Page 134 of Stick It
Griffin sneers, his rage only intensifying as he leans in closer. However, he doesn’t lower his voice as he snarls, “That jumbotron stunt, that was you, wasn’t it?”
Kyle’s smirk widens. “You needed to see who she truly was.”
Griffin doesn’t hesitate. His fist slams into Kyle’s face with a brutal crack.
Dylan’s gasp slices through the air as Kyle stumbles, clutching at his face. Bent over with a hand on his knee, he breathes heavily before lifting his gaze to Griffin. Hatred darkens his eyes. “You and Dylan are perfect for one another.” He spits blood onto the white floor, the bright red stark and offensive, before he stands up. There’s a fresh cut along his lower lip. “Crazy attracts crazy, I guess. But have the common decency to leave the rest of us out of it.”
“It’s laughable that you think you’reanypart of this,” Griffin sneers.
Ignoring him, Kyle fixes each of us in his sights. “You should all walk away while you still can.” Focusing on Ethan, his voice is edged with insistence. “Don’t you see who she is now? She’s auser. She does this for attention, to divide the team. And you’re all falling for it.”
His accusations snap the last of Dylan’s restraint. She surges forward, fury blazing in her eyes, ready to pick up where Griffin left off and land her own blow on Kyle. I step in without thinking. My hand wraps around her arm, stopping her before she can throw a punch and hurt herself in the process.
The second our bodies connect, sparks ignite along my fingertips. My breath hitches, and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how potently my body responds to hers.
She jerks her head toward me, eyes rounding in surprise. I’m a little shocked, myself, that I intervened. But I’m also pissed off at Kyle. He was behind the jumbotron stunt? I should have suspected. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to questionwhowas responsible. To publicly humiliate Dylan so casually—it makes memurderous, even amidst all this chaos.
However, I don’t wish to see Dylan hurt. As entertaining as it would be to watch her give Kyle a black eye, the last thing she needs is to be benched for another game because she broke her hand on his smug face.
Ethan steps forward then, his face impassive. “I think it’s best if you go, Kyle. Before you end up with a broken nose to match your busted lip.”
Kyle smirks, glancing at Finn. “I’ll catch you at The Stanley.” Then, like a hurricane that leaves nothing but destruction in its wake, he’s gone.
However, with him gone, the buzz of tension that’s been residing in the air since she first walked in only escalates. Like the static that precedes a thunderstorm. You can’t see it, but you canfeelthe storm coming.
Whirling on Dylan, Ethan’s face is still set in that hard mask. “We need to talk about what happened tonight.”
As if realizing I still have her in my grip, Dylan glares at me,yanking her arm free before turning sharply to face Ethan. “Why?” she snaps. “What difference does it make? You’ve already made up your mind.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Ethan arches a brow in challenge. “Are you saying that wasn’t you in those clips?”
Her jaw tightens, her posture equally as stubborn. “It was me.” A wound rips open inside me at that admission, so painful that I nearly double over. Gritting my teeth, I force myself to breathe through my nose. Out of the corner of my eye, Ethan stiffens, and Finn’s nostrils flare. “But it wasn’t what you think,” she tacks on defensively. “The photos were doctored. All of it, every single photo, was me withone guy—Lucas.”
“What?” That one word tumbles from my lips, hope and hurt clashing brutally inside me. Is she saying what I think she is? Was she set up?
Finn doesn’t seem to buy it, based on his derisive scoff. “And what about your old coach?” he challenges. “I’m guessing you didn’t fuck him either?” Dylan blanches, but Finn keeps going. “What’s your excuse for that one? Your long-lost twin did it?”
Advancing on her like a predator stalking his prey, Finn sneers. “Was she the one sleeping with our coach too?” Holding his phone up in front of his face, Dylan’s face drains of all color. “You can’t bullshit your way out of this one, Dylan. You fucked your old captain. You fucked your old team. And you’re pulling the exact same shit here.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ethan demands, snatching the phone from Finn. I move to look at the screen over his shoulder, brows pulling lower over my eyes as each strangely intimate scene with our coach unfolds.
I blink at the screen in confusion as I recall instances of catching Coach and Dylan standing closer than a typical player and coach. Times when it seemed as though Coach wanted to hug her.
My stomach twists dangerously.
Everything I’ve noticed—the way she and Coach interact, the familiarity, the looks—suddenly it all makes sense. The puzzle pieces slide into place with striking clarity.
Griffin snatches the phone from my grip, barely glancing at the screen before he scoffs, “You’re all fucking idiots. This video? The jumbotron? None of it tells you shit.”
And yet, Dylan is strangely quiet about the whole thing. Looking at her, she’s white as a ghost, her hands trembling. Unlike when she first walked in here, defiant and ready to take on whatever we unleashed, she now looks…guilty.
Yeah, that’sexactlyhow she looks.
And there’s only one reason why she’d feel that way.
At our resolute silence, Griffin shakes his head. He turns to Dylan, easing her catatonic form onto a bench and removing her skates with fluid efficiency before helping her into her sneakers, not bothering to change her out of the rest of her gear. Instead, he stuffs her belongings into a duffel. Throwing it over his shoulder, he grasps her hand tightly and pulls her to her feet. With an arm wrapped around her shoulders, he pulls her into the supporting strength of his body. Leveling each of us with a ferocious glare that chills me to the bone, he escorts her toward the door.
Ethan just can’t help himself, though. “Where are you going?” he demands.
