“Can I help you?” I ask, rolling my shoulder and trying to mask the discomfort that I’ve been feeling for months now. Pain that I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist, but this asshole just reminded me of with one hit.
“Claire sure is pretty, isn’t she?”
“What?” I grit out.
“Oh, don’t think I didn’t notice you staring at her photo.” He chuckles. “I had planned on taking it easy on you tonight, old man, but now it seems you need to learn your lesson. She’s not yours anymore. She’s mine.”
What the fuck?
As far as I knew, she didn’t like hockey players, and he was dating a model.
“Thought you were with some blonde?”
“Keeping tabs on me, are we?” He snickers.
“You see, that’s the thing about being me. You can have more than one woman and they all feel so lucky to be dating me, they don’t notice when I’m with the other one.” His whole chest moves when he laughs.
My blood begins to boil. He’s seeing multiple women and none of them have any idea. Claire has no idea.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he taunts, hitting my shoulder again. “I’ll keep Claire warm tonight; don’t worry.”
His tone causes the grip on my stick to tighten. I move even closer to the red line, and the energy shifts. In my periphery, I can see blurs of red and purple skating to meet us.
If I had it my way, I’d pummel his ass intothe ice, but I know better than to do something that stupid, and I’m not entirely sure my shoulder would make it through a fight, so I take a step back, trying to calm down.
“You were always so easy to rile up.” He begins to skate away and then stops. Turning to face me, he yells, “I better not catch you looking at her tonight in the stands.” A smirk paints his face below his visor, and he cocks his head toward some empty seats on the other side of the glass before another laugh rumbles his shoulders.
“You good?” Elijah Roberts, a defenseman, asks.
“Yeah,” I say, my mind still trying to process Raph’s words.
Claire is going to be here tonight, she’s dating him, and he’s cheating on her. What a piece of shit..
“What was that about?” Elijah questions.
“Who knows,” I lie, and we move with our teammates toward the bench.
You don’t win games when you’re distracted by the past, and tonight we need to win. This is our first game against the Rats this season, and last season they led us 2-1. I’ll be damned if I let that happen again now that I’m back on the team. And I’ll especially be damned if it’s because Raphael Ulrich got under my skin.
Chapter 4: Miss Monday
Claire
“Finally,” Andi grits out as I approach the front of the arena.
“You know you could’ve gone in without me,” I say, wrapping her in a hug. Pulling away, I take in what she’s wearing. Her blonde hair is curled, and a white beanie, covered with snow, is pulled over her ears. A red hockey jersey peeks out from under her thick black coat. She’s styled it with black leather leggings and trendy sneakers. “You wore a Crowns jersey? You know Raph plays for the Rats.”
“Precisely why I wore red.” She smirks and looks down at her outfit. “I do like that jacket though. Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift. Raph said he wanted to see me in his number, so he had it made for me. It’s cute but not very warm.” A shiver runs down my spine as the wind rips through me and the snow tickles my cheeks.
“Okay, tell me your news,” she says as we begin to walk toward the front of the arena.
“Marie, the girl who I was understudying for, hurt her ankle, and that means that I’ll be performing as the cast A Sugar Plum Fairy!”
“You’re kidding?” she asks, stopping and grabbing my arm.
“Nope, and that’s not even the best part. I get to dance it in the Christmas show.”
