“Don’t fuckin’ play with me, Garret,” I warn. “I promise you won’t win.”
He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“All you gotta do is leave Hannah alone,” I say again, hands held in the air in surrender as I step away, leaving him there, sagging against the wall.
But when I turn to collect my things off the floor, I’m stopped by the sight of Coach Draper standing there, the look on his face telling me he just heard everything.
Fuck.
Coach snaps his gaping mouth shut, cutting a murderous glare in Chris’s direction, the tension in the air suddenly like ice.
“Slater, get your sorry ass out onto the ice!” Coach barks at me while still looking directly at Chris like he’s about to commit a felony.
And with one last glance back at Garret, I grab my stick and my gloves, not chancing a look at Coach as I continue to the doors and shouldering through them.
The cold air in the practice arena hits me hard in the face, and my heart sits like lead in the pit of my ass. I try so hard to shake it off as I skate out onto the ice, but it’s no use.
“Well, well, well,” Rusty scoffs from center ice. “If it isn’t the coach’s daughter’s boyfriend, showing up whenever he damn well feels like it.”
Robbie skates past Rusty, purposely knocking into him, causing a few people to laugh.
“You good, man?” Logan asks, circling me.
Unable to form words, I nod, teeth clenched, still reeling from what just happened. And as I join my line in the scrimmage, my mind works overtime, going back over the last ten minutes, trying to figure out exactly what Coach Draper just witnessed.
Hannah is going to fucking kill me.
“I’ve never seen you so aggressive out on the ice before, Hap,” Dallas says, smacking me on my back as we file into the locker room after practice. “Mistook you for Mason a couple times.”
Robbie laughs, but I don’t say anything, still fully consumed with what happened with Chris. Coach was noticeably absent for the remainder of the on-ice scrimmage, and I feel sick to my gut, desperate to get to my phone.
When I reach my locker, the first thing I do is grab my phone from my bag to check it. But all that’s on the screen is a text from Allie telling me she’ll make dinner for Lucky before she goes to her study group, and one from my dad which is just a picture of his shirtless, skinny, tattooed body, lying on the deck of a yacht somewhere in the South of France. I thumbs up both messages and scroll to my chat with Hannah, hesitating while I consider myself. What the hell can I even say? The last thing I want is to make her worry. I never want her to worry.
“You good?”
I startle, looking up from my phone to see Logan by his locker, side-eyeing me.
And only because I know my best friend already knows about Hannah and Chris do I shake my head. “I think I might’ve just gotten Chris Garret killed by Coach…”
Logan stares at me, blinking once, his eyes slowly widening as it seems to dawn on him.
“Oh, fuck,” he finally says under his breath.
“Slater!”
I spin around to see Gunther sticking his head out of the door that separates the coaches’ office from the locker room.
“Coach?”
“You need to go straight up to the GM’s office.”
The energy around the locker room shifts as all eyes land on me. In typical Dallas Shaw style, he makes a low, teasing sound in an attempt to lighten the mood that a few other dickheads mimic. But I ignore them all, not saying a word as I unlace my skates and shuck my gear, quickly pulling on a pair of athletic shorts, my Thunder t-shirt, and my slides before hurrying out with my heart in the back of my throat.
CHAPTER 48
HANNAH
My gaze flits from my computer to where my phone lies face down on my desk next to my coffee mug. It’s been three hours since I’ve heard from Happy, and I’m trying not to think the worst, but that’s easier said than done.
