Page 9 of Frozen Hearts
“What’s he done now?” Royce asks as he stalks into the room and drops into an empty chair beside us. He sprawls out, the chair creaking precariously beneath his weight as his hands clench around the arms. My gaze instinctively drops to his knuckles, noticing the split skin, but I bite back my retort. It will only piss him off.
It used to be a fun thing we did to blow off steam—head to The Depot. It was a rush. A high we chased in the off-season. Royce is a fucking champion, a natural in the ring, but now that he doesn’t have football to expend all his energy on, he practically lives there. Bruises permanently litter his body and his knuckles are constantly swollen, the white scars now tattooed on his skin.
Still, he agreed he wouldn’t go to The Depot without one of us with him. He has a penchant for getting into trouble when he goes alone. Okay, he also manages to find trouble when we’re with him, but at least we’re there to drag his sorry ass out.
“Just being his typical dumb self,” Gray retorts with a roll of his eyes. However, I do notice the tightness around his mouth. He’s spotted the same tell-tale signs I have. The ones that tell us, no matter howokayRoyce seems, he’s still stuck in self-destructive mode.
Smirking, Gray adds, “Guess who has to find themselves a tutor.”
Royce’s eyes snap to mine, filling with mirth. “No shit, really?” A bark of laughter rips from his throat. “That should be interesting for the poor bastard who ends up stuck with you for the semester.”
“Who says my tutor won’t be a girl?” I argue.
Royce arches a dark eyebrow. “Ehh, because you’ll fuck her and never call her again? Not exactly conducive to a constructive tutor-tutee relationship.”
Grabbing a cushion, I toss it at his smug face. “Shut up, dickhead. I won’t fuck her. I have puck bunnies for that. I’m capable of keeping it in my pants.”
It’s Gray’s turn to look at me skeptically. “Are you? Cause I’ve yet to see that.”
“You’re both the absolute worst,” I grouse as my phone buzzes in my pocket. “Worst friends ever. I don’t even know why I put up with you idiots.”
Royce scoffs as I open the email from my Statistics professor. “Probably because we’re the only ones on campus who don’t think the sun shines out of your asshole.”
Ignoring him, I smirk down at my phone.
“What are you grinning at?” Gray asks, leaning in to peer at the screen.
I quickly lock it so he can’t see, and looking up, I grin at both him and Royce.
“I found myself a tutor.”
“And let me guess,” Royce says with an exaggerated eye roll. “She’s a girl.”
“Dude, you’re totally failing that class,” Gray says, all the while laughing his head off.
Nah. I may love pussy, but I love hockey more. Whoever this girl is, I’m not going to let her interfere with my dream. I’m going to convince her to help me, and I’m going to play my best game on the ice this year. I’m going to be in the middle of my teammates when we win that championship title, and I’m going to be a forward for the Pacific Penguins next year.
Because when you visualize, you materialize, and all thatgo-getternonsense.
Maybe, at the end of the semester, when I’ve aced my Statistics class and I’ve dominated every game, I can reward us both with a fun night between the sheets.
Later that night, I’m lying in bed, searching social media as I try to find a picture of this girl—Riley James—so I know who she is. Annoyingly, all of her accounts are set to private. Who does that? The entire point of social media is so you can post pictures of the food you’re eating or the random dog you walked past on the street for complete strangers to roll their eyes at as they scroll past it on their feeds.
Refusing to look like a complete creeper by sending her a friend request, I’m forced to go to the college’s student directory, where I find her name alongside her enrollment photograph. She is smiling timidly at the camera, but the excitement in her eyes would be impossible to hide.
She’s pretty, in an understated, girl-next-door kind of way with her heart-shaped face free of makeup and russet-colored hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, emphasizing her naturally full lips which are curved upward in a radiant smile. There’s an authenticity to her that I rarely see in Halston students, and I find myself drawn to the sparkle in her hazel eyes that makes the hint of green really shine through. I don’t recall seeing her in my Statistics class, but as my eyes roam over the dusting of freckles running across the bridge of her nose and the rich green pools of her eyes, I have to wonder how I haven’t noticed her. Her natural beauty stands out in a way that makes her different from the puck bunnies and typical girls I take to my bed.
On the plus side, it should make her easy to pick out of the crowd when I next see her in class.
3
RILEY
My skin is clammy with sweat and I can feel a trickle run down my spine. My breaths are heavy in my ear as the classroom door comes into sight.Thank God.Some idiot ran into me while chasing a football, spilling my coffee, and I had to duck into a bathroom to mop it up. However, the brown stain stands out like a beacon against my white top,andI’m now late for Statistics.Just great!
Attempting to calm my breathing and swipe down my hair so I don't look like a complete mess, I push open the door. Professor Caldwell stops mid-speech, sparing me a scathing look that promises trouble if I dare interrupt him like this again. Muttering an apology, I ignore the giggles of the other students as I clench the front of my coat in my hands, holding it closed to hide the coffee stain blooming on my chest while I scan the room for a vacant seat.
I nearly groan aloud when I spot one beside Logan Astor—yup, I uncovered the identity of the blond-haired hottie and wasn’t entirely surprised to discover he was the one the girls were moon-eyed over during my orientation tour.
