Page 8 of Frozen Hearts
Maybe I can ask someone in the class to help me. Although, who? Neither my teammates nor Grayson or Royce have had to take Stats, and most of the class either wants to fuck me or party with me—neither of which is conducive to getting good grades.
Guess it would do no harm to find out who is acing the class and suss them out. If that doesn’t pan out, I can always try putting the moves on Professor Caldwell. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and he will fall for my charms and give me an A anyway.
* * *
The puck bounces off the post a second before the game ends, and close to exploding, I toss the controller aside. Before I do something stupid like punch Grayson, who is grinning cockily at me, I slump back against the couch cushions and stare up at the ceiling.
“Dude, I’m kicking your ass,” Grayson taunts. Asshole is just looking to get a black eye.
“Video game hockey is nothing like the real thing,” I retort half-heartedly, frowning at the TV screen as fireworks explode and the game players celebrate Gray’s win.
Leaning back beside me, Grayson nudges my shoulder to get my attention. “What’s eating you? I rarely kick your ass, even on the screen.”
I huff out a small laugh. “Coach found out I failed my stupid Stats test. Said he’ll bench me if I don’t pull my grade up.”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. That sucks.”
We might give each other shit, but he knows how much hockey means to me.
As much as football meant to Royce—though we are still cleaning up the aftermath ofthatdisaster. We can’t afford for me to get benched and lose my shit as well. Fuck knows Grayson has enough on his plate to deal with, never mind babysitting both of our pathetic, sorry asses. Royce is trouble enough, getting into all sorts of mischief when he is feeling particularly melancholy and violent. It’s taken the two of us to keep him from killing himself—orthem. And we’ll keep doing it, but if I lose my dream and join him in Miserableville, Gray will lose his ever-loving shit trying to wrangle us both under control.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he washed his hands of us.
So nope, no wallowing. No giving up. Iwillfigure out how to pass this stupid class. Somehow. For Grayson’s sake as much as my own. Because the man looks stressed out on the best of days, so he doesn’t need me adding to his problems.
The three of us have been best friends since freshman year, when Royce got into a fight at one of the campus bars. Some chick hit on him in front of her boyfriend, and when the boyfriend got in Royce’s face, Royce, naturally, incited a fucking riot. It took both Gray and me to peel him off the boyfriend and drag his drunk ass out of there and to Leon’s, an all-night diner out of town where the three of us bonded over stale coffee and the fluffiest pancakes known to man.
We talked about everything that night.
Hockey. Football. Halston. Our pasts. Our families.
We were like kindred spirits; always meant to find one another. We formed an unlikely threesome, but we work.
Gray and Royce connected over their hatred for womankind. At the same time, I enjoyed the challenge of dragging those two antisocial nitwits out of their comfort zone and having people to chill with when I wasn’t feeling a raging party on a Friday night.
They both have a lot in common, so their friendship makes sense. Me, not so much. I freakin’lovewomen. And unlike Gray and Royce, my family isn’t a total mess. My parents are good people and they love and support me.
My father built his company, Bolt Media, a marketing agency, from the ground up, turning it into a tremendously successful business. One he expects me to take over one day, and I will, but hockey has always been my dream. My passion. Thankfully, my parents support my dreams, and Dad is happy for me to pursue a career in the NHL for as far as I can go, and when I retire, then I’ll take over for him in the business. Eventually. Running the company isn’t necessarily the future I’d have picked for myself, but I appreciate all the hard work he has put into building it into the company it is today, and the time they are giving me to pursue my own dreams, so the least I can give back is the promise to protect his life's work after he’s gone.
Although, if I don’t get my grades up, I could be taking over for him a lot sooner than I anticipated.
“I thought you studied for that test?” Gray queries, pulling me out of my morbid thoughts.
“I did,” I whine. “But I may as well not have wasted my time for all the good it did me.”
“And you can’t drop the class?”
I shake my head. “Not if I want to graduate with a degree in Marketing.” Which I do. Seems pertinent, what with one day running a marketing company. I know I can probably learn everything I’ll need to know on the job, but I want to prove to my dad and those working at his company that I deserve my place among them, and when I one day take over as CEO, I want them to know I earned it. That the job is going to the right man. That I deserve the responsibility. And not that I was handed it out of nepotism.
“Shit.” Gray sighs, his forehead creased as he frowns. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to have to find someone to tutor me,” I state, defeated. “I’ve already emailed the professor and asked him if there’s anyone suitable in the class who I could study with.”
Grayson actually laughs out loud at that. “Good luck with that one, man. There isn’t a single student here who doesn’t fawn all over you. They’ll all be too busy drooling at your feet to actually teach you anything.”
Smirking, I shove his shoulder playfully. “Are you including yourself in that, Gray? Do you go moon-eyed in my presence?”
“Fuck off, asshole.” He shoves me right back, but his lips are hooked up in a grin.
