“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Theo wasn’t nearly as angry as I imagined he’d be, but he still slapped the top of my dashboard.
I glared at him from the driver’s seat.
“Riley? Really? I thought you said nothing was going on between you?”
I leaned back, eyeing the parking lot for Coach’s shiny black Dodge Ram with the BUWolves license plate. “Just like you said nothing was going on between you and your fake girlfriend?”
Theo thought twice and sighed, ripping off his BU beanie and throwing it in my back seat. “So what’s your plan? You just gonna walk into Coach’s office and say, ‘Hey, I’m fuckin’ your daughter, but don’t throw me off the team. Banish Graham Sullivan instead because he started a bet to see who could fuck her first. Oh, and I think he may have tried to date-rape her while I was supposed to be watching her. Sorry.’”
My jaw flexed.
“Fuck, Aasher. Think with your head, not your dick.”
“My dick? Really?” I seethed. “I’m pretty sure you of all people know that I’m not thinking with my dick.”
Theo blew out a breath, and I did the same. Relax. There was no way I would make it out alive if I walked into Coach’s office to tell the truth with anger riding my nerves.
“Fine. Sorry,” he said, flying back into the seat once more. “I’m just…we’re this close to the conference tourney, and now the entire team is going to be on edge.”
I know. I fucking know. “But,” he started, placing his hand on the door handle, “I would rip someone to fucking shreds if they pulled that shit with Claire.”
We made eye contact and silently agreed on a plan. Theo and I would do whatever it took to keep the team together while informing Coach about what happened. I knew Theo would back me because he understood where I was coming from. At the beginning of the season…maybe not. But now he and I both knew there could be something more to the future than just hockey.
My phone rang just as the crisp winter air swooped into my car. We paused when Ford’s voice came through the speaker.
“Get to the arena.”
“I’m already here.”
Theo added, “With me.”
I heard Berkley say, “Good. He’s gonna need you.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, pretending I didn’t hear Coach’s shovel digging my grave in the background.
“Sully just slipped out of Coach’s office, looking more smug than ever.”
Efrain’s voice came through the speaker next. “He was practically walking on sunshine.”
Theo and I were out of my car before I could even manage to hang up.
I may have been walking right into my own death, but at least I’d die an honest man.
“Out.” Theo snapped his fingers once, and the entire locker room emptied. It was time for conditioning anyway, so not many players were lingering around, most of them already hitting the weights.
“Shit.” I forced a breath to leave my mouth. “I’m fucking nervous.”
“You should be.”
I rapped my knuckles against the door before Theo and I walked through the threshold. I took one look at Coach and knew that he had been told a lie. Beads of sweat rested below his hairline, and the vein above his left eyebrow was loud and proud.
Theo was the first to say something. “Coach, before you throw him off the team, I need you to hear him out.”
Theo was a good man, a phenomenal hockey player, and an even better friend. I’d owe him forever after sticking his neck out on the line for me—not that he had much riding on this conversation. He had already signed an exclusive contract and was headed to the NHL regardless.
“Let’s hear it, then.” Coach threw his pen across the room, missing my head by no more than a centimeter. “Please inform me how one of the best players on this team has been lying to my face the entire season and shoving my daughter into closets at college parties, doing God knows what with her!”
R.I.P. Aasher Matthews.
“I didn’t shove her into a closet.” It was a poor opening line. I recognized that immediately after Theo elbowed me so hard in the ribs that I grunted. Coach’s knuckles were begging to touch my nose. I could tell by the shuddering white color as he squeezed them together.
Standing up, I rounded the back of the chair I was sitting in and gripped the top. “You told me not to break your trust, and I did. I’m sorry for that.” I made sure to look him in the eye, even if it was like looking down the barrel of a gun. “But I’m not sorry for falling for your daughter.”
“You are not making a good case for yourself.” Coach leaned back in his chair and leveled me with a glare.
“There was a bet.”
His eyes flared with anger.
I threw my hands up. “I didn’t start it, nor did I participate. But I knew about it. Riley did too.”
Coach’s glare hardened further, but he remained quiet.
“I thought I could do as you asked and keep her away from the guys, but…” I wanted to smile at the boldness that Riley possessed, wanting to make the team her bitch, but I made sure to keep my facial expressions to a minimum. “Riley overheard the guys making the bet. She was angry and had plans to put them in their place. You told me to keep her away from them, so Riley and I made our own bet. If I helped get her back on the ice in time for her tryouts, then she’d stop that unnecessary flirting and quit screwing with their heads.” I rolled my eyes. “I knew it would only egg them on further anyway.”
“And what makes you think I believe you?” Coach remained in his seat, which was surprising. I thought by now he’d have me by the throat. “I had someone come into my office mere minutes before you to tell me that you were the one to start the bet.”
“I would never do that.” How could he think I’d do that?
“I also have pictures of you pulling my daughter out of a closet at last night’s party—where she just so happened to get fucking roofied!” His hand slapped on the table, and the photos flew down onto the floor, just like my confidence. I picked them up slowly, zeroing in on Riley’s flushed face and timid smile as she followed me out of the closet.
Fuck.
I slapped the photo down on the table. “You think that smile is one of someone who was roofied and taken advantage of?” I shoved the flimsy photo off Coach’s desk.
Theo gripped my shoulder and pushed me back down to my chair. I was too angry at the accusation to take a breath, so I continued to shout.
“Kick me off the team, screw my chances at signing with the Hops, get the dean involved and expel me from Bexley U, but don’t you dare accuse me of treating your daughter like she’s something you can play with and then throw away a moment later! I love her.”
Shit, do I?
I threw my hands up and walked over to the door. I flung it open before pulling back and looking him right in the face. “And what the hell did you expect?” My question was full of mockery. “You know how perfect she is. You forced me to make friends with her but expected me not to fall for her at the same time?” I shook my head. “And you know what makes her so perfect?”
The room was silent.
“Her imperfections.”
Goose bumps rushed as I dug down deep and pulled out a truth that I hadn’t known was there.
“She was trying so hard to be perfect at everything because of that one fucking incident in high school, and it wrecked her.”
I pointed at my chest. “I was the one who put her back together and helped her find herself again. I was the one who told her to skate for herself and no one else.”
“Aasher—” Coach started to say something, but I cut him off.
“Make your decision. I’ll be in the rink.”
Before I made it through the locker room with my skates in tow, Coach shouted at me from his desk. “Rink is closed.”
“You’re already banning me from the rink?”
For fuck’s sake.
“No. Figure skating tryouts are today.”
“No,” I corrected him. “They’re tomorrow.”
“No, they rescheduled. They’re today.”
I dropped my shit on the floor and ran right to the stands because knowing Riley, she would be here.
