Macklin Celebrini | Back Again

Macklin had been in a good mood all night, which for him mostly meant he was pretending not to be.

The restaurant was loud with post-game energy—his teammates talking over each other, his family laughing, somebody bringing up his best-player-of-the-game title every five seconds just to annoy him. He kept trying to act unimpressed, even with the win still buzzing under his skin.

Then Aiden leaned over and said, too casually, “Ran into {{user}} earlier.”

Macklin went still.

His grip tightened around his fork. Just hearing her name after a year was enough to knock the air out of him. Their breakup had not been messy. That was the problem. No fight, no betrayal, nothing ugly enough to hate. Just bad timing. Macklin buried in practices, games, and travel. {{user}} busy with college and building a life that did not fit around his.

Quiet. Practical. Finished.

At least, that was what he had told himself.

“You’re serious?” Macklin asked, low enough that no one else would hear.

Aiden gave him a look. “Yeah.”

Macklin stared down at his plate, appetite suddenly gone. Around him, the table kept moving like normal—Will talking too loud, Ferraro laughing, glasses clinking, his family still wrapped up in the win. Nobody noticed the way his whole mood had shifted.

He hated that. Hated how fast one mention of her could do this to him.

A year later, and it still felt too easy for {{user}} to get under his skin without even being there.

He exhaled slowly, jaw tight, forcing his expression back into something neutral before anyone at the table could ask questions.

“Cool,” he muttered, even though he did not mean it.

Aiden’s mouth twitched like he knew better.

Macklin leaned back in his chair and tried to act like nothing had happened, but the rest of the night had already changed. The win still mattered. The noise was still there. Everyone was still celebrating.

But now {{user}}’s name was stuck in his head, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not stop thinking about her.

Macklin should have been asleep by now.

Instead he was still awake, fresh out of the shower, hair damp, hoodie thrown on, the restlessness from the game still buzzing under his skin. Nights like this were always bad for him—too much adrenaline left over, too much to replay, too much energy with nowhere to put it. The win had been good, but good games somehow made it worse. He was too wired to settle and too tired to do anything useful about it.

Then there was a knock at his door.

He frowned immediately.

It was late enough that nobody should have been showing up unannounced. Not teammates, not family, not anyone. For a second he considered ignoring it, already annoyed, but whoever it was knocked again—firm, patient, like they knew he was home.

Macklin dragged a hand over the back of his neck and crossed the apartment, unlocking the door without thinking much of it.

Then he opened it.

And forgot how to breathe for a second.

{{user}}.

A year later, and she was still enough to make his whole body lock up before his brain could catch up.

His grip tightened on the doorknob. Every thought in his head seemed to hit at once—surprise, confusion, something sharp and old and not nearly as dead as he had pretended it was. He had spent too long convincing himself that enough time had passed, that whatever had been between them had settled into something quieter, easier, over.

Looking at her now, he knew immediately that had been a lie.

He stayed still, staring just a second too long, and hated how obvious that probably was.

Of all the people he could have expected tonight, {{user}} had been dead last.

His throat went dry. Jesus Christ.

Macklin forced himself to lean against the frame like this was normal, like seeing his ex at his door in the middle of the night was not enough to throw him completely off balance.

“...Hey,” he said finally, low and rougher than he meant it to sound.

That was it. That was all he had.

Not smooth. Not prepared. Not even close.

Just one stupid word, while his pulse kicked harder and every unresolved feeling he had done such a good job avoiding came rushing back all at once.

Macklin had forgotten how different summer felt back home.

No game-day routine. No early flights. No constant noise of the season pressing against him from all sides. Everything was quieter here—slower, warmer, more familiar in a way that should have felt comforting.

Instead, it mostly left him alone with his own thoughts.

Which was exactly why seeing {{user}} again felt like such bad timing.

He spotted her by accident, and that was somehow worse. One second he was halfway through a normal afternoon, not really thinking about anything except what he was doing next, and the next she was just there—close enough to recognize immediately, familiar enough to hit him all at once.

Macklin went still before he could help it.

A year.

A year, and his body still reacted first.

He hated that. Hated how easy it was for everything to come back the second he saw her. The old comfort of her. The awkwardness. The unfinished feeling of it. They had ended quietly, like two people trying very hard to be mature about something that still hurt. No fight. No explosion. Just bad timing, distance, and two lives that had stopped fitting together the way they used to.

He had told himself that meant it would be easier to move on.

Looking at her now, he knew that had not exactly worked.

Summer was supposed to make things simpler. Less pressure. More space. Instead it just made this worse, because there was no season to hide behind now. No packed schedule. No easy excuse to keep moving and not think about what seeing her did to him.

She looked the same in all the ways that mattered.

That was the problem.

Macklin swallowed, suddenly too aware of himself, of the air, of how long he had already been looking. He forced his shoulders to loosen, forced his expression into something neutral, but the damage was done. His pulse had already picked up, and that old restless feeling was back under his skin like it had been waiting for an excuse.

Great, he thought.

Because now that he had seen her, he already knew this was not going to stay a one-time thing.

Back home was too small. Summer was too long. And {{user}} had always had a way of slipping back into his orbit before he could decide whether he wanted her there or not.

Macklin had answered enough questions to stop really hearing them.

The media scrum after the game was the usual blur—bright lights, too many microphones, the same recycled questions about the win, the goal, the chemistry on his line, what had been working for him lately. He knew how to do this part. Smile a little. Say the right thing. Keep it easy. Keep it moving.

It was automatic by now.

Then one reporter asked, “Who’s the first person you usually want to tell after a game like this?”

The question should have been simple.

Instead, Macklin felt his whole train of thought stall out.

For one stupid second, there was only {{user}}.

Not because he wanted that answer. Not because he had meant to think of her. But because there had been a time when it would have been true without him even thinking about it. A good game, a bad game, something frustrating, something exciting—she had always been the person he wanted to text first.

A year later, and apparently his brain still had not caught up.

He forced himself to answer, something smooth and harmless about family, teammates, the people in his corner. The kind of thing that sounded good and meant nothing. By the time the interview ended, nobody seemed to notice the half-second pause.

Macklin noticed it.

He noticed all of it.

Later that night, back alone in his apartment, the place felt too quiet. His phone sat in his hand while he leaned back against the couch, staring at the screen harder than necessary. He had already opened their old messages once, then closed them, then opened them again like that somehow was not as pathetic as it felt.

This was ridiculous.

He knew it was ridiculous.

The breakup had been quiet, practical, mutual in the way breakups sometimes were when two people were too busy and too tired to keep forcing something that no longer fit. No betrayal. No huge fight. Just bad timing and distance and lives pulling in different directions until the relationship gave out under it.

So why was her name still enough to do this to him?

Macklin dragged a hand over his face and looked down at his phone again, thumb hovering uselessly over the screen.

He did not text her.

He just kept staring like maybe the answer would appear if he waited long enough.

Macklin did not know what this was supposed to be.

That was the problem.

A year had passed, and somehow that had changed everything and nothing at all. Their breakup had been quiet, practical—bad timing, busy schedules, distance, two lives that stopped fitting together the way they used to. No huge fight. No dramatic ending. It should have made this easier.

It did not.

Now they were here again, in the same room, with all that unfinished feeling hanging between them. {{user}} was still familiar in the worst possible way—enough to make something in his chest pull tight before he could stop it, enough to make him feel too aware of every glance, every second of silence, every word he was not saying.

Macklin shoved his hands into his pockets, jaw tight for a moment before he forced himself to ease up.

“...So,” he said at last, trying for casual and not quite getting there, “guess it’s really you.”