Page 89 of Three Pucks and a Baby

Nodding, Grayson argued, “Considering you called her a whore, you need to rent a plane and sky write an apology.”

“Not helping,” Bennett grunted.

Grayson snorted. “Dude, he needs some tough love.”

I held up my hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a fucking idiot when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“You can say that again,” Grayson mused.

After shooting him a look, I turned to Bennett. “Will you help me?”

He stared intently at me. Almost too intently. It was like his eyes were peeling away my carefully constructed armor. “I haveto know that you sincerely want to make things right, not just because you’re jealous or possessive.”

“I do.”

Apparently, I answered too quickly because Bennett shook his head. “Words are easy, Theo. You’re going to have to put up some emotional collateral for me to believe you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No. I’m not.”

“This is bullshit.”

“That.” He jabbed a finger at me. “That right there is why I don’t want to help you.”

“My anger.”

“Exactly. While it may serve you well as a goalie, it doesn’t do shit for you in life.”

“And what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?”

“Get some help.”

His words had the same effect as someone dousing me with an icy bucket of water. Oh no. I couldn’t do that.

I was a Novak.

We believed in pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, not pussying out and whining on some therapist’s couch. My father would lose his mind if he knew I’d done such a thing.

I could hear his voice now.“My parents left everything they knew to come to America and start over. They were like fucking aristocrats in Czechoslovakia. Do you know how they were treated here? Like scum. Dirty immigrant scum. And you want to whine about your problems?”

Drawing my shoulders back, I sneered, “You know, I can apologize to Vivian without you.”

“But you might not get anything else with her if you don’t have us on your side,” Bennett challenged.

“Why are you being suck a prick about this?” I demanded.

“I’m pretty sure I could ask you the same thing.”

After staring him down for a minute, I jerked a hand through my hair. “Fine. I can ask Coach to recommend someone who works with athletes. It’ll make sense to him after my shoving match yesterday.”

“Just don’t have him suggest for me to go,” Grayson replied.

While I flipped him off, Bennett nodded. “All right. Let’s figure out how to dig you out of your grave.”

Once I had my story straight with Bennett’s help, I didn’t bother changing out of my workout clothes. Instead, I hauled ass over to the library. When I swept inside, my eyes began rapidly scanning the crowd for Vivian. Irritation buzzed in my ears when I didn’t immediately see her. After taking a lap around the main room and peeking between the stacks, I still couldn’t find her.

Fuck. Had Bennett lied to me when he said she was working tonight? If he was putting me through some sort of test to prove my feelings, I was going to throttle him.

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