Page 4 of Break the Ice
“Eli,” Jayden barks, “let’s go, Man.”
Jayden is my partner on the ice, and since my move to the LA Comets, we’ve become best friends. It’s not a friendship I ever saw myself having. We’re complete opposites—maybe it’s why we balance each other out so well. I feel safe around him…with him.
He doesn’t ask questions that I can’t and don’t want to answer.
Dragging in another breath, I put my stick down and glance up.
The instant my dark stare meets Presley’s glacial eyes, he smirks. He’s a smug bastard, and if I didn’t have the love of Jesus preached into my brain every day of my childhood, I might have done something about it already. Instead, I hold in the urge to stick him in the jaw, and thesecond the puck hits the ice, I shoot it over Presley’s stick, straight to Jayden.
He’s rocket-fast. The precision of his moves is unlike anything I’ve ever seen while he maneuvers his way through the right wing, and I chase him down on the left, watching the trajectory of the puck while keeping track of the tilt of his body.
At this point, I can read him like a picture book, and when his eyes lock on mine over Presley’s shoulder, I duck and push forward toward the Wolves’ goal.
Their keeper is zoned in on the puck when Jayden shoots to Andersen, our center, and he sends me the puck with a stealthy flick of his stick. Swerving Presley’s attempt to shove me out of the way, I glide around him. As I shoot the puck to Hillier, our right wing, the bastard hammers me into the boards. His entire body weight bounces me between him and the plexiglass.
Winded by the impact, I’m barreled with the images from my recurring nightmare. It’s been the only dream I’ve had for six years, and as the rattle of his body smashing me into the boards ricochets through me, it’s all I see.
All Ifeel.
The white-hot pain in my feet throbs into my ankles. Making it impossible to move when the air stirs behind me, sending a frisson of goosebumps through my body. Awareness heightens in my pores as I move deeper into the shower, trying as hard as I can to hide from the person behind me.
My head is spinning faster and faster. The burn in my stomach radiates to my lungs as I shuffle right into the corner and allow the water to beat down on me.
“Crying again, baby?”
I freeze.
The limescale-encrusted tiles are slippery with steam from my scalding shower. In the near distance, voices boom in the room next door, smothered by the overwhelming, cloying scent of men’s body wash and spray.
My head is still swimming even though it feels like I’ve been in here for hours. I’m going to be sick again.
“Little pussy boy… D’you know what happens to pussies, Sylkes?” His hand grips the back of my neck, shoving me into the wall beneath the hot spray.
Soap runs from my hair, over my face. Stinging my eyes as I try to push back, but my hands slip.
“Stop!”Sucking in a lungful of soapy water, I choke on my yell.
Maybe it’s a scream with the way my throat rips raw. A garble of words I can’t quite think up with the sudden dark blankness. My heart hammers into my chest, warning me of the danger too late.
I can’t breathe as I push him off me. “Enjoy the foreplay, pussy boy?” Presley spits between us when I spin towards him with a hard shove, as he sneers, “Getting you all warmed up for your homo buddy. Disgusting faggo?—”
I see red. And it’s not just my fist crunching his jaw shut so that his lip splits between his teeth, spraying blood all over my visor before he finishes his insult.
For years, this asshole has poked at me in every way he can. While I’m a firm believer in God’s love, I am just a man, and there is only so much shit I can stomach and keep pushing down.
So today, the gloves come off, and for all his talk, this punk is slow on the action as I grab him by the collar with one hand, the momentum jerking off his helmet, and keep beating my other fist into his face.
It doesn’t matter how forcibly the linesman tries to pull me away. Or that my fist is bloody. I don’t care that Presley’s hands are twisting in the collar of my shirt, making it harder to drag in my heated breaths while he desperately tries to hold himself up.
When he finally goes down, taking me with him, I straddle his legs and don’t stop beating him until I’m dragged away from his cowering form.
“Ignorant fuck!” My yell is drowned out by my bedraggled breaths, and my pulse roaring in my ears.
The full force of my disdain for him wrings my insides of any guilt or shame for my actions.
“What the fuck, Eli?” Jayden shouts, penetrating the boom of the crowd.
He’s in my space with his hazel eyes so wide; they might suck me in as his gloved hands hold my face.
