I looked away, my gaze darting to the floor.
He didn’t. His eyes never left me.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I murmured. “I know I’ve disappointed you, but…”
“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped, shoving me aside and standing. He began pacing in front of the couch, his frustration palpable. "This is bad, Ted. Like,reallybad."
“I don’t know," I muttered, barely holding back a grin. "It felt pretty good."
“Do youevertake anything seriously?” His voice was sharp, biting.
“No,” I said, the word slipping out without a second thought.
He exhaled sharply, a sound full of frustration. Rowan was younger than me, just twenty-two, but in a lot of ways, he’d taken on the role of looking after us—keeping us grounded, feeding us when we were too reckless to do it ourselves.
Finally, he stopped pacing and turned to face me, his expression darkening. “Do you have any idea what this could do to your career?”
“End it?” I snorted, shaking my head. "I’ve already played longer than anyone thought I would, especially with the knee that never seems to stop hurting. What’s one more blow to the career?" I forced out a laugh. "Oh no, what a tragedy."
He didn’t laugh. “And hers?”
That hit me harder than it should have. Her career—her dreams—were just starting to bloom, and I could have obliterated it all with one selfish choice.
“Shit,” I muttered, the gravity of it sinking in.
“Yeah, shit,” Rowan shot back. “Maybe if you thought with the right head for once, you’d see just how big of a clusterfuck this could be.”
I couldn’t deny it. “We’re going to keep it quiet. Only you and Ry will know. It never has to blow up.”
“Forever?” Rowan asked like he already knew the answer. “You’re never going to openly date her? You know what, Ted? Despite what you think about yourself, you’re not some carefree fuckup who doesn’t think about the consequences. You wouldn’t have gone after her if you didn’t have feelings for her.”
“How do you know that?” My voice was quieter now, almost a challenge.
He didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re not an asshole. If all you wanted was a casual fling, you would’ve found someone else. But you choseher, didn’t you? You pursuedher.”
“She could have?—”
“She wouldn’t have. This was all you, man.”
Fuck. It was. I’d set this entire thing in motion. If her life—her career—fell apart because of me… I couldn’t let that happen. I would burn everything down to protect her, to keep her safe from the fallout of this reckless, beautiful mess I’d made.
“Fuck me, I’m in love with her,” I muttered, sinking into the couch and tilting my head to stare at the ceiling. It was stark white, too clean. Just like the mess I was about to create. I wasn’t even sure what love really was, except a risk, an addiction.
Rowan dropped down beside me, the weight of his presence enough to make my shoulders sag. “Well…” He sighed, his voicetinged with something between disbelief and amusement. “Shit. You’re screwed.”
I looked at him, a tired smile on my lips. “Yep.”
Because there was no way this was ending well for me. Not with her. Not now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FRANKIE
I tried to ignore the fact that Teddy sat right in front of me on the bench during the first period. Not the entire time—when he came off the ice, he slid onto the end closest to the door. But inch by inch, he’d move closer until it was his turn to climb back over the boards.
Something had been off about him from the moment he stepped onto the ice for that opening face-off. It was in the way he skated, the way he grinned a little too brightly. I'd become intimately familiar with Teddy's expressions, his smiles that concealed more than they revealed. Maybe I'd been studying him more than I cared to admit, but damn it, he was infuriatingly attractive and equally infuriating in general—always too cheerful, too charismatic.
But today, as he flashed that trademark grin at Griff after a coach's scolding, there was a flicker of something else in his eyes. I squinted, holding his gaze longer than intended.
