Page 163 of Hockey Halloween
I’m going to get her to let me take her out on a date, a real date, where the restaurant has cloth napkins, no prices on the menu, and a dress code. She’s the kind of girl who deserves the best things, and I don’t even know her.
Her eyes hold mine for a beat, then flick back to the phone placed in her hands by Athena. Lilith’s whole face crumples,sending another wave of white-hot rage coursing through my body.
Artemis moves to hop over the bench, but this time, the bastard’s mine. I clip Johnny on my way past. It looked wholly innocent, like an accidental collision, but we both know he’s face down on the ice because of me. And I know he won’t be able to resist retaliation.
I’m not wrong. It’s a few seconds before a stick meets the middle of my back. That dick’s too short to even reach my shoulders which brings an odd sense of satisfaction as I turn to look down on him.
“What’s wrong, JW?”
He glowers up at me, saying nothing.
“Ice get your tongue?” I wink and spin to skate away.
“She’s frigid.”
“Maybe micro-penises aren’t her jam, man.” I shrug, throwing out the retort with a chuckle, and secretly hoping he didn’t touch her or push her boundaries if shedidreject him. The bitterness fizzing at the back of my tongue makes me swallow.
This woman is going to be the death of me. I’ve known her for all of three days, and I’m already thinking about rearranging this guy’s face to defend her honor. It’s like meeting her has flicked a caveman switch somewhere deep in my brain.
Another crosscheck to the back makes me lose my balance, and when he hits me a third time, the gloves come off—literally.
Our gear clatters to the ice as the crowd gets to their feet, the sizzling anticipation of a fight rippling around the rink. I wait, patiently staring at him through narrowed eyes until he throws the first punch, and then it’s on. We explode in a barrage of flying fists and exchanges of strikes.
I have at least a foot and thirty pounds on him, though, so he goes down after a few seconds. Grinning up at me through a bloodied smile, he shakes his head. “You fucking Raccoons, man.” He spits a mouthful of blood onto the ice. “Always so easy to rattle when it comes to mediocre pussy.”
Before I can drop to the ice and pummel his face some more, Apollo appears, hand on my chest, pushing me back. “Walk away, Mac. Murder is bad.”
I can only grunt in reply, as he guides me back to the penalty box where I take my five for fighting on the chin. I search the stands for my ghost but she’s nowhere to be seen. Athena’s gone too, and part of me hopes that she’s with Lilith, making sure she’s okay.
As they replay the fight on the big screen, my stomach dips, acid swirling in my gut. Resorting to violence to solve my problems wasn’t my finest hour, maybe my behavior scared Lilith, maybe she doesn’t want to entertain dating someone who leads with his fists.
Shit. I hang my head in my hands, elbows anchored on my knees, so I don’t have to keep watching the video footage on the screen.
How can I have already fucked this up before it even had a chance to start?
Lilith
As soon as I’m out into the frigid air, I run. I’m not an athletic kind of girl, and I’m definitely not a runner. But the panic, the tightness in my chest, the cold quills of sweat breaking out around my temples, making the hair at the nape of my neck damp, tell me to run.
I don’t get far before my body asks me what the fuck I think I’m doing and demands I stop and take a breath.
I double in half, bracing my hands on my thighs and suck in some sharp breaths to still my racing heart.
Spoiler alert, it doesn’t fucking work.
The article has been behind my eyelids, burned into my memory since the moment it came up on Athena’s phone. Not even the blur of tears, or the bile rising into my throat can distract from the slut-shaming article there on the internet for everyone to see.
Humiliation grates my skin like sandpaper, abrasive, relentless, and reminding me that athletes arenotthe fucking vibe.
The whole world doesn’t need to know that I kissed Mason McGuffin last night. Just like the whole world didn’t need to know that Johnny White cheated on me damn near every weekend that we were in a relationship.
Twelve months of my life wasted on that man… the sympathetic stares, the gossipy whispers, it all rushes up to the surface at the sight of Mason’s dick spearing me against the side of that damn corrugated metal building outside.
Any wall I’d even thought about lowering when I stepped off the plane in Iowa a few days ago shoots back up. Steel reinforced and a million feet high.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know without looking that it’s my parents, wondering what the hell I’m doing leaving one scandal behind to start over and getting stuck waist-deep in another one in my first week.
I groan, my stomach lurching, threatening to empty.
