“Are you sure you don’t want to sit with us?” Sutton pulled on her Bexley U Wolves shirt and worked a little knot in the front to show off some of her stomach.
I scrolled over the messages on my phone, and the slimy feeling of dread weighed me down.
Mya – We can’t wait to see you!
Me- Same!
Mya – Has Gray messaged you?
Me – Yeah, he wants to see me.
Mya – That ought to be fun.
The last thing I wanted to do was sit in the Rosewood section with a group of girls who weren’t half the friend that Sutton was. Or even Taytum and Claire, which was kind of pathetic because we’d only hung out a handful of times. But if I went back on my word and didn’t sit with them, that’d only give them ammunition to start more rumors, and those rumors would follow me to the rink when we competed against one another down the road.
Sometimes being civil meant breaking your own boundaries, and not to mention, I wasn’t going to back down from Gray. He was probably knee-deep in the cologne I’d once told him I enjoyed, because he thought he was going to find me after the game.
Yeah, not happening.
He was going to learn that I wasn’t that same girl who fell into a trap of self-deprecation and allowed him to embarrass me in front of the entire Rosewood campus. I was all for putting hockey players in their place, and tonight, I’d put him in his place like I should have the night he cheated to put me in my place.
“Riley?” Sutton elbowed me, and I tried to click my phone off, but she snatched it at the last second. “If I look at this, what am I going to see?”
She was asking for my permission to snoop, and I didn’t stop her.
“Look for yourself,” I said, draping Sully’s old jersey from Rosewood on my shoulders. The number thirty made me think of all thirty reasons why I shouldn’t be wearing it, but Sully was on par with his cruel joke. It was the perfect revenge bomb to drop on Gray.
Sutton’s mouth hung open. “Gray has some fucking nerve, doesn’t he? Does he truly think you’d want him after everything he did to you?” She paused with my phone in her hand after seeing what I had on. “What are you wearing?”
“What?” I asked, turning around and eyeing the name Sullivan in the mirror. “Does this make me look as devious as I feel?”
Her nose scrunched. “Sully? Really? He’s so…ugh.”
She was right. “It’ll put Gray in his place.”
“Mm. You’re right,” she agreed, standing back with her hands on her hips. “I’ve gotta give you credit. You’re brave.”
I put my phone in my back pocket and followed her out the door. I knew the guys were already at the rink, warming up, so I wasn’t worried I’d run into Aasher, and even if we happened to cross each other’s paths in the hallway, I was pretty certain he’d keep his reservations to himself.
Before we crossed a million lines the other night, I didn’t think twice about his reaction to me wearing this to their game, but then I wondered if it was a good idea.
That thought vanished when I showed up to play hockey for our night-before-a-game tradition, and he was nowhere to be found. I stayed and participated with Taytum and Sutton because I enjoyed their company, and the more I was on the ice, the better, but there was no sign of a tall, dark-haired hockey player who’d had his mouth between my legs the night before.
He went right back to avoiding me.
It did nothing but leave the taste of confusion behind. He was playing mind games, whether he meant to or not, and I was pretty certain I was losing.
“Why am I brave?”
Sutton and I climbed into Taytum’s car, and she answered for her.
“Um. That’s why.” Taytum pointed to the Rosewood jersey. “The guys will never stand for this.”
Claire laughed. “That’s something I would do to make Theo mad.”
Taytum pulled away from the curb. “Honestly, it’s a good idea. I might steal it.”
“To make who mad? Ford?”
Taytum grinned, but all attention was on me again.
“I’m not trying to make any of the guys mad. I’m doing it to irritate my ex.” I leaned back and stared at the red color on my chest. “They won’t even know. I’ll be sitting on the opposing side.”
Even though it felt all wrong.
Sutton squinted at me.
After Taytum parked the car, she turned around in her seat. “They’ll know exactly where you are, Riley.”
“Well, then, they’ll just have to deal. This isn’t about them. It’s about me.”
It was Aasher who told me I needed to do things for myself and no one else.
Watching Gray’s face twist with confusion was one minor tweak I needed to make to show everyone at Rosewood that I was back. Their rumors would die on the end of their lips, and the pity would turn to envy real quick.
Just wait until they find out I’m skating again.
There was a dimple digging into Sutton’s cheek. “I like this new attitude. I’m all for it, and I am totally on your side. Fuck hockey players.” She grabbed my hand and pulled it to the center console. Taytum put her hand on top of Sutton’s, and Claire put hers on top of Taytum’s.
“Solidarity, besties,” Taytum mused.
We all laughed and piled out of Taytum’s car. We linked arms, and although I was wearing a Rosewood jersey and looked out of place, I felt right at home.
Sutton leaned in. “Don’t worry. We will save you a seat just in case you want to ditch those loser Rosewood friends and root for the team that I know you want to win.”
My confidence didn’t shake, but I placed my head on her shoulder as we disappeared into the crowd, because no matter what happened in the future, I was beginning to think that everything happened for a reason. I was right where I needed to be at Bexley U.
Mya’s slender arms wrapped around my neck, and her familiar rose-smelling perfume engulfed me. “I’ve missed you so much!” Her hands fell to my sore shoulders—thanks to the quick pregame hockey sesh last night. “You look good, Ry.”
I knew that would be the consensus tonight. My weight loss and lack of sleep wasn’t noticeable to everyone while I attended Rosewood, but Mya had paid attention. She was the only one who announced her concern, and I blew her off.
Something I still felt guilty over.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling. “I feel good. Balanced.”
She leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Um, what are you doing wearing Graham Sullivan’s old jersey?”
My teeth sunk into my bottom lip before answering. “Just putting Gray in his place.”
Mya burst into laughter. “This is going to get interesting, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “That depends on his reaction. But according to his texts, he thinks he’s able to get back in my good graces after what he did to me, and I’m hoping this will show him that he can’t.”
“He was an asshole. I tell him that every time I see him.”
He is an asshole. Not was.
“Let’s go. The rest of the girls want to see you.”
That was funny because not a single one of them asked how I was after I left.
After multiple awkward, stiff hugs and forced smiles, I slid down into my seat beside Mya and dropped my attention to the ice. “We Will Rock You” by Queen was playing overhead, and the dark-blue lights flashed to the beat. Instead of looking for Gray to flip him the finger and hopefully send him the right message with his old teammate’s jersey, I immediately looked to the opposite side of the rink and found the black-and-white uniforms moving up and down with their warm-up stretches.
My belly dipped when I stared at the number twelve below the name Matthews. His head was tilted to the stands, but his legs were resting on the rink floor. I bit the inside of my cheek when he stretched forward, tilting his hips to move against the ice like he did to me a few nights prior. The arena was chilly, like always, but I gripped the collar of the jersey I wore and blew a shaky breath out.
He had been invading my head from the very first encounter we had. Only now, my thoughts were filled with dangerous temptations instead of annoyance and anger. I stopped myself from looking at him when he skated over to the glass to talk to someone, because I knew that my grip on our situation was full of slack, and I didn’t want to let him mess with my head again.
“Riley.” I looked down, knowing it was Gray who had said my name. Here we go.
Mya scooted closer to me, and a hush raced down the aisle. Oh, goody. An audience.
“Gray,” I replied.
His face was as handsome as ever, sporting his angular jawline and cleft chin.
Too bad he was a total power-hungry dick.
He kept a hold of my eye. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”
I smiled, pretending that nothing was unusual. “I’ve been great.”
“You look good.” He showed off his coy grin, and I hated that I used to fall for it. He ran his eyes down my body, and I watched with amusement when his confidence veered. A sick smile curved onto my mouth. If I could have curled up in the divot between his eyebrows, I would have.
“Wait. What are you wearing?”
“Is there a problem?” I asked, tugging on his attention. His expression was no longer welcoming but, instead, fueled with hatred. If there was one thing I learned about my ex-boyfriend, it was that he didn’t like to be second-best. It was the entire reason he broke up with me. I was no longer the unstoppable figure skater with stats that ruled the entire figure skating division, so he dropped me faster than my fall on the ice.
“You’re wearing the wrong number.”
His nostrils flared.
I looked down at my jersey innocently. “Mmm, no. This is right.” I turned around and showed him the back, glancing at him over my shoulder. “It says Sullivan, right?”
“Sullivan? Really? Are you with him now?” Something flickered over his face. “I always knew you liked to be second-best, so that makes sense.”
That was his anger talking, and I knew that I was truly over him, because it didn’t hurt like he wanted it to.
“Isn’t that what you’ll be tonight when Bexley U beats you? Second-best?”
“Oh. She came back swinging, bro.” I waved at Elliot, who had joined his teammate on the ice. He gave me a thumbs-up behind Gray’s back, and I held back a smile.
Every hockey team had a douche, and now that Sully was gone, Gray was Rosewood’s biggest one.
Gray glared, and I silently laughed at his fleeting looks to the people listening to our conversation. It was probably more than we both thought. People had a way of pretending they were distracted when they were actually paying close attention. “Ry, baby.”
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped. I burned with anger. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
He was shocked.
“Don’t tell me. You heard I was skating again, didn’t you? Do you want me back now?”
Someone whispered from beside Mya, “She’s skating again?”
I heard my name from across the ice, but I didn’t look at who was calling it. I wasn’t shying away from Gray. The last time he saw me, I was messy.
I was well put together this time around, and I was pretty sure he was regretting how he treated me.
“Take it off,” he demanded, apparently thinking he still had a chance.
I crossed my arms and smiled at him. “I don’t think I will.”
