Page 12 of The Captain

Ever since he saw Cassie the previous Thanksgiving, when she was prodded into telling everyone what her book was about, he’d been all over her, wanting to know more about her, fucking fascinated with the fact she was a writer, as if that was the only thing interesting about her.

When I told him to back off, he didn’t.

I stand then, still in my socks and gym shorts, and stalk up to him. We’ve already come to blows over this situation, and even though I’ve told him again and again that I didn’t want him to date her, he wouldn’t fucking listen.

“What’s your problem, Thatcher?”

Crew squared up, ready for me. “No problem, Ellis. Just trying to get you to open your eyes.”

“Open my eyes, huh?” What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “By throwing shit at me and taunting me?”

Crew looked around the locker room, leaning in closer to lower his voice. “If you’d just listen to me about Cassie, you’d understand that it’s not like that.”

“I’ve fucking seen the way you are, man,” I said, taking a step closer. “Cass doesn’t need that shit.”

He had the nerve to roll his eyes. “It’s not—”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away from her.”

Crew’s jaw tightened, and I braced myself for a punch to come, but he kept his hands down by his sides. “I’m not walking away from her, but—”

His words were cut off by my fist smashing into his face, he’s quick to rebound with a fist of his own, and then we’re off. The guys around us yell, some egg us on, others—like Gabriel Katz—pull us off each other as things progress. Crew gets another shot to my mouth before I hear the piercing sound of a whistle.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Coach Mitchum enters the room, his broad shoulders having to turn sideways to get through the crowd of hockey players that just stopped shouting. His eyes turned to me, disappointment thick there, and I felt a curdling in my gut I wasn’t expecting. Finally, his gaze moved to Crew, seeing that he was just as beat up as I was.

“How old are you two? For fuck’s sake. We have a game in forty minutes!” His vein bulged in his forehead, and I felt immediately bad that I put him through this. He was basically a hero of mine, and there he was, breaking up another of my fights.

“Get your fucking shit together.” He pointed at me and then at Crew. “If you can’t do that, you’re going to see how it feels to let your whole team down and watch the game from a bench.”

With that, he and Lee, the assistant coach, headed to the little office reserved for the coaches in this locker room.

Crew glared at me before making his way back to his temporary locker. We used to have ours right next to each other.

I took a seat on the little bench in front of the locker and grabbed a towel, wiping at my sore lip. Blood came away with the towel, and I sighed, not the best thing to do right before a game.

Gabriel sat in front of his locker right next to me and rested his elbows on his bent knees. “What the fuck is up with you and Crew?”

I grounded my teeth. I did not want to talk about this.

At my silence, the dude shook his head, his long hair moving with his head, and he turned to me. “You two need to figure out your shit, or we’re all going to look bad out there.”

I turned and glared at him. “You don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Gabriel gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, shock maybe, that his captain, someone who was never aggressively angry, was telling him to essentially fuck off.

“Whatever, man. Figure it out before we look like clowns.”

We lost that game, and the one right after it, tarnishing our stellar record and making me feel like an absolute piece of shit.

On the ride home, no one would talk to me, and even though I was tempted to hash shit out with Crew, he’d glared at me like the rest of them and made his way to his seat.

We weren’t far enough to warrant a plane ride, so we had a six-hour bus ride home, and I was looking forward to getting home and relaxing, even though it wouldn’t feel very relaxing with a house full of hating roommates.

Maybe I’d go to my parents’ house for a couple of nights to let the steam blow off.

Thirty minutes from home, my headphones died, and I had to deal with the fact that I could hear every small bit of conversation, including Crew’s.

“…going over there instead of the bar?” That was Connor Bedford, the resident party kid and all-around good guy, even if he was a bit much at times.

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