admiring Behraz Irani from afar.

She’s a perfect, unreachable fantasy, a social butterfly with pure joy sparking in her bright eyes. Our paths often cross through mutual friends and the thought of speaking to her gives me heart palpitations.

But when she runs into me with her bike, it stops my heart entirely.

Behraz
Life seems to enjoy taking me for a joy ride after my family moves abroad. It’s bad enough that I drain my savings only to fail the bar exam three times, but discovering my academic woes are likely due to a newly diagnosed learning disability and ADHD, then getting evicted from my latest sublease is an unexpected double-whammy.

Then I go and maim the hottest player on my hometown’s NHL team: Fletcher Donovan.

I’ve given him a severe concussion and somehow, I’m the only adult available during his recovery. This isn’t how I imagined spending time with the man of my dreams, but desperate times call for desperate temporary housing, and living together is far from the worst thing that could happen.

In fact, it might be the best choice I’ve ever made.