Page 77 of Breakaway Daddies

The door creaks open, and Thomas strides in like a storm front, chest puffed, jaw tight, still radiating heat from the fight. His cheeks are flushed, eyes too bright, like he’s either about to yell or punch another wall.

His locker slams shut behind him with a metalliccrack.

I barely flinch.

“What the hell is going on?” he spits, voice sharp, cutting clean through the stale air.

I look up, calm on the outside even though my stomach’s twisting in knots. “With what?”

He scoffs, dragging a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Don’t do that. Don’t pull the stoic shit with me. Not right now.”

“I’m not playing anything.”

“You didn’t defend her, Bruno.”

That hits me like a slap. No wind up, just pain.

“I stepped in,” I say, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “I stopped the fight.”

“Yeah, after Jack ran his mouth. After he saidthat. And you just stood there like it didn’t mean anything.”

My fingers freeze on my skate. “Of course it meant something.”

“Then why didn’t you hit him?” Thomas snaps. “Why didn’t you swing the way you always do when something matters to you?”

I look up, finally, and there’s a ringing in my ears that has nothing to do with the earlier whistle. “Because hitting him wouldn’t fix anything,” I bite out. “Because I’m trying to hold the goddamn team together, not break it worse than it already is.”

Thomas growls under his breath and kicks a glove at the wall. The slap of leather on metal ricochets like a shot.

“Say it,” he hisses.

I shake my head. “Don’t.”

“Bruno.”

My throat’s dry. I taste copper. I don’t want to say it, but it’s been sitting in the back of my head for days now, coiled like a snake.

“Say what’sreallygoing on.”

Damn it.

It’s like he can see right through me.

Might as well be honest, even if it sucks…

“I’ve been thinking…” I pause, the words sticking like tar. “I might need to find a new team.”

Thomas goes rigid.

Like I just told him, I was quitting hockey altogether.

Like I said, I was dying.

“What?” he breathes, blinking like he misheard me.

I finally meet his eyes. “It’s getting too hard to be here. In this city. On this team. Every hallway, every routine… It’s like she’s still around every corner. I can still smell her shampoo when I open the supply closet. And when I see you and Rowan? It’s like we’re still waiting for her to walk through the door with coffee and a crooked smile and her stupid lizard hoodie.”

Silence.

---