Unbound, p.1
Unbound, page 1
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Unbound
“Devastating and romantic. Corinne stuns with unparalleled storytelling. Unbound takes you through the quiet pull of two souls finding their way back to each other.”
—Bal Khabra, USA Today bestselling author
“Unbound is a richly emotional, utterly devastating, and deeply sexy hockey romance that hooks you from the very first page. Corinne crafts Bennett and Paloma expertly, making for complex, genuine characters with layers upon layers that are a pleasure to sift through. Graceful, honest, and filled with warmth—to say I couldn’t put this book down would be a grave understatement.”
—Kate Golden, USA Today bestselling author of If Not for My Baby
“Peyton Corinne is one of my favorite new voices in romance. Unbound is another tenderly crafted, angsty coming-of-age story, polished off with a well-earned happily ever after I believe in.”
—Tarah DeWitt, USA Today bestselling author of Left of Forever
“Peyton Corinne is the QUEEN of angsty romance! Unbound is emotional, tender, and sexy as hell, with two people at the heart of it who are undoubtedly meant for each other. Bennett made yearning his full-time job—I’m talking scream-into-your-pillow, curl-up-in-a-ball levels of astronomical longing to the point of pain (in the very best way). As usual, Corinne handles the book’s heavier themes with beautiful care, reminding us that we all deserve a soft, ocean-deep love.”
—Jessica Joyce, USA Today bestselling author
“Unbound is one of the most devastating and healing second-chance romances I’ve ever read. Peyton Corinne writes with a rare emotional precision… honoring trauma, love, and the slow, imperfect work of recovery without ever rushing it. Paloma and Bennett’s journey back to each other is raw, messy, and breathtakingly earned, built on patience, devotion, and the quiet courage it takes to keep choosing someone. This book doesn’t promise that love fixes everything, but instead shows how the right love can make surviving feel possible. Utterly unforgettable!”
—Chip Pons, author of Winging It with You
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To the ones who had to put on armor every day, no matter how heavy it was or how much it hurt— this one is for you.
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean—
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
—“DEVOTION” BY ROBERT FROST
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is very special, near and dear to my heart. In these pages you will find a beautiful romance between two people who deserve the world. You will also find a few serious topics discussed.
Bennett Reiner, one of the main characters in Unbound, is autistic and deals with diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. He has been in therapy since he was a child for both. During the formation of his character and throughout every draft of this book, I was able to work with Monica Rush, PsyD, on every facet of him as well as the on-page therapy scenes, in hopes to give the most accurate depiction I could. I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Rush for her guidance in every little piece. My hope is that the grace with which I approached this character allows many of you to see yourselves reflected in him. For any reader to see themselves in one of my characters is so often my greatest hope in writing.
And while my books are always romantic, there may be some themes that are triggering for some readers. If you feel trigger warnings are spoilers or do not need them, please skip the next paragraph.
This book contains on-page depictions of obsessive thought spirals, compulsive acts, and panic attacks. There are mentions and discussions of childhood trauma, child neglect, sexual abuse, and grooming of a minor.
Be kind to your brain, friends.
PLAYLIST
Love Letter from the Sea to the Shore • Delaney Bailey
World Spins Madly On • The Weepies
Doing Fine • Eliza McLamb
Garden Song • Phoebe Bridgers
Like Real People Do • Hozier
Picking Flowers • Boy In Space
The Prophecy • Taylor Swift
Cutting My Fingers Off • Turnover
Flight Risk • Tommy Lefroy
the lakes • Taylor Swift
I Don’t Like My Mind • Mitski
Fuck Me Eyes • Ethel Cain
We Hug Now • Sydney Rose
Satellite • Harry Styles
Hold My Name • Ocie Elliott
Big Black Car • Gregory Alan Isakov
Cinnamon Girl • Lana Del Rey
Funeral • Phoebe Bridgers
when the party’s over • Billie Eilish
Feels Like • Gracie Abrams
Sailor Song • Gigi Perez
Beach Baby • Bon Iver
Tonight You Are Mine • The Technicolors
Rosyln • Bon Iver, St. Vincent
If U Love Me Now • MUNA
Crystal • Stevie Nicks
Rockland • Gracie Abrams
back to friends • sombr
Hearing Damage • Thom Yorke
Words • Gregory Alan Isakov
You’re the Only Good Thing in My Life • Cigarettes After Sex
With Or Without You • U2
Sullen Girl • Fiona Apple
Unknown/Nth • Hozier
Lust for Life • Lana Del Rey ft. The Weeknd
S P E Y S I D E • Bon Iver
We’ll Never Have Sex • Leith Ross
Each Coming Night • Iron & Wine
Decimal • Novo Amor
anything • Adrianne Lenker
At The Beach, In Every Life • Gigi Perez
Sky Blue and Black • Jackson Browne
would’ve been you • sombr
Alright • Keaton Henson
Rivers In Your Mouth • Ben Howard
Let’s Talk About Your Hair • Have Mercy
Silver Spoon • Erin LeCount
What Was I Made For? • Billie Eilish
champagne problems • Taylor Swift
lover’s grip • Them & I
Can’t Deny My Love • Brandon Flowers
Gibson Girl • Ethel Cain
How to Disappear Completely • Radiohead
Bones • Ben Howard
Little Freak • Harry Styles
Cherry • Lana Del Rey
Paris • Taylor Swift
Old Pine • Ben Howard
Strangers • Ethel Cain
not a lot, just forever • Adrianne Lenker
runnning in place at the edge of the map • Runnner
Movement • Hozier
Me & My Dog • boygenius
Let Down • Radiohead
True Blue • boygenius
The City and the River • The Rescues
You Are in Love • Taylor Swift
PROLOGUE
THREE MONTHS AGO: Senior Year, October
Bennett
It’s late and the party is a little overwhelming, but the beer I’ve had is slowly taking the edge off.
We won our game—hard fought, but a great win. Rhys, my best friend and our captain, has already disappeared with Sadie, his new girlfriend, up the stairs, while I meander through the irritatingly messy kitchen for another one of my carefully stashed IPAs.
“She’s so far gone,” someone mutters, stepping up beside me in the mostly empty kitchen. “But that’s usual for Paloma.”
The name works down my body like an ice cube slipping across my spine.
Paloma.
I clench my fist tight, putting the beer back in the fridge and closing the door with a stiff shake of my head. I don’t hear another word before I’m answering a call for help that she didn’t make, shoving through sweat-damp bodies and out the back door.
“Hey, Ben—”
I ignore Holden, a kindhearted defenseman from the first line, and edge around him until I spot her. Her head is lulling into her hands. Bright blond curls cascade in a tangle to cover her face.
We don’t usually do this, both accustomed to hiding our history from those around us, but there will never be a day I’ll let her hurt or suffer. The way I feel about Paloma Blake is both a leash around my heart and a noose around my throat, threatening me in every capacity.
“Hey, P,” I try, dropping to my knees in front of her. “You okay?”
Brushing back tendrils of blond, I meet her half-lidded brown eyes, my stomach in knots.
“Bennett,” she breathes, almost in wonder. Like seeing me before her is something divine.
“Let me take you home,” I whisper, body hunched to not frighten her, but shoulders hiked to block her from view as much as I can manage.
She shakes her head slowly, her plump bottom lip sticking out in a pout.
“I don’t want to go.”
A sigh works from my mouth, and I start to stand back up. Paloma’s hand reaches for me, scrambling fingers latching onto my belt loop.
“Don’t go,” she whispers, her hand flat against the fabric of my pants. Heat emanates from my face, but I bend back down to her level in the chair.
“The n let me take you upstairs.”
“I thought you said I couldn’t sleep with you anymore.” She hiccups, eyes watery, pupils blown. Her fingers move gently, grasping at my waistband.
“I changed my mind. C’mon, P.” I scoop her up and carry her inside. Halfway up the stairs, she grasps my shirt.
“Wait,” she says, so quiet I almost don’t hear her. “I don’t wanna sleep yet.”
My brow furrows. “Why not?” She shakes her head, eyes dropping. “Nightmares again?”
“Yeah.” Her soft admission brushes over my skin. I seat us on the stairs, far enough up that we’re mostly covered in the shadowed lighting of the second floor.
“We can just sit for a little then. People watch.” Paloma smiles gently at me, and I can’t help the matching grin that slips out. “Lay down if you want, P.”
She slips her head onto my lap, and my hand combs the tangles from her difficult, hair-sprayed style. Slow and attentive, I smooth the strands.
It’s much later, the party finally dwindling to nothing, when I finally maneuver her up into my arms, carrying her bridal-style up the rest of the stairs and into my room. Mere seconds after I’ve laid her down on the bed, my black lab, Seven, is whining and pressing his nose into her hair, her shoulder, anything he can reach from his patient position on the floor.
“Shh.” I bat him away slightly, but Paloma’s lips move into a gentle grin as she reaches blindly for him.
“My baby,” she mutters, and my mouth hitches into a bright smile. “C’mere, Seven.”
He doesn’t wait for my permission before hopping up into her arms to loll his head next to hers.
My dog is loyal to a fault, has protected her from the first day he met her. When I first started coming home without her, Seven whimpered and whined, echoing my own grief of it all. He still whines at least once when I show up at home without her.
Now, his tail wags happily as he snuggles into her on the bed.
“Did you want a shower, P?”
She shakes her head, eyes half lidded as she gazes up at me. “Too tired.”
I comb back a few strands of her hair, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Her fingers lazily graze the sides of my jaw where I’ve recently shaved.
“Sometimes I think you’re not real,” she murmurs, soft and sleepy. “That I dreamed you up.” Her brown eyes are burning, almost distraught as she takes me in. I feel like I’m losing her in real time, so I sink into the mattress and tighten my arms around her.
As if that might keep her here.
As if that might make her mine again. How it’s supposed to be.
The soft glow of the lamp dances over Paloma’s face as she drifts to sleep.
Once, she’d told me she didn’t like total darkness. “I don’t like finding my way in the dark,” she’d admitted softly, shrinking in on herself. “Like when I turn off the light and it’s too dark and my eyes haven’t adjusted. I just… I don’t like not being able to tell where I am.”
Now, I always keep it on for her, an amber hue to everything in my simple room. It won’t be long before she rouses, usually frightened at first, and then hungry when she realizes she’s here, safe with me.
It’s our routine now. It hurts, but I worry it would hurt infinitely worse to not know if she was okay.
To always be wondering.
So, for now, this is enough. I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give—even if it’s only this, forever.
CHAPTER 1
NOW: Senior Year, January
Bennett
“Sometimes I think you’re not real,” she whispers, her hands tracing my jaw lightly, brown eyes burning enough that my throat catches. “That I dreamed you up.”
Then she opens her mouth again. She’s asking me something—begging me—but her words are silent screams and no matter how much I plead, I can’t hear her.
I feel a little like I want to cry, enough that my hand reaches up to rub at my eyes.
Water—not tears.
The harsh spray of the shower turns painful. My focus shifts to the soap suds sliding down my body to swirl into the drain, shaking me from the memory.
She’s not here. I’m alone. Again, I remind myself, a harsh but necessary mantra.
I’m in the shower. She’s not here.
I’m in the shower and she is gone. Remember.
I press my hands to the tile, breathing harshly as I try to center myself. I count the scattered black squares amongst the gray tiles again, then reach for my body wash again—despite how inflamed my skin is from the steaming hot shower I’ve been standing in too long already.
It’s the only way to make the vision of her disappear.
Today is a game day, which means I need to get back into my routines before something completely derails my focus.
I pull on gray sweats and a Waterfell athletic tee, then let Seven meander to the door as I fold down my sheets and set my hockey bag by my desk, my lucky sweatshirt folded perfectly atop it, the chewed edge of the sleeve tucked away.
As I go to turn off the lamp, a small rush of anxiety threatens, and I decide to keep it on.
Don’t be ridiculous. Turn it off. No one needs the nightlight. She doesn’t need it anymore, just like she doesn’t need you—
I leave, the lamplight still casting an amber glow over my room.
Impulsively, I check my phone again—no new notifications. It’s not surprising, but it doesn’t hurt any less. I haven’t heard from her, or even seen her, since October.
Seven nudges my leg when he realizes I’ve frozen—just a check, to make sure I’m okay.
My hand taps his head and I start toward the kitchen, attempting to leave the memory of her behind, safe in my room. To pretend I didn’t wake up to empty, cold sheets the next morning. That I didn’t worry about her so much over the months after that I started driving through downtown Waterfell over Christmas break to make sure she was okay. That she was safe.
Checking the group chat to see if anyone is up yet, I send a quick text to Holden inviting him to our “family breakfast,” as Freddy has taken to calling it. His response irks me: Is Toren invited?
I can say yes, knowing the well-hated defenseman on our line won’t show. But the word still feels like some sort of betrayal.
Toren Kane hit Rhys on the ice during our Frozen Four game last year, ending his season as he was stretchered off. My best friend, broken and bleeding and terrified—and I couldn’t do anything to help him.
Then, our coach decided to recruit Toren—despite his history with our team and his reputation on the ice.
I was fully prepared to hate the guy when he was announced, to follow my captain and best friend’s lead and do what needed to be done to get him off Rhys’s line.
But since then, Toren has started making my job easier. He is easily the best defenseman that I’ve ever played with. That was hard to ignore, but I did, because my loyalty will always be to Rhys.
But then I saw him defend Ro—Freddy’s tutor-turned-girlfriend and Sadie’s best friend. He didn’t know the girl, didn’t care about anything other than stopping an asshole from hurting a defenseless person. After that, it became harder not to like him.
But I’m a good secret keeper, even if I don’t have many myself.
Though, I have one secret I keep above all else. The most important one.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever cared about. Ever. And I—”
Shaking away the sound of her voice—though it’s far away and swimming in a sea of painful memories—I start to work on our usual pregame breakfast, turning my music on and letting “World Spins Madly On” by the Weepies play through our speakers in the kitchen. I check the group thread again—no one has answered Holden’s question, so I don’t either. When it comes to Toren Kane, I’ll follow Rhys’s lead.
I gather eggs for omelets, mix and buttermilk for pancakes. Plenty of meat and carbs for a late-afternoon game. A full menu spread for our very full house. It’s warm and loud with love, but it doesn’t do much to stop the constant hollow ache in my chest. A permanent scar of something missing.
A high-pitched giggle signals the end of my slower morning ritual; Liam appears first, followed by Rhys dressed only in his boxers as he scoops the seven-year-old up off the hardwood and over his shoulder.
“Morning, Bennett,” my best friend says with a smirk, speaking over the loudly screeching child. “Sorry about that.”
