Page 5 of The Captain

I sighed, thinking about that, thinking about how much I would love a boyfriend who showed me the world of love like Tanner did for Mick. He loved her. Loved her brain and her soul and her entire freaking being enough that he was willing to risk his entire career for her.

If only that was something normal, if it was the norm for men to always go above and beyond for women.

I shook my head and sighed, leaning back into my pillows and picking up my book beside me, ready to dive back into the best part of being a human, fictional boyfriends, and trying not to think about how soon I was going to have to face the one person who has hurt me more than anyone else.

THREE

Lincoln

Six Months Ago

I tapped my pencil against the desk rhythmically, the sound of shuffling papers and whispered words floated around me and pulled me out of the zone I had entered. Though it was only for a short time that I was able to actually stay in that zone.

The library distracted me. The people, the things they were talking about, the books around me taunted me with better material to read than my textbooks.

I could not focus here.

But I had been instructed to be here, to meet my new tutor who would hopefully help me pull my head out of my ass and get a better grade so that I could continue to play hockey in college before I left for the pros.

Technically speaking, I thought I could drop out of college right now and go on to be a pro, but that wasn’t the plan.

The plan was to get a degree so that I would have a fallback, but that was becoming more and more of a hassle for me when I knew that I could get bumped up even now at the age of twenty.

Sure, it would be overwhelming, and there would be a lot more work involved at that level, but I could do it. I knew I could.

I was a damn good player, and while my stats could tell anyone that, I knew it in my being that I was meant to be a hockey player for as long as possible.

When Coach Mitchum had joined our school over the summer, I had been shocked but ecstatic. He was a world-renowned player, playing against some of the toughest teams in the league and coming out on top, before going on to coach a team professionally in the pros before coming to our school.

We were excited to have him here.

He knew how to talk to us, how to show us what he’s asking, and keeping us in a firm reality while giving us the praise we needed.

So, failing wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to let myself down; I didn’t want to let my parents or my sister down, and now I didn’t want to let Coach down.

A soft clearing of someone’s throat pulled me out of my thoughts, and I blinked, my pencil ceasing its tapping against the desk and looked up.

Shock took over.

“No fucking way.” Somehow, I kept my voice at a dull roar in the quiet space.

“I’m not happy about it either.” Cassie, a.k.a. the she-devil, glared over at me as she set her things on the table and sat in the chair directly to my left.

I ran my hand over my head, unable to tear my eyes from her face. “This has got to be a joke.”

For one tiny split second, I swear hurt crossed her face, but before I could decipher that, she glared back at me. “You need to get your grade up, and I happen to be a master’s student in the English program. Coach Mitchum reached out to me to help.”

“How do you even know Coach?”

“I met him at your game. You stood right there.”

Right, that was weeks ago.

I couldn’t fucking sit here and pretend that there wasn’t other shit going on. That I didn’t know that my best friend—or former best friend at the moment—had asked Cassie out, and she said yes. That she was essentially dating Crew after I asked him point blank not to go there with her, and he fucking did it anyway.

Such a dick.

“Well, still, there’s got to be someone better than you.” I realized then that it’s probably not the right thing to say, but well, I’ve never been very good at keeping my foot out of my mouth.

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