I prayed the phone signal would cut off in the elevator to my apartment, but didn’t get so lucky. My fucking brain itched. I loved hockey. Grew up at the rink. Lived it. Breathed it. But even I hit a wall when it came to analyzing every possible variable you could change to get a different outcome.
“Royce just isn’t the strongest goalie,” I said.
“Son, you can’t blame it on the goalie, no matter how true it is . . .” He launched into his highly predictable “protect the goalie” speech I’d heard countless times throughout my life.
I cut him off to try and spare a few minutes of my precious time. “Well, we didn’t do a good job in our zone either. That’s on me.”
Sometimes, if I owned up to being the weak link, Dad would be proud of my work ethic and deem his work done forthe day. I wasn’t really the weak link here, but I just wanted to be alone.
After the game, I sat in my car with a massive pit in my stomach because I was stupid enough to open social media. And, of course, there was more of the daily criticisms: I should step down, the Rusties don’t have any stars, the Rusties play boring hockey, and a few stray comments about how hot Violet is. Apparently, basement dwellers don’t forget the women they see on the internet. It was concerning at best.
Usually, I could shrug off my dad’s shit. I could shrug off Coach’s advice that, frankly, didn’t seem that smart. I could shrug off stupid people on the internet. I could shrug off my strange arrangement with Violet that I knew deep down could never sate my hunger for her.
But not all at once.
I keyed into my apartment and leaned back against the door, letting the familiar scent of my space sink in.Home.
But there was an extra feminine hint to the air, and that strange feeling that I wasn’t alone.
All I wanted was to be alone. Alone where I didn’t have to pretend I was okay. Alone where I didn’t have to act like I appreciated everyone’s “advice.”
Just fucking alone.
But I wasn’t.
“Mmm, Colt,” came from my bedroom, along with a faint buzzing. Every cell in my body went on edge. Had some stalker broken in to try and get some sick chance with me?
“Dad, I gotta go.”
“I’m not finished?—”
“I have to go,” I said more urgently and ended the call.
I crossed my fingers, like that would help somehow, as I turned the corner into my room.
And what a fucking sight.
Violet. Her hands were bound to the headboard in leather cuffs. She was wearing some sheer and lacy black lingerie thing. Nipples pointed to the ceiling. Back arched. And she had a wand sex toy pinned between her thighs.
My brain went into overdrive. Under normal circumstances, I’d have been excited to find my girlfriend writhing on my bed and moaning my name.
Fake girlfriend.
My fake girlfriend was another thing in my life that was complicated. I couldn’t just “have my way with her,” because it would probably send her out the door at teleportation-level speed. No, I had to remember which book this was from, what guy I was supposed to pretend to be, and which moves weren’t going to make her lose her shit.
So the words that came out of my mouth were not the smartest choice.
“I can’t, Vi.”
She jolted up, scrambling to get her wrists out of the restraints she’d tied to my bed. “What?”
She rushed to switch off the vibrator between her legs. She tossed it to the side like it was on fire. She looked scared, and a part of me ached over that look.
I leaned into the doorframe and hung my head, struggling to remember which scene she was doing. “Was I not supposed to find you?”
Her voice was tiny. “No, I wanted you to. That was the point. Like from the cowboy series. Remember?”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “No. I don’t fucking remember. I’ve just had the worst fucking day and I’m exhausted, and I come home to another performance for Colton. Another time Colton has to make everybody happy,” I ranted, an agitated feeling building in my blood. “I’ve lost eight fucking games straight. We’re the laughingstock of the league.The seats were half empty tonight. Half our guys are checked out. I just . . . I fuckingcan’t, Violet. I can’t fix you tonight.”
